In what qualifies as must-see regular season basketball in the NBA, there is no better matchup than the Celtics and Lakers.
Well, that’s one theory. The resurgence of the Celtics combined with the ongoing success of the Lakers once again rekindled this wonderful rivalry, which dates back to some searing competition in the 1960s. Larry Bird and Magic Johnson brought it back in the 1980s (while pretty much saving the NBA in the process) and now we have them once again among the league’s elite, accounting for the last two NBA titles.
But a little bit of the bloom is off the old rose as the two teams meet for the first time this season on Sunday afternoon in Boston before a national television audience. The Lakers are upholding their end of the deal, entering with a 36-11 record, best in the demanding Western Conference and second overall to Cleveland.
The Celtics? Well, let’s be charitable and just say they’re in a bit of a funk. They’ve dropped their last two games and have lost 10 of their last 16 to fall to No. 3 overall in the not-so demanding Eastern Conference. The Friday night loss to Atlanta could cost Celtics boss Doc Rivers a berth as the coach of the Eastern Conference All-Stars next month in Dallas. (That is not exactly high on Doc’s priority list right now.)
Not much has gone right for the Celtics since they thrashed the Magic on Christmas Day, improving to 23-5. Paul Pierce missed five games with a knee ailment and the team lost three of them. Kevin Garnett missed 10 games with a hyper-extended knee and the team struggled without him, losing six. Although he has returned, he bears little resemblance to the fiery and feisty KG who led the team to the NBA championship two seasons ago. He moved around like Billy Paultz in the Thursday night game in Orlando and was marginally better the next night in Atlanta.
Ray Allen and the words “expiring contract” are now being mentioned in the same sentence as the trade deadline nears, a heretical thought not too long ago. Allen, who scored only 9 points on Friday, is averaging 15.9 points a game, second fewest in his career. He’s also taking the fewest shots per game since he came to Boston, all the while leading the Celtics in total minutes played.
While Rajon Rondo has blossomed into an All-Star, and Pierce continues to play at a steady clip, the bench is a nightly challenge for Rivers. Rasheed Wallace has been up and down (but still leading the league in technical fouls) and sharpshooter Eddie House is in a slump. Rondo has no real backup and the Celtics miss the almost-forgotten Marquis Daniels, who is due back after the All-Star Game. He will have missed almost 30 games with a thumb injury.
The Lakers? They took advantage of a ridiculous, home-heavy schedule early in the season to break away from the rest of the West. They are 3-2 on their current Eastern swing, beating the tomato cans (New York, Washington and Philadelphia) while losing to Cleveland and Toronto. The Celtics are the third winning team they’ll face on the trip.
The defending champs have been very tough to beat with Pau Gasol in the lineup. The talented Spaniard has played in 30 games this season and the Lakers have won 25 of them by an average of 10 points a game. Gasol has missed 16 games with hamstring injuries and LA is 10-6 in those games.
Kobe Bryant, meanwhile, is poised to pass Jerry West as the all-time Lakers scoring leader. He is 47 points behind West and wouldn’t Bryant love to pass the man who drafted him against the team that so tortured his old boss in the 1960s? He averages 25.1 against the Celtics, but erupting for 48 would not be unBryant-like, even as he finishes up an uncharacteristically cold month for him (24 points a game versus more than 30 a game in November and December.)
The atmosphere in the Garden will be wall of sound stuff. The ‘Beat LA’ chants started here in the 1980s. But the Lakers won in Boston last season (110-109 in overtime) after getting beaten four times there the year before, including three in the NBA Finals. LA has won six of its last 10 regular season games in Boston, which is relatively unremarkable given how bad the Celtics were over most of that time period.
In the 1980s, these meetings were full of high drama and expectations. The two teams followed each other on a daily basis on the assumption they’d probably meet in the NBA Finals. ML Carr called them ‘The Fakers.’ The Fabulous Forum brought us Dancing Barry, the Rambis Youth and Randy Newman for the mood music. There were Hall of Famers at every position.
They may have another Finals meeting and it might be this year. But that’s a long way from now. The real injustice is that they see each other only twice during the season. That’s what makes this one so appealing.
They slowly emerged on the NBA scene in the 1980s. They became mainstays in the 1990s. In the last decade, for the first time in league history, one of them became a Most Valuable Player and another became a Rookie of the Year. Two would earn Most Improved Player Awards and two others would earn Sixth Man Awards.
For the foreign-born players, whose sole basketball experience prior to the NBA had been playing in Europe, Asia or South America, this past decade was one of remarkable growth in both numbers and talent. At the beginning of this season, the NBA counted 83 international players on rosters from 36 countries. DirkNowitzki, the only German in the NBA, won the 2006 Most Valuable Player award. PauGasol, one of five Spaniards in the league, won the rookie honors in 2002.
Those two continue to excel to this day and are the starting forwards on my All-Foreign first team of the decade. I decided to exclude foreign-born players who played college ball in the United States. Thus, no Steve Nash (a lock for first team otherwise) and no Andrew Bogut (who wouldn’t have made it anyway.)
It wasn’t hard selecting the first team. After that, it got a bit dicier. One of the revelations: a lack of high-caliber guards from across the pond (or below the Equator.)
And it was hard to eliminate people like Vladimir Radmanovic, who nonetheless is still responsible for my all-time favorite story involving a foreign player. During the 2002 World Championships in Indianapolis, Radmanovic was kicked off his national team. He then proceeded to watch them play sitting in the stands, wearing his national team sweats.
At any rate, here is one writer’s take on the best foreign-born players of the last 10 years.
Explanation: There really can’t be a whole lot of debate about this unit, unless you want to use the traditional small forward/power forward configuration. While out of action this season, Yao has developed into, arguably, the league’s best center. And he did so carrying the weight of, oh, a billion people on his shoulders.
Nowitzki right now may rank as the greatest foreigner ever to play in the league – and we can only wonder what would have happened to him had Rick Pitino got his wish and been able to draft him in 1998. (Paul Pierce wasn’t a bad consolation prize.)
Gasol has helped turn the Lakers into annual title contenders. Parker and Ginobili each have three championship rings from the Spurs with Parker getting MVP honors for the 2007 NBA Finals.
Second Team
Center: Vlade Divac, Serbia
Forwards: Peja Stojakovic, Serbia; Andrei Kirilenko, Russia
Guards: Hedo Turkoglu, Turkey; Jose Calderon, Spain
Explanation: Those who have only briefly become NBA fans may need a refresher on the remarkable Divac, whose career spanned parts of three decades. He was a critical member of the Kings from 2000-2004 and, back then, Sacramento was really good, just not good enough to overtake the Lakers. He was a gifted passer; only three others in NBA history have amassed 13,000 points, 9,000 rebounds, 3,000 assists and 1,500 blocked shots: Kevin Garnett, Hakeem Olajuwon and Kareem Abdul-Jabbar. (Tim Duncan should join that group this season.)
Stojakovic was also a big-time player on those early 2000s Kings teams and has an All-NBA 2nd team selection on his resume from 2004. He remains one of the game’s most dead-eye shooters. Kirilenko has slumped lately, but his athleticism and quirkiness helped change the image of the tall, slow-footed, mechanical European big man. Kirkilenko remains the only player of this group to have made an All-Defensive Team. He actually made three of them, including the first team in 2005-06.
Turkoglu gets slotted as a guard here because, basically, he is one, despite his height. He cashed in on a big playoff performance in 2009, helped by a vintage Game 7 submission in Boston against the Celtics. Calderon is one of two players on my All-Foreign teams never to have been drafted. But he now is in his fifth season with the Raptors and is usually among the league leaders in free throws and assist-to-turnovers.
Third Team
C: Zydrunas Ilgauskas, Lithuania
F: Mehmet Okur, Turkey; Boris Diaw, France
G: Andres Nocioni, Argentina; Leandro Barbosa, Brazil
Explanation: As always, selecting the last members of the team proved to be a challenge. I can already hear the Luis Scola Fan Club (of which I am a dues-paying member) complaining. But Scola had only two years of NBA play this decade, so he loses out on that. But I love the guy. Ilgauskas is a great story, recovering from apparent career-ending foot woes to be a big part of the Cavaliers’ recent success. He’s been in two All-Star Games. Okur plays center on occasion, but, for purposes of this discussion, is designated as a forward. He has an All-Star Game appearance on his CV.
Diaw has stumbled a bit the bast couple of years, but he was a human Swiss Army Knife for the Mike D’Antoni Phoenix Suns in the middle of the decade, winning Most Improved Player honors in 2005-06. The never-drafted Nocioni gets in as a guard, even though he plays mostly forward. But he has guard size and he needs to be on this list, especially given the dearth of guards.
Barbosa, the NBA’s Sixth Man of the Year winner in 2007 (one year before Manu Ginobili won it) rounds out the team. He may not even be the best Brazilian playing right now (Nenê, AndersonVarejao) but, again, he gets the nod because of lack of competition for the position.
Toughest Omissions
Scola and Nene were the two hardest. Varejao and Mickael Pietrus come next. Radmanovic, Rasho Nesterovic, and even Andris Biedrins might find their way onto similar lists. Just not this one. And the third highest drafted foreign-born player (after Yao and Andrea Bargnani) played most of the decade and didn’t even get remote consideration. That would be the underwhelming DarkoMilicic, the No. 2 overall pick in 2003. Bargnani will get consideration for the next decade, along with YiJianlian, Rudy Fernandez, and, possibly, some guy named Ricky Rubio.
In his first five years on the job as the man in charge of basketball operations for the Boston Celtics, Danny Ainge made so many trips to Europe he could have arranged for dual citizenship in any number of countries.
This year, he didn’t go at all.
It’s not that the Celtics didn’t scout international players; Ainge is a big fan of the Knicks’ draftee, Danilo Gallinari, having seen him in the flesh many times as well as on tape. But in Ainge’s opinion, the just-concluded NBA draft wasn’t exactly overflowing with jaw-dropping international talent.
“I think it’s deep not with star-type players, but with a lot of role players,’’ he said. “And I think a lot of them will make the league.”
And a lot of them will probably stay exactly where they are.
It may be simplistic to suggest that the bloom is off the international rose, but a number of happenings, including the just-concluded NBA Finals, have managed to at least put a hold on the NBA’s fascination with all things international. Or, we should add, with the NBA teams’ fascination. David Stern can still tell you how many daily hits nba.com gets from the most remote stretches of Slovenia.
But with few exceptions (Manu Ginobili, Pau Gasol pre-2008 Finals) those teams did not possess NBA “star-type” players (to quote Ainge) and won mainly because of their teamwork. They were the epitome of the tired but true cliché: the whole is much greater than the sum of its parts. They knew each other and played like it. Lithuania did have an unquestioned European star in Sarunas Jasikevicius, but he bombed big-time when tried to make the jump across the pond.
Greece didn’t even have an NBA player on its team, unless you count Vassilis Spanoulis, who sat on the Houston bench for a year, was traded to San Antonio, and then went back to Europe. He may be one of the few players in NBA history to buy his way out of his contract. Usually, it’s the team that does that.
Gallinari was the sixth pick in the draft and the only international player in the top 19. (Somewhere, Dick Vitale and Lou Dobbs are smiling.) Among the other first-rounders taken, virtually all of them had a biographical attachment saying “expected to remain in Europe for more seasoning.”
If Gallinari becomes one of those “star-type” players, he will be the first international All-Star out of the NBA draft in six years. That was the year that Yao Ming went No. 1 overall and he has proven to be well worth the time, money and energy the Rockets expended to get him to the United States.
By that time, players like Dirk Nowitzki (9th overall in 1998) and Gasol (3rd overall in 2001) had proven to be “star-type” players; Gasol was the Rookie of the Year in 2002 and Nowitzki won the league’s MVP in 2007. Ginobili would prove to be a key part of the 2003 NBA champion Spurs a year later.
But a more revealing pick in 2002 came just four spots after Yao. With players like Caron Butler and AmareStoudemire on the board, the Denver Nuggets selected Nikoloz Tskitishvili. He was reputed to be the next Gasol. Oh well.
Then came the classic goof made by the otherwise astute Joe Dumars, who took Darko Milicic in 2003 over the likes of Chris Bosh, Carmelo Anthony and Dwayne Wade. Yes, the Pistons won the NBA title that year without much from young Darko, but you get the feeling they might have won another (or two) had Dumars taken any of the other three fellows that fateful June night?
You also get the feeling the Orlando Magic might be further along had they not completely blown the 2005 draft by using a lottery pick on Fran Vazquez, who has yet to play a single NBA minute and quite possibly never will?
Out of all the Europeans drafted since 2003 – and almost 30 of them were first rounders from 2003-2007 – there have been only a few who have had any discernable impact in the league. And that includes the No. 1 overall pick in 2006, Italian Andrea Bargnani. The best thing the Raptors can say about him now is that with the addition of Jermaine O’Neal, Bargnani can go back to the bench. He may eventually become worthy of his draft selection, but, to date, he hasn’t. And the Bucks had one year to look at Yi Jianlian, the No. 6 pick in 2007, and traded him. Eventually, he, too, might become a star.
What do we make of all this? First, the NBA may have exhausted the immediate talent overseas and needs to wait for another cycle. Second, it’s no longer a stigma for some of these players to not play in the NBA. Jasikevicius is happy where he is. Vazquez, presumably, is as well, along with Spanoulis, who was so homesick in Houston even with his mother living with him. Tiago Splitter is likely to remain in Spain where he can be paid more than what the Spurs can offer him. And in Euros.
But here’s another possibility, which we saw first-hand in the NBA Finals. Most of these international players don’t play defense. (Andrei Kirilenko being the notable exception). That doesn’t necessarily constitute news, or a dirty little secret, but it was painfully obvious to anyone who paid more than casual attention to the NBA Finals.
One of the enduring snapshots from that series was when Ray Allen, who had played the entire game, blew by a bewildered Sasha Vujacicfor an uncontested layup in the final minute to seal the remarkable come-from-behind win for the Celtics. Vujacic could be seen holding his hands up as if to say, ‘what happened?’ Similarly, Vladimir Radmanovic was a total cipher and couldn’t stay near Paul Pierce while Gasol appeared overwhelmed most of the series, a performance that undoubtedly drew a lot of chuckles in Memphis.
In the balloting for the 2008 Defensive Player of the Year award, Kirilenko was the only international player to get a vote. He got one. When the coaches picked their 2008 All-Defensive team, 36 players got votes. Three – Kirilenko, Ginobili and Andres Nocioni – got votes and none was close to making either of the two teams.
Defense was behind the success of the Spurs over the years. (And no, Tony Parker can’t guard his shadow, but he has been drilled relentlessly by Gregg Popovich into how to play a team concept.) This year’s Celtics’ team, which had no international players, won with its defense. But how many Kevin Garnetts are out there, even in the United States?
NBA executives will still spend and scout extensively overseas for, as we’ve seen in ever NBA draft, it’s a good futures pool. They’re not going to suddenly turn into hoop xenophobes and, as noted, the jury is still out on players like Bargnani and Yi.
But how many more teams need to win a title, like this year’s Celtics, before teams start talking about defense the way they do about offense? No one is talking about Gallinari’s defense - and his new coach in New York isn’t exactly known for it either. And to top it off, the poor kid got booed when he was announced to the New York fans attending the 2008 NBA draft at Madison Square Garden.
What else could he expect from the team that drafted Frederic Weis?
In what qualifies as must-see regular season basketball in the NBA, there is no better matchup than the Celtics and Lakers.
They slowly emerged on the NBA scene in the 1980s. They became mainstays in the 1990s. In the last decade, for the first time in league history, one of them became a Most Valuable Player and another became a Rookie of the Year. Two would earn Most Improved Player Awards and two others would earn Sixth Man Awards.