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BOSTON -- This can never be taken from them, not any of them, not Doc or K.G. or Paul Pierce or Danny Ainge or the current generation of fans of the 2008 NBA champion Boston Celtics.
That's the incredible thing about a championship in any sport. It cannot be erased, not by anything other than a scandal, and there will be no scandal from the 2008 NBA Finals, other than the Lakers' scandalously bad performance of Game 6, which Boston won by a mind-blowing 131-92 margin to claim the 17th NBA title in franchise history.
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| With two remarkable trades, Danny Ainge (left) saves his job and delivers Celtics owner Wyc Grousbeck a title. (AP) |
A title is everything. Ask Dan Marino, the greatest quarterback in NFL history but not considered as such because he never won a Super Bowl. Ask Derek Jeter, statistically a nice player but realistically a first-ballot Hall of Famer because of all those World Series rings.
And now you can ask Doc Rivers, who before this season was the embattled -- and let's be honest, poorly regarded -- coach who had been fired by Orlando and was likely on his last chance with the Celtics. Today he's an NBA champion, one of only 32 coaches in NBA history to win a league title, on the same list with Red Auerbach and Phil Jackson and Pat Riley, and ahead of such long-time winners George Karl and Don Nelson and Jerry Sloan, not to mention Mike Fratello and Cotton Fitzsimmons and Gene Shue.
At age 32, Kevin Garnett finally gets the ring to go with his crown as the best power forward of his era, maybe the best power forward of any era, a title he might have shared with Karl Malone before breaking the tie with the 2008 NBA championship. It's that important. History doesn't forget any of the greats, but it remembers champions first.
"Other than my kid being born," Garnett said, "this is the happiest day of my life."
Pierce, who will turn 31 in four months, gets the ring that will push him into the Hall of Fame. Maybe he would have made it there anyway. Maybe not. Without that title, nothing is guaranteed. Mitch Richmond scored 20,497 career points and was every bit the offensive force of nature in his day that Pierce has been in his ... but Richmond never won an NBA title. And he's not in the Hall of Fame. Neither is Tom Chambers (20,049 points, zero titles) or, incredibly, Bernard King (19,655 and zero) or Walter Davis (19,521 and zero). History can be cruel.
It won't be cruel to Ray Allen, another Hall of Famer now that he has the insiders-access jewelry. Allen has been one of the game's more refined gifts, an expensive if underappreciated bottle of wine, but with a record seven 3-pointers in the clinching game of the 2008 NBA Finals, his cork finally popped one month before he turns 33.
Allen, Pierce, Garnett. In the league for 32 seasons combined. Millionaires, a hundred times over. Champions, overnight.
"You know, their money can buy everything except for that trophy," Rivers said. "You get three guys who have accomplished everything in their careers except for that, you know ... we talked about it a lot."
Rajon Rondo entered this season to talk that he wasn't truly a starter-quality NBA point guard. Rondo answered that question -- and earned himself a ton of money in his next contract. Starting point guards for NBA champions don't come cheap.
Neither do starting centers. Kendrick Perkins, an even bigger question mark than Rondo entering the season, validated his place in this league. Even if it was greatness by association, considering the injury and foul troubles that kept him from making much of a mark on the 2008 NBA Finals, he will forever be associated with greatness.
