Do Celtics' fans really root for clothes?

Quoting Jerry Seinfeld the other day, a popular Celtics' site said that when you boil things down to the nub, Celtics' fans "root for clothes." In addition to being funny, the idea contains an element of truth. But only an element. Of course, the sentiment is another way of saying "we root for the name on the front of the jersey, not the back." And, again, when it comes to Celtics' fans, this is no doubt true.

But let me suggest there is more going on in Boston when it comes to the hardwood.

First, let's prove his point. For many years, one of our least favorite players was named Shaquille O'Neal. Well, at least until the dreaded Laker donned the Green. Then he became a fan favorite. Celtics' fans regaled in delight hearing stories about Shaq, KG, Baby, and others engaged in shenanigans of countless varieties, when only a few years earlier we might have responded by yelling "idiot!", "loser!," and similar invectives had Shaq been acting this way on a different team like the Lakers.

Now that we've proven his point, allow me to prove mine.

Celtics fans don't just root for clothes, we root for a brand.

I contend this is indisputable.

What is that brand? Any team comprised of players who put on a Celtics uniform?

Absolutely not.

Example?

Summer league.

Do Celtics' fan find themselves wrapped up emotionally in their team during summer league the same way we do during winter league (aka, the regular season)? Of course not. Even when the one or two players we care about has the ball, we simply aren't paying attention like we do during the NBA season. Sure, part of this has to do with the fact that summer league is meaningless. Then again, if it were totally meaningless, would we really be watching?

Instead, what's going on here is that the men dressed in Celtics' green aren't playing Celtics basketball. Ahhh. Yes. Now we are getting somewhere. Summer league, then, under this theory of Celtics' fanhood, is more like the 1978-79 Curtis Rowe Celtics, the ML Carr front office Celtics, the latter years of the Pitino Celtics, and the early years of the Doc Rivers-Danny Ainge Celtics. You can put a Celtics uniform on people like Marvin Barnes, Dominique Wilkins, AC Earl, Mark Blount,  and Dwayne Schintzius, but that doesn't make them Celtics.

What makes a Celtic, really, are the intangibles, and those intangibles can be summarized in three words: heart, desire, and passing. You gotta sweat green bullets. You gotta play every minute like it's game 7 of the NBA Finals. And you gotta share the ball with your teammates, and you must master this final skill to such a degree that experts (Celtics fans) understand you are doing your damnedest to play Celtics basketball. This is the Celtics' brand.

Celtics' fans, like most fans, have had their bouts with fairweatheredness. But it's not because the Celtics weren't winning. It's because whatever sport the team in the green uniforms was playing, it wasn't basketball, and it certainly wasn't Celitics' basketball. We don't have to win. We don't have to dominate. But their is a recipe, and dammit, we expect the men in green to follow it. Because when they do, and their is talent to support the brand, we all know what to expect.

Exactly Who is Bill Fitch?

Exactly Who is Bill Fitch?

February 20, 1980

BILL FITCH: WHO IS THIS MAN WHO HAS COACHED THE CELTICS BACK FROM THE DARK AGES TO THE LEVEL OF EXCELLENCE THEY ONCE TOOK FOR GRANTED? THERE IS NO SIMPLE ANSWER, JUST AS HE IS NOT A SIMPLE MAN. BILL FITCH IS MANY THINGS, BUT FOREMOST AMONG THEM IS WINNER.

For 26 years, his world has been basketball. Bill Fitch has a game face. Bill Fitch has a living face. Only a select few can tell the difference when watching the first-year Celtic coach at work.

Foot Injury Interrupts Remarkable Return for Mountain Man

February 18, 1985 Before suffering another in a long series of foot and ankle injuries on Jan. 29, Bill Walton had enjoyed remarkable success with the Los Angeles Clippers this season.

"He's been healthier than we had a right to expect before the season," Clippers Coact Jim Lynam said. "He's made a fine contribution, especially in his defensive rebounding and shot-blocking."

Posey, House Lead C's to 15th Win

12/6/2007

PHILADELPHIA - The Celtics entered yesterday with the best defense in the NBA. But if you didn't know better, you probably wouldn't have guessed that last night.

Pierce Buzzer Beater Takes Down Theo Ratliff and the Blazers

11/11/04

Less than a week ago, Doc Rivers talked about the Celtics lacking the kind of toughness needed to pull out close victories. After last night's game at the FleetCenter, no one can question the toughness of Paul Pierce.

Sixers Slam Celts

April 10, 1985

76ERS FLATTEN CELTICS

Playing as if the Polk County championship were at stake, the Celtics were beaten, 113-104, by the Philadelphia 76ers last night.

Two days after exhausting his frontcourt for a hollow victory against the hopeless Knicks, coach K.C. Jones finally decided it was garbage time. With everything virtually wrapped up and four games to play, Jones chose the Spectrum as the site of Boston's first stretch-drive snore.

It's a prudent tactic at this juncture, but one that goes against every fiber of Larry Bird's being.

Celtics Ready Themselves for Shot at Banner 13

 If the final round of National Basketball Association playoffs goes the full seven games, a score of weary athletes may still be playing their winter sport in the Boston Garden on June 9 - while the neighboring Red Sox are rolling into baseball's midseason.

Sports traditionalists may find this confusion of the seasons intolerable. Executives at CBS were unable to fit some of the semifinal basketball action into their recent scheduling. But among true believers in the unique intensity of the pro playoff experience, such carping is always drowned out by the joyful din in the basketball arenas. Watching the slashing elbows of rival centers Dave Cowens of Boston and Alvan Adams of Phoenix or the raw courage under pressure shown by last-second shotmakers like Boston's John Havlicek and Phoenix's Keith Erickson, it is hard to worry about the 100 or so games that have built slowly up to his climax. Playoff ball is theater of the moment, and this year's moments have been so extraordinary that I'd be happy if they went on all summer.
ARCHITECT WITH A CIGAR

Cowens Speaks the Truth

“There’s absolutely no question that the guy is as good as any player that’s ever played for the Celtics, as far as I’m concerned,” Dave Cowens said.

I haven't written much about the Truth since the summer of 2008. I still like him, and enjoy watching him summon up his mojo in big games. The problem is I really have a tough time putting his career in perspective. For the moment, he reminds me of Hondo. I think as an aging player Pierce is probably better than John Havlicek was at a similar point in his career. 

On Collecting Celtics Basketball Cards

Not long ago, I thought it might be time to solidify my collection of Boston Celtics basketball cards. My collection started in the 1970s, but it was spotty. With the onset of the Larry Bird Era, I have everything worth anything.

So my goal was to add to my 1970s collection, and maybe even throw in a card or two from the 1960s.

My journey started out fine and well.

I managed to find someone who would sell me all of Bill Russell's cards for less than $50. Having saved boatloads of dough on that transaction, I next turned my focus to eBay.

I couldn't be proud of my 1970s collection with only one Paul Silas card (Paul Silas wearing a Celtics uniform, that is). Silas, along with Dave Cowens, totally dominated the glass over several years, including their two championship seasons, 1974 and 1976. I found one bargain, what amounts to a doctored portrait of Silas for less than $3. Not particularly fond of still portraits depicting people who play action sports, much less one in which the player's uniform has been doctored by the card manufacturer, I grabbed it nonetheless.

Next I moved to Paul Westphal. Westphal played a key role on the Celtics 1974 championship squad, and I didn't own a single card of Westphal wearin' da GREEN. Again, without too much effort, I found a bargain. It was another still portrait. But I needed to add some Westphal to my collection, no matter how distasteful the photo.

Finally, I realized that I needed to bolster my John Havlicek collection. Havlicek probably deserves a seat at the table for any conversation seeking to discuss the single greatest player in Celtics history. Usually that conversation stops and starts with Russell and Bird. I, too, am guilty of this sin. For someone as good as Havlicek, I need more than the two cards I currently own.

Regardless of where you stand on this Russell-Havlicek-Bird debate, the quality of the photos on the old Havlicek cards is near laughable. Before 1972, every Havlicek card I can find is of the player in an actionless, posed setting. Sure, the tall card I have pictured above has a bit of a vintage "Honus Wagner" flare to it. But the owner is trying to sell it for $100. One-hundred dollars! Give me a break.

I was also tempted to find a Don Nelson card to accompany the one I already own. The two affordable options are one card where Nelson is wearing blue trunks (blue!!) and another where he is sporting a porn-stache (both the blue-trunked and porn-stached Nelson are pictured above).

No thanks.

If it's possible, I was even more disappointed trying to find Pistol Pete Maravich cards from his Atlanta Hawks days. Sure, they exist. But the photos are downright pathetic. To make matters worse, the asking price for the Maravich cards are through the roof because, well, he's Pistol Pete Maravich and not Don Nelson.

I've never been an obssessed basketball card collector, but I understand how the free market works. I'm sure there is someone out there willing to throw away top coin for these lifeless little pieces of cardboard.

I'm just not one of them.

Walton Decides This Is One of His Playing Nights

November 8, 1983 

 

San Diego Clippers center Bill Walton, who had planned to skip tonight's game against the Washington Bullets at Capital Centre (7:35) in favor of playing Wednesday night against the Boston Celtics, will instead play here, a spokesman for the team said yesterday.

For a Game that Doesn't Count, C's Look Pretty Good

January 27, 1999

For a Game that Doesn't Count, C's Look Pretty Good

   TORONTO - SkyDome's gates opened at 5:30 last evening, and soon after, the destruction began. First, two doors and a turnstile were shattered. After that, the Celtics went to work on the Raptors, 106-88, in their belated exhibition opener. By the end of the night, the memory of the NBA lockout had taken a beating, too.

Pitino and Fernsten Comfortable with Knicks

1983-84 Boston Celtics  

Record 43-15 3/1/1984 

The New York Knicks have a little Boston flavor these days. Ex-Celtics center-forward Eric Fernsten is toiling for the orange and blue, and one of his coaches is Rick Pitino, head coach at Boston University last season. 

"Eric's been doing an outstanding job for us the past two games," Pitino said. "He's moved ahead of Len Elmore as our main backup power forward. He'll probably be playing 15-16 minutes a game as long as he keeps playing like this." Fernsten averaged 12.6 minutes in his first 15 games with the Knicks.

 His services have been needed more since starting forward Truck Robinson sprained his right ankle. Last night was his first Boston Garden appearance since the spring of 1982. Fernsten still hasn't resolved his grievance with the Celtics. 

He was the last player cut from the 1982-83 Celtics and claims he had a hernia at the time. The grievance is more than a year and a half old and Fernsten is a little perturbed with Larry Fleischer, executive director of the NBA Players Assn. "He said he'd set an arbitration date last Monday, but I never heard from him," said Fernsten. 

"He's been dragging his feet. He's been signing people and there's been arbitration for David Thompson and Micheal Ray Richardson." Fernsten isn't about to give up the battle. "I feel there was a mis- interpretation of the rules and there was miscommunication within management," he said. "I've still not burned any bridges in this. 

I've been the good guy." Pitino, meanwhile, is comfortable in his role as Hubie Brown's assistant and thinks the Knicks have a good shot at their goal of 48 victories. "We feel like we're in a fight with Philly for second place," said Pitino. "We have a good schedule the rest of the way. If not for injuries, I think we'd have the kind of consistency we've been looking for." Pitino on Bernard King, who went into last night's game averaging 33.6 points while shooting 59 percent: 

"He's almost been a phenom. Working in Boston, I thought I saw the incredible in Larry Bird, but this has been something else. In our offense, everybody knows when we go to him, and he gets triple-teamed and he still gets his shot off. And he only takes high- percentage shots." Pitino will be in Boston tonight to scout college talent in the Boston University-Northeastern game.

House that Russell Built (part 1)

 From 1954 to 1956, the University of San Francisco Dons captured two NCAA titles and fashioned a fifty-five-game winning streak. During this period, they transformed from anonymous underachievers in a weak-sister conference into the titans of college basketball, effecting fundamental change and infiltrating the consciousness of the sporting world. A snapshot of big-time college basketball before the streak revealed white players focused upon deliberate, earthbound offensive patterns. After the streak, that picture illustrated a racially integrated unit whose players placed a premium on speed, aggressive defense, and the control of not just horizontal but vertical space. USF delivered to the sport a truly national profile, a more dynamic style of play, and players who rewrote its cultural meaning.

This sea change resulted from a host of historical and social factors: the nation's evolving stance on race relations in the 1950s, the Bay Area's relative racial liberalism, USF's Jesuit mission, a courageous coaching staff, and a band of black and white athletes who embraced their team's goals and its consequences. But if one man was the avatar of this transformation, it was Bill Russell. (1) Russell's USF experiences shaped the future as well. As a star with the NBA's Boston Celtics, Russell grew into a figure of controversy. His outspokenness against racism and militant public persona challenged the myth that sport fosters racial democracy. At USF he seemed the opposite, projecting an enthusiastic, optimistic liberalism. But the Dons' integrationist pioneering exposed the team to both crude and subtle racism, planting the seeds of Russell's future ideology. (2) [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] PIONEERS William Felton Russell lacked coordination and confidence as a young teenager. His basketball skills developed slowly. At McClymonds High School in Oakland, he progressed from third-string junior varsity center to varsity benchwarmer to starting center. After graduating in January 1952, in the middle of basketball season, he joined a traveling squad of "split-year" graduates. That winter his game flourished.

Though friendly and funny, Russell was also an introvert and an intellectual, and only during that tour did he learn how to study other players, how to craft new methods of aggressive and airborne defense, how to find beauty in the sport's little details. By another stroke of luck, USF scout Hal DeJulio had seen one of Russell's high school games, and when he invited him to a campus workout, Coach Phil Woolpert marveled at his timing, leaping ability, and sense of inner confidence. "But he was so ungainly," the coach added. (3) [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] In September 1952, the eighteen-year-old freshman trekked across the Bay Bridge on a basketball scholarship to USF. Though only fifteen miles from his West Oakland home, USF was an alien universe. Russell was from a bleak, working-class neighborhood and had attended school with overwhelmingly black majorities. Now he lived on a campus tucked atop a hill north of Fulton Street and just east of Golden Gate Park with a mostly white student population.

While some Hispanics and Filipinos dotted the sea of white faces, Russell and fellow basketball recruit Hal Perry represented the entire black population of the freshman class. Like all incoming first-years, Russell wore an initiation sweater, performed tasks for upperclassmen, and donned a "dink" hat until the Freshman Smoker at the end of September. Tall and black, he stuck out; the student newspaper, featuring him in its first issue, labeled him "a potential Globetrotter." (4) At USF, Russell received an education not only in Jesuit logic and principles, but also in basketball. During his first official practice, he could not perform a warm-up calisthenics of walking while squatting. Some teammates grumbled that Woolpert had wasted a scholarship on an awkward freak. But freshman team coach Ross Giudice nurtured his new center's development, patiently teaching him the fundamentals. Russell also drove his own progress in late-night gym sessions.

Greatness is Fundamental

August 23, 1996

The smile never left his face.

Bill Walton slumped to a seat at the far end of the Stony Brook Indoor Sports Complex, sweat dripping from his long forehead and a weary look in his eyes. He rubbed his knees, let out a long sigh and leaned back against the wall.

Eric Riley: 7 minutes, 6 fouls, no points, no rebounds

Boston No Match for Portland

February 20, 1999

 PORTLAND, Ore. - After two down-to-the-wire, strategy-matching, insomniac-rewarding performances out here on the Left Coast, the Celtics submitted a certifiable bow-wow last night. They were obliterated by the Trail Blazers, 106-86, as the Portland players spent the night taking turns going over the Celtics for rebounds and around them for baskets. The Blazers got 21 points and 18 rebounds from Brian Grant, who brutalized Antoine Walker before retiring to a standing ovation with 7:25 remaining and Portland comfortably ahead by 22. "Brian Grant was huge," said coach Mike Dunleavy. He sure was. So were his mates.

Dionte Christmas Reminds Me of Kevin Gamble

They're both 6-5 with stocky builds. They both do a little bit of everything, but are great at nothing, though each could fill up the basket on any given night. Each player spent some time playing overseas, though Gamble played mostly in the CBA before signing with the C's.

Kevin Gamble was given a shot to earn minutes at the point. I suspect the same will be true of Dionte Christmas. In the end, both may be remembered as "energy guys" who can help enliven the aging team around them.

Culture Showdown

May 29, 1985

Section: METRO

CULTURE SHOWDOWN

Professional basketball has never really hit my hot button. This, because it's not a sport so much as it is 10 guys with glandular problems who run back and forth on a floor until there are two minutes left in a game and it's time to pay attention to the point spread.

Where are We at After 20 Games?

Well, 20 games are in the books. OK, it is only 17, but Rondo's return tonight after a two-game hiatus seems like a good place to separate one part of the season from the next. The obvious question at this point is what do we know now about this team that we didn’t know before the regular season started? As you will see after the jump, the short answer is, not much. On the other hand, what we do know may be cause for concern. So let’s get started.

Will Jared Sullinger be Better than Big Baby?

At some point this season, the Boston Celtics will play the Orlando Magic, and when they do, I will be hoping for a match-up between Jared Sullinger and Glen Davis. Come on. Admit it. The match-up must get your juices flowing, too. Glen Davis was confounded by his inner demons. A player who spent a fair amount of time getting into shape during the summer, only to screw it all up by getting into a fight and breaking his hand. Then, the season before his departure, he totally faded into oblivion, so much so that most of Celticdom wondered how it was that we landed Brandon Bass in exchange for Bambino Grande.

On the other side of this match-up will be Jared Sullinger.