Celtics vs. The Yankees of Basketball

The C's are going to face the Yankees of basketball again. Much like the Yankees, they are difficult not to dislike.
GO CELTICS...

Can't frickin wait to settle it with the lakers on the court. Can we start already!

Much like the Yankees, they love to stack the deck. Ever since Wilt, they've been the Yankees of basketball.... respect, yes...like? Love to see them and their stacked deck toppled.
And all the pundits will be lining up to pick them, you can bet on that. Love to see the pundits eat their words. Hope it happens again this year....BEAT LA, BEAT LA....

The Lakers stack the deck? That is like a Red Sox fan watching their team in third place and complaining about MLB having no salary cap.
So, trading for two future hall of famers in 33 days is not stacking the deck? Look back over the last 10 years of who has had the highest salaries in the NBA. It is usually the Knicks and Mavericks.
The Yankees also play within the rules.

We aren't going to be able to resolve this one....Laker fans see it one way, I see it another....

This forum gives you ample opportunity to try to support your feeling about the Lakers stacking the deck.

who the frig cares!
11-2

beat

The Lakers are the Yankees of basketball?

The Yankees have won 27 World Series in 109 years, appearing in roughly 25% of all the World Series games since 1901. They won those 27 championships while needing only 40 AL titles to earn them and doing it over a span of decades and with multiple dynasties. That's a championship winning percentage of 67.5%. They have more HOFers than any other team because they have been winners despite numerous rebuilding efforts.

Not including this season, the Boston Celtics now have 20 Championship series visits (9 less than the Lakers) in 64 years, appearing in 31% of all NBA Finals. They have 17 championships. That's a championship winning % of 85%. I haven't counted, but we probably have more HOFers than any other team too. The only team with a higher championship victory % than us are the Chicago Bulls, who are 6-for-6. An extremely robust closing %, but not many appearances and they all happened with a single dynasty. The Lakers, who have now 30 Conference titles and 15 championships are .500.

What makes the Yankees the Yankees isn't that they are disliked by Red Sox fans. Giants fans don't particularly like the Dodgers and Forty-Niner fans can't stand the Cowboys either, but that doesn't make the Dodgers and the Cowboys the Yankees of baseball and football. What makes them the Yankees is that they win, consistently, over generations. What makes them the Yankees is that when they get to the Series, they are very, very dangerous.

With all due respect to TJ, MG and BSH, the Boston Celtics are the Yankees of basketball, not the Lakers.

bob

.

tjmakz wrote:This forum gives you ample opportunity to try to support your feeling about the Lakers stacking the deck.

More than any other team in the NBA the Lakers buy their championships as much as they build them. Chamberlain, Jabbar, Shaq...nuff said. I respect the building part, I don't respect the buying part. We'll just have to agree to disagree.

beat wrote:who the frig cares!
11-2

beat

beat,

Thank you for your contribution to this thread.
Very insightful!
FYI-I think you meant 9-2.

Your right TJ

11 total matchups.

And thanks for noticing it too.

beat

LACELTFAN wrote:

tjmakz wrote:This forum gives you ample opportunity to try to support your feeling about the Lakers stacking the deck.

More than any other team in the NBA the Lakers buy their championships as much as they build them. Chamberlain, Jabbar, Shaq...nuff said. I respect the building part, I don't respect the buying part. We'll just have to agree to disagree.

What about Garnett and Ray Allen? How is trading for them any different then L.A. trading for Chamberlain and Jabbar?
Shaq was a free agent signing.
Besides the draft, ALL teams sign free agents and trade for players.
I don't understand how it is stacking their team for only the Lakers but not Boston and the other 28 teams.

As for L.A. not building championships, they have been very good for so long that in the last 27 years they have had 0 top 9 picks in the draft and only 4 top 18 picks.
It is hard to build a great young team when you routinely draft in the mid 20's to 30.

TJ,

That's one of the main differences between eras that CAN be measured. When there were only eight teams in the league, every team had three picks within the top 24 and six picks within the top 48 (because they basically continued drafting until no one wanted to draft any longer). It's one of the reasons why the quality of even losing teams' rosters was so high.

I think the histories of the Celtics and Lakers have a lot to do with conditioning the fans of the two teams to exercise different criteria of greatness. The Mikan Lakers dominated the championships for a relatively short period, and the transition to L.A. clouded their identity during the period when the franchise experienced its longest gap between championships. So I believe Lakers fans at the time began attaching importance to factors other than championships in terms of defining greatness: number of times in the playoffs, number of times in the finals, individual awards, dominance in an individual season, style of play, etc. Although a lot of time has passed, my own belief is that those definitions of greatness have been passed down and endure among Lakers Nation.

It seems that, regardless of the passage of time and the successes of many Celtics teams over the years, the Celtics franchise and tradition will always be most closely identified with the staggering championship results of the Russell Years. Boston fans throughout the generations seem to have handed down a singular criterion of greatness. Whether they're talking about league-wide greatness or greatness against another team, only one thing matters: championships. The Celtics have never had a league scoring champion. No one cares. I'd wager that very few Boston fans have ever seen a Division Championship banner because the Celtics would never be caught dead displaying anything other than a championship banner. Either the Celtics win the championship, or the season represents a loss. There's very little room for equivocation.

I'm not claiming that one perspective is right and the other is wrong. Basically, I guess whatever works for an individual fan is right. But the perspectives on team greatness obviously differ between the two fan bases. I know I've never hoped the Lakers wouldn't make the finals so the Celtics could reduce their deficit in finals appearances. I care only whether the Celtics get another opportunity to add to their championship total.

And do you know something? The Celtics' and Lakers' championship totals are close enough, and the recent trend has been sufficiently in the Lakers' favor, so that the Lakers could very well pass the Celtics in championships at some point. If that happens (and I'm still here to be aware of it), I'll feel dismayed. But it will never, never, never for an instant affect my pride in my team and in being a fan my team.

I wish the Lakers good health in this series. But, GO CELTICS!

Sam

Sam wrote:
And do you know something? The Celtics' and Lakers' championship totals are close enough, and the recent trend has been sufficiently in the Lakers' favor, so that the Lakers could very well pass the Celtics in championships at some point. If that happens (and I'm still here to be aware of it), I'll feel dismayed. But it will never, never, never for an instant affect my pride in my team and in being a fan my team.

I wish the Lakers good health in this series. But, GO CELTICS!

Sam

Sam,
A Laker fan could have said the same thing in 1961....reversing the teams, of course. Regardless of who has more titles, the fans of both teams have been handed countless thrills and are lucky to have this wonderful rivalry.

LACELTFAN wrote:

Sam wrote:
And do you know something? The Celtics' and Lakers' championship totals are close enough, and the recent trend has been sufficiently in the Lakers' favor, so that the Lakers could very well pass the Celtics in championships at some point. If that happens (and I'm still here to be aware of it), I'll feel dismayed. But it will never, never, never for an instant affect my pride in my team and in being a fan my team.

I wish the Lakers good health in this series. But, GO CELTICS!

Sam

Sam,
A Laker fan could have said the same thing in 1961....reversing the teams, of course. Regardless of who has more titles, the fans of both teams have been handed countless thrills and are lucky to have this wonderful rivalry.

LA-

well said.

It's these two teams in a league of their own. Every other team that's won a title was just renting. LA and Boston are the only real owners.