Get Ready, America: It's Gonna Be all Purple and Green
6/1/2008
The last time the Celtics were in the NBA finals, Ronald Reagan was president, you could fill your gas tank for less than a monthly mortgage payment, the Soviet Union, not the baseball team that plays in the Bronx, was considered the evil empire, people actually listened to ABBA, and all of the Ramones were still alive.
That's a long time ago.
Oh, and one more thing: Johnny Most, the legendary Celtics play-by-play man, who smoked as many cigarettes during a game as Paul Pierce takes shots, was alive back then, and if he were alive Friday night Johnny would have screamed himself hoarse, shout ing: POSEY STOLE THE BALL!
Arnold "Red" Auerbach, the soul of the Celtics, was still alive then, too, and it's too bad he didn't live just two more years, because then Red could have been there to see history repeat itself in an extraordinary way. He would have seen the Celtics get back to glory road, the road to glory in the NBA finals, doing something he did 44 years ago
If you are under the age of 30, you probably have no idea what everybody's talking about today, all this Celtics pride jive. If you are under 30, you probably think of the Celtics as just another plodding NBA team, making its money off luxury suites and merchandise, resorting to slightly toned down pole dancers and acrobats during timeouts to keep the interest of those more interested in being seen at a Celtics game than seeing a well-executed backdoor pick
But there was a time, in this city, when tall men were known by simple names: Larry, DJ, and The Chief
When the Bruins game was switched off if the Celtics were on, even in Southie and Charlestown, because there was only one TV in the bar. When beating the Lakers was what you looked forward to because, unlike a World Series ring, there was ample evidence - 16 banners' worth, hanging from the Garden rafters - that this was possible, and because it would wipe that smirk off Jack Nicholson's face in the front row of the Forum in Inglewood
It's back to the future because those days are here again
Now it's Ray, KG, and The Truth
Now the Celtics game is on three of the four flat screens scattered throughout the bar, with the Red Sox relegated to the fourth, the one in the corner you have to crane your neck to see
Now beating the Lakers, wiping that smirk off Jack Nicholson's puss in the Staples Center, is all that matters. And, for the first time in more than 20 years, it's more than possible
We have spent much of this year talking of the Celtics' remarkable turnaround, the greatest change in win-loss ratio in NBA history. We have marveled at Kevin Garnett's infectious intensity, Ray Allen's similarly contagious work ethic, Pierce's guttiness and maturity, the emergence of young talents Rajon Rondo and Kendrick Perkins, the old-pro presence of the classy journeyman P.J. Brown
We have talked so much about the important basketball milestones that we have paid little attention to the extraordinary social and cultural one: The Boston Celtics who will try to add one more championship banner to their record 16 titles are an all-African-American team
Two white guys, Brian Scalabrine and Scot Pollard, are on the roster but played very limited roles during the regular season. And right now Pollard is out injured and Scalabrine has dressed for only two games in the postseason and didn't play. If Tony Allen heals, Scalabrine goes back to the practice squad. So the Celtics are, for all intents and purposes, an all-African-American team
Think about that
In 1987, when the Celtics last played for the NBA championship, loads of kids in the city's African-American neighborhoods wore Lakers jerseys and hats. If you drove down Blue Hill Avenue or Dudley Street or Morton Street, you saw Laker purple and yellow, not Celtic green. African-American kids identified with the Lakers more than the Celtics. They wanted to be Magic Johnson, not Larry Bird
It was crazy, in one sense, because the Celtics' history on race was the most progressive in the NBA, even if the city that the Celtics called home didn't exactly share those accolades. But the Lakers were all Hollywood flash and, nerdy Kurt Rambis aside, the quintessential African-American team, high socks and high-fives
Not enough know or appreciate this history, so the context is everything. The day after Christmas in 1964, Red Auerbach, then the Celtics coach, put out a starting five that consisted of Bill Russell, K.C. Jones, Tom Sanders, Sam Jones, and Willie Naulls. It was a singular moment in the civil rights movement, especially in a city like Boston, because that marked the first time an NBA starting lineup was made up of five African-American men. Typical of Red, he wasn't looking to make history. Tommy Heinsohn usually started, but he was hurt, so when Red gave Naulls the starting nod, it was not because Naulls was African-American, but because he was the best forward that Red saw when he looked down the bench
Red drafted the first African-American player, Chuck Cooper in 1950, and in 1966 Red handpicked as his successor Russell, the NBA's first African-American head coach. In his cigar-chomping, shrug-your-shoulders-and-swear kind of way, Red managed to make the issue of race relevant by treating people's race as irrelevant when judging them, on and off the court
So, in that respect, the fact that the Celtics team that will now play for title number 17 is entirely African-American doesn't mean much. Some people think it's even unseemly to talk about
But, again, context is everything. In 1987, when the Lakers beat the Celtics to take the title, Boston was a decade removed from the turmoil of school desegregation, when race was arguably the hottest of hot-button issues in this city, when the rest of the country and even much of the world saw terrible pictures on its TV screens and concluded, rightly or wrongly, that Boston was a racist place. Los Angeles had its own issues. In 1987, it was a full four years before Rodney King's beating by Los Angeles police would lead to riots there. The O.J. Simpson saga, which would roil Los Angeles and split much of the nation along racial lines, didn't begin to unfold until 1994
The Lakers team that will come to the Garden on Thursday now looks a lot more like the 1987 Celtics than the 2008 Celtics do. Like all NBA teams, the Lakers are mostly African-American , but they have a core of white players who play crucial roles, as the 1987 Celtics did
This goes beyond the court. It's played out on the street. These days, you might see the odd Kobe Bryant jersey in Roxbury or Dorchester or Mattapan. But nothing compared with the number of Pierce and Garnett jerseys. There may be a few more Posey jerseys out there from this day forward
Those kids wearing Celtics garb as they walk along Seaver Street or Humboldt or Geneva avenues should consider this. Actually, all kids everywhere should consider this: Doc Rivers, the Celtics' magnificent coach, is the fifth African-American to coach the Boston Celtics. Big Russ broke the color barrier and he was followed by two of his teammates from those great Celtics teams of the 1960s, Satch Sanders and K.C. Jones, who was coach when the Lakers denied them the 17th banner 21 years ago. M.L. Carr, a member of those great Bird-era teams, followed them. The Lakers, which a generation ago was the team of preference for many African-American kids, has had exactly one African-American coach, the great Magic Johnson, and he lasted for a cup of coffee, 16 games
It's been 40 years since the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. and Bobby Kennedy were assassinated and American cities burned. Today, the Celtics are a great team whose players happen to be African-American
I don't know exactly what that means, but, in this city it means something.
6/1/2008
The last time the Celtics were in the NBA finals, Ronald Reagan was president, you could fill your gas tank for less than a monthly mortgage payment, the Soviet Union, not the baseball team that plays in the Bronx, was considered the evil empire, people actually listened to ABBA, and all of the Ramones were still alive.
That's a long time ago.
Oh, and one more thing: Johnny Most, the legendary Celtics play-by-play man, who smoked as many cigarettes during a game as Paul Pierce takes shots, was alive back then, and if he were alive Friday night Johnny would have screamed himself hoarse, shout ing: POSEY STOLE THE BALL!
Arnold "Red" Auerbach, the soul of the Celtics, was still alive then, too, and it's too bad he didn't live just two more years, because then Red could have been there to see history repeat itself in an extraordinary way. He would have seen the Celtics get back to glory road, the road to glory in the NBA finals, doing something he did 44 years ago
If you are under the age of 30, you probably have no idea what everybody's talking about today, all this Celtics pride jive. If you are under 30, you probably think of the Celtics as just another plodding NBA team, making its money off luxury suites and merchandise, resorting to slightly toned down pole dancers and acrobats during timeouts to keep the interest of those more interested in being seen at a Celtics game than seeing a well-executed backdoor pick
But there was a time, in this city, when tall men were known by simple names: Larry, DJ, and The Chief
When the Bruins game was switched off if the Celtics were on, even in Southie and Charlestown, because there was only one TV in the bar. When beating the Lakers was what you looked forward to because, unlike a World Series ring, there was ample evidence - 16 banners' worth, hanging from the Garden rafters - that this was possible, and because it would wipe that smirk off Jack Nicholson's face in the front row of the Forum in Inglewood
It's back to the future because those days are here again
Now it's Ray, KG, and The Truth
Now the Celtics game is on three of the four flat screens scattered throughout the bar, with the Red Sox relegated to the fourth, the one in the corner you have to crane your neck to see
Now beating the Lakers, wiping that smirk off Jack Nicholson's puss in the Staples Center, is all that matters. And, for the first time in more than 20 years, it's more than possible
We have spent much of this year talking of the Celtics' remarkable turnaround, the greatest change in win-loss ratio in NBA history. We have marveled at Kevin Garnett's infectious intensity, Ray Allen's similarly contagious work ethic, Pierce's guttiness and maturity, the emergence of young talents Rajon Rondo and Kendrick Perkins, the old-pro presence of the classy journeyman P.J. Brown
We have talked so much about the important basketball milestones that we have paid little attention to the extraordinary social and cultural one: The Boston Celtics who will try to add one more championship banner to their record 16 titles are an all-African-American team
Two white guys, Brian Scalabrine and Scot Pollard, are on the roster but played very limited roles during the regular season. And right now Pollard is out injured and Scalabrine has dressed for only two games in the postseason and didn't play. If Tony Allen heals, Scalabrine goes back to the practice squad. So the Celtics are, for all intents and purposes, an all-African-American team
Think about that
In 1987, when the Celtics last played for the NBA championship, loads of kids in the city's African-American neighborhoods wore Lakers jerseys and hats. If you drove down Blue Hill Avenue or Dudley Street or Morton Street, you saw Laker purple and yellow, not Celtic green. African-American kids identified with the Lakers more than the Celtics. They wanted to be Magic Johnson, not Larry Bird
It was crazy, in one sense, because the Celtics' history on race was the most progressive in the NBA, even if the city that the Celtics called home didn't exactly share those accolades. But the Lakers were all Hollywood flash and, nerdy Kurt Rambis aside, the quintessential African-American team, high socks and high-fives
Not enough know or appreciate this history, so the context is everything. The day after Christmas in 1964, Red Auerbach, then the Celtics coach, put out a starting five that consisted of Bill Russell, K.C. Jones, Tom Sanders, Sam Jones, and Willie Naulls. It was a singular moment in the civil rights movement, especially in a city like Boston, because that marked the first time an NBA starting lineup was made up of five African-American men. Typical of Red, he wasn't looking to make history. Tommy Heinsohn usually started, but he was hurt, so when Red gave Naulls the starting nod, it was not because Naulls was African-American, but because he was the best forward that Red saw when he looked down the bench
Red drafted the first African-American player, Chuck Cooper in 1950, and in 1966 Red handpicked as his successor Russell, the NBA's first African-American head coach. In his cigar-chomping, shrug-your-shoulders-and-swear kind of way, Red managed to make the issue of race relevant by treating people's race as irrelevant when judging them, on and off the court
So, in that respect, the fact that the Celtics team that will now play for title number 17 is entirely African-American doesn't mean much. Some people think it's even unseemly to talk about
But, again, context is everything. In 1987, when the Lakers beat the Celtics to take the title, Boston was a decade removed from the turmoil of school desegregation, when race was arguably the hottest of hot-button issues in this city, when the rest of the country and even much of the world saw terrible pictures on its TV screens and concluded, rightly or wrongly, that Boston was a racist place. Los Angeles had its own issues. In 1987, it was a full four years before Rodney King's beating by Los Angeles police would lead to riots there. The O.J. Simpson saga, which would roil Los Angeles and split much of the nation along racial lines, didn't begin to unfold until 1994
The Lakers team that will come to the Garden on Thursday now looks a lot more like the 1987 Celtics than the 2008 Celtics do. Like all NBA teams, the Lakers are mostly African-American , but they have a core of white players who play crucial roles, as the 1987 Celtics did
This goes beyond the court. It's played out on the street. These days, you might see the odd Kobe Bryant jersey in Roxbury or Dorchester or Mattapan. But nothing compared with the number of Pierce and Garnett jerseys. There may be a few more Posey jerseys out there from this day forward
Those kids wearing Celtics garb as they walk along Seaver Street or Humboldt or Geneva avenues should consider this. Actually, all kids everywhere should consider this: Doc Rivers, the Celtics' magnificent coach, is the fifth African-American to coach the Boston Celtics. Big Russ broke the color barrier and he was followed by two of his teammates from those great Celtics teams of the 1960s, Satch Sanders and K.C. Jones, who was coach when the Lakers denied them the 17th banner 21 years ago. M.L. Carr, a member of those great Bird-era teams, followed them. The Lakers, which a generation ago was the team of preference for many African-American kids, has had exactly one African-American coach, the great Magic Johnson, and he lasted for a cup of coffee, 16 games
It's been 40 years since the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. and Bobby Kennedy were assassinated and American cities burned. Today, the Celtics are a great team whose players happen to be African-American
I don't know exactly what that means, but, in this city it means something.