Celtic pride runs deep - The new Big Three

The NBA Finals start tomorrow with the Lakers facing my beloved Celtics. I know that ever since the Lakers started four future Hall of Famers and still lost to the Detroit Pistons in 2004, the Finals are a touchy subject in this town. It was after that loss team owner Dr. Jerry Buss decided to give the franchise to Kobe Bryant and since then, the Lakers have consistently had their season ended by better teams. Sorry to break it to you, Lakers fans, but this year won’t be any different. You may have the best player in the league, the Celtics have the best team. And despite what Kobe and Jerry Buss think, basketball is a team sport and it takes more than one great player to win a championship.

In the interest of full disclosure, I should say I’m a card-carrying member of the Kobe Hater’s Club. I have been since he was a 17-year-old high school senior and announced before the 1996 NBA draft that he would only play for the Lakers. It was like having a teenager tell his parents he would only get a driver’s license if he could take his road test in a Porsche.

Kobe’s been trying to hijack the franchise ever since. After that Finals loss in 2004, he forced the organization to choose between himself and Shaq O’Neal, the most dominant force in the NBA at the time and the reason (along with coach Phil Jackson) the Lakers won three straight championships between 2000 and 2002. That caused Jackson to realize that his girlfriend’s dad, Dr. Buss, was pounding the Kobe-flavored Kool-Aid, and retire to his spread in Montana for a year (that season, the Lakers missed the playoffs for the first time in a decade). It would take $10 million per year for Buss to get him back on the court with the star player Jackson once called “uncoachable.” With no veteran free agents willing to play with him and no proven coach willing to work with him, it was a “Kobe Tax” Dr. Buss had to pay if he ever wanted to see the post-season again. The Lakers made the playoffs each of the next two years, losing in the first round to the Phoenix Suns and their superior team play both times. As a Celtics fan and member of the KHC, I loved it.

That led to yet another Kobe hijacking of the franchise last summer. Not happy with the power to name his own coach and his teammates, he wanted the power to hire his General Manager. Specifically, he wanted to be traded if Jerry West wasn’t brought back and put in charge of personnel (maybe he realized it was a mistake to run Shaq out of town). To his credit, Dr. Buss finally said, “it’s my team, kid, not yours,” and stuck by GM Mitch Kupchack. It’s a move that has worked out until now. Despite the fact that the Lakers started this season with only two guys who have hit big shots in big games (Kobe and Derek Fisher), they somehow finished with the best record in the Western Conference. In the playoffs, Kobe’s individual brilliance was enough to beat the Denver Nuggets and Utah Jazz (two teams with one great player between them), but it took a little help from the refs to get past the reigning champion San Antonio Spurs. I can’t blame the NBA for wanting a Lakers/Celtics Finals and as a member of the KHC, I can’t wait to watch Kobe leave the court in defeat at the same time my Celtics return to glory. It will almost make up for the hell that was my Super Bowl week; a subject that is too painful to talk about, much less write about.

I hope it will make Lakers fans feel better to know that the guys who will be breaking their hearts in these Finals are truly great players and even better people. Boston’s three superstars, Paul Pierce, Ray Allen, and Kevin Garnett are every bit as fun to watch as the Lakers’ lone star, but with a healthy dose of gratitude and without Kobe’s annoying sense of entitlement (I told you I’m a hater).

Allen is no stranger to Hollywood, having starred opposite Denzel Washington in Spike Lee’s “He Got Game,” and is such a nice guy that he’s impossible to root against even as he rains perfect dagger-in-the-heart jump shots on whichever eastern European player is trying to guard him. Garnett will mumble motivational obscenities to himself while dominating Pau Gasol and Lamar Odom under the basket. He doesn’t care about his $26 million per year salary, he’s still upset with himself if he doesn’t play every possession perfectly. The real star, though, is Pierce. Drafted by Boston ten years ago, he was literally on his deathbed before the 2000 season, having been stabbed eleven times in the face, neck, and back in a nightclub. He still started every game that season. Like Kobe, he can score from anywhere and defend anyone. Unlike Kobe, he went to college where he learned to be a great teammate and share the ball. Unlike Kobe, he has played his entire career against defenses designed to stop him. And, as a graduate of Inglewood High, he might be the only person happier than me when the Celtics (once again) BEAT L.A.!