After surveying the opinions of the national media over the last week, I'm left to wonder where they got their degrees in punditry. The consensus seems to be that, prior to the trade deadline, the Celtics had neither the talent nor the depth to get past the Cleveland Cavaliers, much less the Los Angeles Lakers. But with the acquisitions of Mikki Moore and Stephon Marbury, the pundits say, Boston has closed the gap (it will be interesting to see if they seesaw back to Cleveland after the Cavs acquired Joe Smith).
Bottom line: we weren't gonna win it all before, but now we should be favored to do just that. I'm not buying then and I'm not buying now. Have these people ever heard of the 1977 Portland Trailblazers? Led by Bill Walton, the Blazers had one other bona fide star, Maurice Lucas, and to call him a "star" is pushing it. The rest of the roster was comprised of players with names like Dave Twardzik, Bobby Gross, Lionel Hollins, Johnny Davis, and Larry Steele. With that roster they won the world championship--in six games.
Who'd they beat?
The Philadelphia 76ers, who were led by all-time great Dr. J. The rest of the Sixer roster was comprised of George McGinnis, Darryl Dawkins, Doug Collins, Henry Bibby, World B. Free, Steve Mix, and Caldwell Jones. Just for fun they had Kobe's dad, Joe Bryant, and 7-foot center Harvey Catchings on the bench in case of emergency. At the time, the Sixers were thought to have assembled the greatest collection of talent ever on one roster, and thus were heavily favored to thump Portland. Indeed, the Sixers bolted to a 2-0 lead in the series. Then Bill Walton took over, and the no-name gang from the Pacific Northwest swept the next four.
Now you might say that was an isolated event. But it wasn't. We can all think of more examples. The 1975 Golden State Warriors were underdogs to the Washington Bullets. The 1969 Celtics were underdogs to the Lakers and their new center, Wilt Chamberlain. Last, but not least, you have the 2007-08 Boston Celtics, who were forecast to get mauled by a deeper, more talented Laker team.
What do all these underdogs have in common? They were thought to be less talented on paper, but played together like a team. They were tougher when it counted, and got baskets and stops when they needed them. So I find it historically ignorant to have dismissed the Boston Celtics chances of repeating before they acquired Moore and Marbury, and I find it equally ignorant to now declare them favorites simply because they got a little taller and slightly more talented.
In the end, the Celtics fate will rise and fall as a team, and the team won't start coming together for several weeks.
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