There May Be No More Big 3"/>
There May Be No More Big 30
Posted In Articles,Blog
LeBron James, Dwyane Wade and Chris Bosh were not the first trio to make a difference with a franchise.
Unbeknownst to the fans in attendance at their grand entrance before a single regular season game had been played, they are not merging pioneers. Pat Riley is a great executive for scooping together players of that skill level however he was not the original dictator of a power shift in the league.
The Boston Celtics were always as dynasty. Dating back to when Larry Bird and Kevin McHale were dominating forces to be conquered. Do not shake your head at the name. Before he was introduced as Houston Rockets’ head coach not too long a while ago, he was a three-time NBA champion and three-time All-Defensive Team member. Those rewards are not handed out lightly.
Why do you think Carmelo Anthony did not make a single All-NBA team this past season?
Existing in greatness back in the days when those men were great says something about a man’s character and will to succeed. With those traits, Paul Pierce pushed through the darker days of the franchise until Ray Allen and Kevin Garnett were introduced as his henchmen. The reception they received may not have had as many bad feelings and teams were not always rooting for ‘the other guy’. That did not take away their elusiveness on the court.
Ray Allen had been grooming himself to be a three-point field goal guru. Putting in work overtime in shootarounds were only half of the battle as Allen began dieting like a champion. I would direct a few of our active NBA moguls to the table he dined at if their shooting averages would improve in that fashion. Finally passing Reggie Miller’s record setting three-point field goals made, Allen experienced a moment of emotion this past season that was a long time coming. Still, he was not the final piece of the puzzle that would keep the Celtics afloat in the postseason against Miami.
Kevin Garnett and his fiercest facial expressions reared their ugly head in Game 3 against Miami, the only game that Boston won, with 28 points and 18 boards.
I thought I was tuned into a feature presentation of Back to The Future.
Some way somehow the tables of time were reversed and someone made obsolete the moments in the regular season where Garnett was out for about nine games in a row due to a mysterious non contact injury. His absence during those games had a definitive impact on Boston’s end of season ranking, but they were still in a prime position to contend for the NBA championship.
The veteran leadership and young potential that the team had was enough to give Miami trouble, but not enough to rattle their cages enough to curve their success in a seven turned five-game series.
Paul Pierce, the longest standing Celtic that remains relevant to the team’s present fortune, has a hand in all of this as well. It is not like he made it easy for LeBron James, especially on home court. It was the pressure from him that forced a turnover from James that eventually sent the game into overtime. However, it was also his teammates who botched a last second play that could have ended the game, before it even resorted to OT.
Eventually, the series turned into a sliding slope and even though everyone predicted the exact opposite, except for Chris Broussard, Miami routed Boston in five games, just as they would do in Chicago’s case.
How old did the squad actually look?
Returning to the lap of luxury will require that Boston takes a long look at how they got here. Not losing in the second round of the playoffs, but how they won the first championship as the ‘Big 3’ under the tenure of Doc Rivers. The components that lied within the organization are still there, but are not as fruitful as they were in 2008.
Why would they be? Even though the landmark players have only added four seasons of age since then, they were standing on the top of the hill at that point in their careers waiting to slope downward.
Ray Allen is the least aged of them all because of the superior care he takes of his body and his game allows him as least contact as possible. Standing on the perimeter rarely gives a player anything but a poke in the eye or a soft shove in the chest. Most of the time fouls are drawn outside of the three-point line by choice of the shooter.
There is only one thing left to be said. Change is going to come, in the illustrious words of the late Sam Cooke.
Something must happen in order for Boston not to slump back into their shaded moments of existence. That is going to start with Jajuan Johnson’s addition to the roster. But, it will not end there. The recruitment of Johnson is not going to cure all issues within the team’s rankings. Glen Davis must be resigned, even at the expense of a bigger deal for him and a trade for one of the ‘Big 3’ members.
A few years ago if someone would have proposed that type of trade to me regarding any player with the last name Allen, Garnett or Pierce in a Celtics’ jersey, I would have deemed it blasphemous. Even at the start of the 2010 season, I would not have predicted that the trio did not have another two-season run in them. That was until I watched the chemistry slip away.
What the organization was once able to praise about the team is drifting away into the sunset and so is the elite ability of Garnett as a defender and Pierce as a quick step shooter.
Garnett shows the willingness, in wake of the lockout, to sit out an entire season if he has to. The morale boost that may have given the players who were not too sure about taking the pay cut is righteous. However, the only good that does for his personal career is that it will prolong the inevitable. Unless Garnett can start the season, whenever that may be, with the same tenacity he showcased in that blast from the past Game 3 performance, we may have seen the last of his Clover days.
Boston is going to stand firm in the confidence that they have for their men. After losing Kendrick Perkins and turning into the team that could not make it, was more than a notion for Doc Rivers. Not only was he emotionally stung by the move, but he saw his men’s shoulders droop not too long after.
Danny Ainge began cutting the umbilical cords of a masterpiece and rest assured, he is not done yet
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