Like any great Renaissance, this one started in Rome.
It's easy to say now, but if you were in Italy back in early October for Training Camp, you got the feeling something special was happening to the Boston Celtics.
Days before his 30th birthday, Paul Pierce, who spent the spring thinking his Celtics career was over, was born again and about to be redeemed. Ray Allen was in the midst of a sort of homecoming, returning to his New England roots where he starred at UCONN. And Kevin Garnett, once a wunderkind who toiled in relative obscurity, was thrust into the warmth of a spotlight he'd rarely felt (and actively avoided) in Minnesota since becoming the first high schooler drafted in ages.
When the Celtics and Lakers got together in LA at the end of December, Kobe and company brought out the short-shorts to honor the 1980s. But in the NBA Finals, it's the rivalry beings anew with the league's brightest stars of 2008, not 1987.
Long before it was known if Pierce was staying and Garnett and Allen were coming, the trip to Rome was already planned, if for no other reason than international fans knew the name Boston Celtics, even if they couldn't identify anyone who'd played for the team in the last 15 years.
It was a marketing mission long before it was ever intended to evoke campfire kumbaya, or in this case, Campo de Fiori Ubuntu. But the Celtics got the best of both worlds, and it all happened within the shadows of the Colosseum, where ancient gladiators etched their names in history by fighting for their lives.
The stakes for these three players aren't quite the same; their actual lives aren't on the line, but their places in NBA history are absolutely on the line, and the 2008 NBA Finals could be their best shot at the great conquest.
Asked about whether great NBA players need to win a title for validation, Kobe Bryant, the league's best player who'll play chief antagonist this time around, summed it with a pretty fitting analogy. "Depends which club you're talking about. Are you talking about the Jordan Magic club?" asked Bryant. "If you want to get in that club, then you have to win. The other club, you don't have to win. Depends what club you want to get into, the 21 and over or the 18 and under."
The Celtics' three stars are actually in the 30+ club, and the basketball gods are flashing the lights for last call at the Jordan-Magic club. So from Day 1 in Rome, and even when teammates staged voluntary (sort of, but only if peer pressure is to be ignored) September workouts three weeks before camp began, the mission was for the entire roster was clear: capture an NBA title. The unspoken message: Do it while they're still in full command of their basketball faculties, lest they be known as dribbling asterisks; great players who never reached the mountain top, a fate haunting far too many of their predecessors stuck at reliving their glory days at the Barkley-Ewing club.
If the Celtics fail this year? Forget reaching the summit. Some never even see peak in the distance again. Asked at Tuesday's practice if he was sick of practicing and anxious to get started with the games, Allen responded flatly with "Nope", explaining that he intended on enjoying his time in the Finals.
"You allow the moment to take shape and be patient with it," Allen said, the obvious subtext being that this may be his only shot at a ring.
For the Celtics, and especially their veteran stars, patience has been the key, and the timing couldn't have been better. Asked point blank during the before a preseason game in Worcestor, MA if he thought the mix of Garnett and Allen along with himself would have worked five years earlier, Pierce was candid and expressed doubt that the arrangement would have succeeded.
"Man, truthfully? Five years ago? That's hard to say. That's the problem with young players. They're still trying to make their name in the NBA. As bad as it sounds, some of them put winning second," Pierce said. "Even though they might talk about how much they want to win, everybody knows they want to make a name for themselves. So we probably would have been in that position."
Despite having yet to have been asked the question by the media before, it was clear that Pierce had considered the question himself, perhaps having pondered his own basketball mortality after an injury-riddled season that would make anyone rethink their future.
Meanwhile, Garnett initially turned down a draft day trade that would have sent him to Boston, and the Suns and Lakers were in hot pursuit of Garnett throughout the summer. Phil Jackson told the media that the Lakers thought they had the inside track on Garnett, so it's remarkable that they ended up with a Finals date against KG and the Celtics.
"I just think that it's very interesting for our organization. We gave a great chase to Garnett last year and put a lot of pressure on the Minnesota franchise," Jackson said. "That we would end up missing out on that opportunity and still be here in this challenge, The Finals, is really kind of a great story in itself."
The Celtics' epic transformation story was right around the corner, though, and it was THE story of the NBA offseason, so their regular season dominance and presence in the NBA Finals almost seemed preordained. A team of destiny? Perhaps. Seven games (or less) will tell us that. We'll know in two weeks (or less) what fate they make for themselves.
But a matchup with the Lakers, especially when Kobe demanded a trade last summer and he and Pierce were betting who would be traded first? That's just sublime.
Over the last few days, you've read, watched and heard people waxing poetic about the NBA Finals, and in some form or another, they've all be harkened back to basketball days of yore, evoking names like Michael Cooper, Jerry Sichting and Gerald Henderson, to pick a few. TV ratings will be sky-high, team websites will be inundated with requests -- you're doing your part right now -- and tickets will be impossible to score.
In other words, order's been restored to the basketball galaxy. And while much of the league's history is propped up by the exploits of these two franchises with 30 titles between them, the 2008 NBA Finals nod at past, but in reality they celebrate the league's present. This championship series is about the modern-day NBA, and it just so happens to be that the two best teams in the Association are a few old familiar friends (to us) and ancient rivals (to each other).
As much distaste as a Celtics fan may have for the Los Angeles Lakers, would you have it any other way? What's the point of having a nemesis if you can't best them in your moment of glory? The Celtics and Lakers only played in the Finals three times in the 1980s, but you'd swear they did it every year.
Like Bill Russell and Wilt Chamberlain before them, Magic Johnson and Larry Bird will forever be linked together by the history of the legendary rivalry, but during an NBA conference call on Tuesday, both players went out of their way to explain that while the rivalry is great for basketball, the past is just that, and the 2008 Finals are about Garnett, Pierce, Allen and their Celtics teammates against Kobe Bryant and the 2008 Lakers.
"It really doesn't matter what happened in the 80s, or the 50s or 60s," Bird said, making it clear in his opening remarks that he was uncomfortable about doing the conference call because the Finals should be about the guys who are on the team now. "It's what's happening now. They're on the big stage."
"It really doesn't matter what happened in the 80s, or the 50s or 60s," Bird said, making it clear in his opening remarks that he was uncomfortable about doing the conference call because the Finals should be about the guys who are on the team now. "It's what's happening now. They're on the big stage."
Reporters from across the country continued to hammer away on Bird and Johnson about the past, asking if today's guys really understand the old rivalry. Posed with a similar question after practice, Allen was cautious in answering.
"It's hard to say. The rivalry will take shape when we start to lace it up and get a few games under our belt," Allen said.
Bird echoed Allen's sentiments about the first few games being a learning process, but made it clear that the Celtics can't afford to "waste" any of the early games. Magic, however, is confident that with the rings on the line, the rivalry will take care of itself.
"Trust me, when that ball goes up on Thursday, they'll understand," Johnson said. "It's for all the marbles. It's for everything."
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