For Paul Pierce and Kevin Garnett, a Boston goodbye comes with cheers, tears and a forever bond

By Adrian Wojnarowski

Yahoo Sports

BOSTON – They had been slapping hands and hugging in the Boston Celtics' practice facility, a team transformed with word out of the general manager's office that a trade had been agreed upon for Kevin Garnett. All around Paul Pierce, a forlorn franchise had been reborn. Finally, Pierce had the chance to have a historic Celtics legacy, a chance to be a champion.

As he walked into the locker room, Pierce discovered a familiar face ashen and shaken, slumping on a stool in a stunned silence.

Pierce walked over and asked Jamie Young: "What's wrong, man?"

For seven years Young had worked for the Celtics as a video coordinator until he was promoted to the endless road life of an advance scout. And now in this moment of organizational euphoria, he tried to make sense of the telephone call that had come hours earlier: Without warning, his 56-year-old father died of a heart attack in the small Indiana town where he had raised Young.

"I'm going to pay for his funeral," Pierce told Young. "I'm going to pay for everything."

And Pierce did, the way he quietly had always been so generous with staff members who worked the longest hours and made the most modest of salaries. So here was Young, an assistant coach on Brad Stevens' staff, standing and cheering Pierce in the middle of the Garden on Sunday night. This was a night when everyone came to deliver Pierce and Garnett the gratitude for hanging that championship banner in 2008, for making the Celtics matter again, making the Celtics the Celtics again.

Within the organization, Pierce's generosity was legendary. He fought for the lowest of assistants and basketball staff to get playoff bonuses, and he used to give the team's traveling party $1,000 each to spend on the annual trip to the Nike employee store outside of Portland. Inside and outside the organization, Pierce was generous with commitments of time and resources, relentlessly championing children's causes and charities.


This was one of the best nights you'll ever witness in sports. There's less and less left of this kind of connection, this kind of bond between ball players and cities. In these cynical and transient sports times, here was a night to believe in the power of these sporting relationships. "This was the toughest game I've ever had to play," Pierce confessed. "Tougher than any championship game, tougher than any Game 7."

After watching on a television in Milwaukee Sunday night, Doc Rivers told Yahoo Sports, "It was incredible. I have no idea how they're playing. The coolest part of the night was when they showed the lady crying in the crowd. Well, that lady was JoJo White's wife. It exemplifies what that franchise is about: a family."

Beyond the two trips to the NBA Finals – beyond the 2008 championship – perhaps the reason this city so fiercely loves these players is the way these players so fiercely loved this city, this franchise, the way they so deeply cherished its lore and history.

"People always say players can be too loyal, but I don't believe that," Garnett said. "A city like Boston is worth it."

To understand how deeply those six seasons as a Celtic burrowed themselves into Garnett's core, there was an indelible moment when the magnitude of his return impacted him on Sunday night: arriving at the Garden and seeing the Celtics longtime public relations director, Jeff Twiss.

"You come here, and Jeff takes you through the library where he shows you all the history – and you feel that responsibility," Garnett said.

From the morning of the news conference to introduce Garnett in the summer 2007, he began probing Twiss on the lore of the Celtics history and never, ever stopped. The queries weren't always about the Russells and Cousys, the Birds and McHales.

"He'd come to me asking: Tell me about Bailey Howell," Twiss said Sunday night. "Tell me about the '74 championship team. Tommy [Heinsohn] coached that team, right?"

The most forgettable Celtics – Art "Hambone" Williams and Eric Fernsten – would show up in the locker room in Miami and Golden State, and Garnett would search out Twiss and want to know all about them. "He was really fascinated with Hambone," Twiss said.
"I told Kevin this, and I still believe it: I only wish Red had been around here for Kevin. Oh, they would've loved each other. Red would've loved the way Kevin played, and Kevin would've sat there and listened to Red's philosophies all day long."

When Pierce and Garnett walked out of the visiting locker room and started down the corridor to the news conference, they stopped and stared at the freshly painted walls that included all the famous Celtics, all the famous teams.

"This is so cool," Garnett marveled.

One of the Celtics executives, Mike Zarren, walked up alongside Garnett and laughed, "They repainted it just for you guys."

In some ways, this was true. Paul Pierce and Kevin Garnett were responsible for splashing a fresh coat of paint on a dusty old franchise, transforming two decades of decay into a champion again. Together, they hung the 17th NBA championship banner, and together someday they'll witness the Nos. 34 and 5 hanging in the rafters.

All these great Celtics teams, and all these great Celtics players, but here were the stars who brought them back again, brought them out of decades of darkness and into the championship light. As much as Pierce and Garnett had been beloved outside the locker room walls, the devotion had been deeper within them. They cared about the greatest to ever play here, and they cared about those in the shadows that no one knew had been important here. This had been a forever night for these forever Celtics and tears leaked out of eyes everywhere in the Garden.

Seven months after the trade, there was finally a chance to say goodbye inside the Boston Garden. It was loud and loving and unforgettable. Now, Pierce and Garnett are gone, the Celtics' rebuild has replaced them, and a most uneasy feeling had descended down out of those rafters and banners and retired jerseys: Would the likes of these two ever return again?

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I read this article before looking at the name of the author. And I was about to post, "Now THAT was a well-written article." Then I looked at the name and wasn't at all surprised. Well-written, and well-deserved.

Go Celtics!

Sam

Thanks to our own bobc for this video link.






bob


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Here are the KG and Pierce tribute videos. I have to admit, I was choked and tearing up watching them.












bob


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Pierce and KG's Post-Game Pressers:









bob


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http://bostonherald.com/sports/celtics_nba/boston_celtics/2014/01/buckley_salute_to_kevin_garnett_and_paul_pierce_simply_a


Buckley: Salute to Kevin Garnett and Paul Pierce simply a sampler



Photo by: Matt West
LOOKING GOOD: Kevin Garnett watches a video tribute celebrating his time with the Celtics during last night’s game at the Garden.

Monday, January 27, 2014
By:  Steve Buckley


With 2:25 remaining in the first quarter of last night’s Celtics-Brooklyn Nets game, somebody in a control room somewhere in the Garden pressed a button and unleashed a Hollywood-style tribute to Kevin Garnett.

The Paul Pierce tribute followed a little later, at the conclusion of the first quarter. Both tributes were crisp and entertaining, and they touched on all the key points, each of them going heavy on the Celtics’ 2007-08 championship run.

But it was what they showed on the video screen after the tributes that truly rocked the place. We saw a tight shot of one of the retired number banners, the one with the two empty panels at the bottom, and the message was immediately understood: Feel free to applaud and cheer for Pierce and Garnett, but be advised that this is merely a Whitman’s Sampler of a welcome-home party.

The real party — that is, the real parties — will take place sometime in the not-too-distant future, after Garnett has retired, after Pierce has retired. That’s when they’ll return to the Garden to have their numbers retired, with those empty panels below Robert Parish’s 00 and Cedric Maxwell’s 31 being filled with Garnett’s 5 and Pierce’s 34.

(Max, by the way, guesses Pierce’s number will go below his. And that’s the way it should be, since Max has always been the biggest Pierce fan on the planet.)

As if to hammer home the point, each shot of those empty panels dissolved to a shot showing a crafty Celtics fan who took the time to create an exact replica of that banner — except he filled the empty panels with 5 and 34.

A lot of people wasted a lot of time last year wringing their hands over the sobering reality that Pierce, by pulling on a Brooklyn Nets jersey, would not be a “Celtic for life.” True, we’d all like for our iconic, superstar athletes to spend their entire playing careers in Boston, the way Ted Williams did, the way Yaz did, the way Larry Bird and Bill Russell did, but that’s an imaginary world that never really existed.

Come on: Carlton Fisk and Dave Cowens and so many others who started here ended up somewhere else. The great Bobby Orr limped around the ice as a Chicago Blackhawk for a couple of seasons, and the Cooz briefly put his sneakers back on to play for the old Cincinnati Royals.

And so when the Garden masses went nuts last night about Garnett and Pierce, they weren’t just saying, “Welcome home.” They were also saying this: “You’re ours. You may be playing for the Nets now, and, heck, maybe, before it’s over, you’ll lead the borough of Brooklyn to its first championship since Johnny Podres’ arm and Duke Snider’s bat and Sandy Amoros’ glove carried the Dodgers past the Yankees in the ’55 World Series. But you’re ours. You’re just out on loan.”

Pierce and Garnett did more than play great basketball during their Boston years. And they did more than just lead the Celtics to a championship. What they did was make the Celtics relevant again. Even now, as the Celtics are rebuilding, they are selling out the Garden and creating the kind of buzz that was not in place the last time the C’s were rebuilding.

If you’re a diehard Celtics fan, you’ll be thrilled to know that the current players had their eyes skyward during those Garnett and Pierce tributes, glued to Garden HDX as though it was the season finale of “Breaking Bad.” Kelly Olynyk seemed particularly focused, gazing up the way Larry Bird used to gaze at Bobby Orr’s retired No. 4 at the old Garden.

Another point was made clear last night: These guys didn’t just play for the Celtics; they are Celtics. Just as Derek Jeter is a Yankee, just as Joe Montana is a 49er, you need to know that Paul Pierce is a Celtic and Kevin Garnett is a Celtic.

And please, no talk about how Garnett played only six seasons with the Celtics — and this after 12 seasons with the Minnesota Timberwolves. Reggie Jackson played only five of his 21 major-league seasons in New York, but he is, and always will be, a Yankee. Frank Robinson played only six of his 21 seasons in Baltimore, but he is, and always will be, an Oriole.

And for those of you who insist on a basketball example, here goes: The late Wilt Chamberlain played only five of his 14 NBA seasons in Los Angeles, but, to me, he is, and always will be, a Laker.

There was only so much the Celtics could do with their Pierce and Garnett tributes last night because, well, for the time being, they play for another team. And after all, when Pierce threw in a jump shot earlier in the third quarter to extend the Nets’ lead to 45-36, the crowd groaned and Celtics coach Brad Stevens called a timeout.

Celtics fans didn’t show up last night to cheer Garnett and Pierce as Nets. They came to cheer them as Celtics. But the real cheering will come later, when the lights go out and the numbers go up.



bob


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Nice

Cept I will always consider Wilt a 76er



beat

I agree, Beat. Wilt is a 76er. Not even a little bit close. He came up as a 76er. He won the first of his two championships (and I'm sure his sweetest since it was against the Celtics) as a 76er. His epic battles with Russell were at their peak as a 76er.

By way of contrast, his arguably most controversal moment (to sit or not to sit) came as a Laker, and all he had to show for his early years as a Laker were some deflated balloons.

Not even a tiny bit close.

Sam

OMG I saw that crying lady, didn't know it was JoJo White's wife....now I feel like crying.

Sam

No brainer. Wilt's best years were as a 76'er. Aside from the fact he was born in Philly and went to high school there. Think most of us who lived during that time and watched him play would agree. Perhaps a few die hard Laker fans might disagree, but betcha they are few and far between.

beat

Sorry to nitpick, but Wilt's first three seasons in Philly were as a Warrior, not a 76er. He was with the Warriors when they moved to San Francisco and spent two and half seasons there before being traded back to Philly to the 76ers, who were the relocated Syracuse Nationals.

So while he spent six and half seasons in Philly, it was with two separate franchises.

To me, I always associate him with Philly, both because he played more professional seasons there than anywhere else but also because he grew up there.

Outside,

Right you are. Wilt was a Philadelphia icon, not a Los Angeles icon. No question about it.

Sam