I’m a Sixers fan stuck in a Celtics writer’s body, and I’m never going back [CelticsBlog]
These people wake up expecting things to work. Even when something goes wrong, there’s this baseline belief that it’ll sort itself out eventually. Even when they switch ownership groups, coaches, whatever. This aura and legacy of “Celtics basketball” seems to persist.
Our trophy case can vote. No other team’s trophy case even has their license.
There’s levels to this ☘️
LA’s trophy case has a fake ID from Minnesota.
Mclakers ID
Someday the Timberwolves should troll them by swapping in some Big & Rich for their entry music.
You know, to play devils advocate I see why they kept it. I did some reading on it and not only is it the same team, but it was the same owner, same front office, same players, etc. The only reason they moved was for the better market. When they were still in Minne they would travel to LA to play “home games” a few times a year to test the market.
Is it still kind of weird? Sure, but it’s much more reasonable than say if OKC tried to keep the Supersonics wins.
LA -themselves- didn’t even count them until they saw it could bring them in striking distance of our greatness. Fuck the devil. He gets enough help that he doesn’t need an advocate.
The issue is they didn’t keep it. Somewhere around the mid-2000’s they decided to lay claim to the titles as a way to close the gap with Boston.
Historically they never did and it was, and remains, a lame PR move.
It would be akin to OKC claiming Seattle’s title in 2050.
They abandoned their fans in Minnesota. Fuck their ownership.
In that era I doubt there were a lot of them. Comparatively I’m sure the Twolves have more now than the Lakers did then.
It makes sense.
Ours is headed off to college and no one else is even in high school
I’m PROUD of where I’m from. Philly made me tough, not like these Boston softies. You don’t grow up a Sixers fan and come out soft. You take your hits, build up a tolerance for things going sideways. It’s part of our identity, and we wouldn’t have it any other way…right?
A lot of us grew up watching Rick Pitino Celtics. They were so bad and so depressing.
The Celtics being garbage during 90s basketball boom was a blessing in disguise.
Boy did it suck at the time though.
All it took was them to have the two guys that were suppose to run the 90s celtics basketball outright die…
Followed by the Rick Pitino Error.
If you had to pick one that MUST be a coach in New England Sports, which one of these would it be: Rick Pitino, Rod Rust, Bobby Valentine or Phil Watson?
and for the league to vote to have Reggie Lewis’ salary count against the Celtics salary cap.
The irony is that they would have been great in the 90s with their elite 2nd overall pick in 1986.
i’m too young to have seen the 90s celtics in all their (lack of) glory, how bad were they? if u had to compare to a team/franchise in the last few years where would you put them?
It’s hard to put into words how bad they were at times. They drafted so poorly. You were rooting for guys who were doomed and you knew it.
Edit: I am not a stats guy, but I think they can be helpful. The 93 Celtics had one guy with a 2.5 VORP. This year’s Celtics have 4 guys above or around that range (not including Tatum). The Pelicans this year are around what I would characterize that team as.
Dino Radja was fun to watch. Acie Earl, not so much.
My dad had such high hopes for Acie Earl. Used to call him Acie Deucie.
It was also the era where we went through devastating tragedies. The death of Len Bias in ‘86 and Reggie in ‘93 and with them, the players who could’ve been the next era after the OG Big 3. Bias could’ve been Jordan’s rival in the ‘90s and we didn’t have a star after Reggie until Pierce.
If Len didnt die, we would’ve still drafted Reggie btw, so that’s such a huge “what if.”
There’s no team that’s equivalent because it’d need to be a winning franchise that fell on hard times. I agree the Pels as a roster are kind of similar. Or maybe the Bulls could be a good comparison?
I was pretty young at the time myself, but from all accounts it was a level of hopelessness Boston sports haven’t felt in twenty years lol.
Like the Lakers Post-Kobe, Pre-LeBron
It wasn’t just the Celtics either . It was city wide. We had a fucking parade (which I attended) because bourque won a cup with the avs for god’s sakes
holy shit…i forgot about that. was great to see ray get that cup though.
Yeah, at y2k the Celtics hadn’t won since 86 (14 years), Bruins hadn’t won since ‘72 (28 years), Patriots had never won (40 years), and the Red Sox hadn’t won since 1918.
Boston sports were like Cleveland before lebron finally got them one. Just an absolute factory of misery.
That’s why I cheer for Tottenham now. It reminds me of my childhood. Just continuous suffering
But in Y2K we stole Pierce from LA, had the exciting young duo of him and Antoine begin a jagged rise. The decades of Boston sports greatness begun! We have been spoiled by greatness in all of the major sports!
ooft that would’ve been rough. makes me glad i wasn’t born until the 2000s ahahah. although i do sometimes wonder how the celtics will look post jb and jt
who’s was our best player during the 90s? (not counting the end of birds career)
Reggie Lewis, who died in the middle of his career and Antoine Walker were our biggest stars in the 90’s. Pierce was also great of course but he was more of a co-star with Antoine in the late 90s before really taking the lead.
We drafted Pierre in 98 and had a year of Chauncey Billups before that before trading him because Pitino didn’t like him.
That’s right, we managed to identify and draft two hall of famers in back to back drafts and he traded one of them after only a year on the team.
We had Billups for less than a year. Don’t forget we drafted Joe Johnson and traded him away too…
Yeah, but the really bad years were ‘92, after Bird retired, until ‘00. Walker and Pierce got them to the ECF in ‘02, but after Reggie died in ‘93, Dee Brown was my favorite NBA player for years.
I love Dee Brown to this day, but that’s all you really need to know about the mid 90s Celtics.
We also Shipped out Joe Johnson
oooooft so we really were the pre lebron lakers
This sort of negativity really did get to the coach as well:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cf6W-D0fZXo
Reggie Lewis in terms of proper 90s stars. Then daylight.
ML Carr was the coach that had Dee Brown playing forward at times.
That’s how bad it was.
I would compare them to the current Kings. A few mildly competent players (X McDaniel and Dino Radja stand up!) a couple guards who could get a bucket (Dana Barros / Dee Brown) but no real winning.
But it did let Tommy give great quotes.
Ding dong day! I love walta!!!!
I remember being a kid and being so underwhelmed by my roster options in NBA Hangtime lol
Wait, can you explain the blessing part?
Obviously, winning is best, and i don’t mean this as to say “I’m glad we sucked during the 90s” but growing up in the Jordan era, with a legendary team being run like they were the Raiders, straight into the ground, gives a lot of Celtics fans a better sense of perception of the team.
Despite the fact that it’s 90% the same people, C’s Fandom tends to be a hell of a lot less petulant about the team than Pats fans. (Using a local example)
I think a large part of why is that the Celtics were awful during the NBAs big boom period and the Patriots had Michael Jordan Tom Brady during the NFL’s. It just warps your perception, sets your expectations in a fair place when you really suffered as a fan base when the lights were the brightest.
If you’re under about 30, 2023–2024 was probably the first stretch of truly awful Pats football you’ve ever seen.
Those of us alive in the 70s and 80s? We’ve seen things.
I mean they went to a SB in the 90s, at this point you gotta be in your 40s to really get the bad pats football lol.
Average Sixers fan working out
Pitino was so bad I thought Jim OBrien was Greg Popovich when we made the playoffs
Jim O’Brian was ahead of his time as a coach.
And don’t forget a childhood of Red Sox heartbreak. Those scars never heal.
I mean.. Len Bias and Reggie Lewis had an awful lot to do with this. God rest their souls, RIP
🍀🏀🏆🏆
I started watching in ‘85-86 so I had the pleasure of Jimmy Rodgers, ML, and Chris Ford before I even got to dickbag Pitino.
This reminds me of when me and all my friends used to talk about how we were happy to be from a shitty poor area because all those rich suburban kids lacked our life experience. Of course now im an adult who realizes we were being dumb and those suburban kids had a leg up on us in every single way.
Great point. I was born in ‘94, so luckily hadn’t fully come online during the worst years of the Pitino era. Though the Jim O’ Brien era was also…not great (that ‘02 Conference Finals run is what solidified my love for the Celtics)
Grant, in fact, did not trust the Process^TM
Great job here. “The word “process” enters my brain for a second and I physically flinch.” Laughed out loud at this line.
In 1997 it didn’t seem like the ‘aura’ counted for shit.
People these days think magic exists when the magic is hard work.
Grant’s dog can tell and it’s pretty pissed about this imposter sleeping with Grant’s woman.
The way he described Boston is funny to me. Because that’s exactly how we felt back in 02. Sure we just had the Pats win, but that was a fluke, and the sox are cursed, the Celtics feel cursed, and so do that Bruins.