GREEN WITH ENVY

Once upon a time, there was a basketball team with a tradition so glorious, it was admired and hated by the other teams. It didn’t help that its leader was the smartest of them all and blew cigar smoke in their faces.

Nevertheless, according to the dictum that what goes around comes around, the good times ran out. The coach retired. The tradition was forgotten and all that was left was ...

Today’s Boston Celtics.

Nothing is the way it was. There are people of voting age in Massachusetts who hadn’t been born when the Celtics won their last NBA title in 1986 and have seen the Red Sox win more championships.

The hallowed Boston Garden, with its parquet floor, bad bounces and leprechaun, has been replaced by a generic arena that was known as the FleetCenter, until Fleet was acquired by a bigger bank. While deciding on a new name, they’re auctioning off naming rights daily in a lighthearted promotion, which didn’t seem so funny when a New York fan put in the high bid and announced he’d call it the Derek Jeter Center.

Arena officials rejected it as “vulgar and obscene,” but it was still fun for Yankee fans.

The Celtics’ franchise player is Paul Pierce, who grew up rooting for the Lakers at Inglewood High. Seven seasons later, he still wears his “LA” baseball cap to some games, “to represent,” he says, grinning, and to tweak the locals.

The locals, though, have plenty to brag about -- the Patriots have won three of the last four Super Bowls and the Red Sox finally won the World Series last fall. The Celtic franchise, once the local kingpin, has been all but forgotten. In all, it has been a lot to pay for a little cigar smoke.

Appearances notwithstanding, an old Celtic, second-year General Manager Danny Ainge, is trying to restore the old tradition, but it isn’t easy. First, he was torched for trading Antoine Walker. Then Ainge was torched for acquiring Ricky Davis. Last week Ainge was torched for reacquiring Walker.

Pierce was calling himself “the last of the Mohicans” until they brought back another Mohican, Walker, last week.

Nevertheless, at 27, on his third coach, second ownership group and second rebuilding program, Pierce wonders how he fits into the Celtics’ plans and how they fit into his.

“You think about it sometimes,” Pierce says. “Because I’m at a point in my career where I feel like, [after] being on a team for six, seven years, I want to be playing for a championship, not really scratching to play in the playoffs every single year and just carrying a lot of weight....

“I’ve gone in and made my opinions known. People know. They understand.”

However, it’s easier to rebuild around a great player than to go out and find one. For the moment, he’s theirs.

“I think he understands that we’ve built it around him,” Coach Doc Rivers says.

“We brought in a bunch of young guys, but he’s our leader. He’s going to be our best player and these young guys are just going to complement him. It’s nice to have a young team with a star. That really helps the way you do things.”

The question is, how well Pierce wants to understand and for how long. For the moment, the answer changes daily.

Glory Days, Passing By

This is a cautionary tale for the Lakers, who are trying to regain their greatness. Nothing is guaranteed, no matter who you are or what you did.

The Celtics once owned the NBA, in the days when Red Auerbach thought rings around everyone else and celebrated victories by lighting up his trademark cigars on the bench.

There wasn’t a single player the tradition was built on, not Bill Russell, Larry Bird, Bob Cousy, John Havlicek, Dave Cowens, Kevin McHale, Dennis Johnson or Jo Jo White, who some other team didn’t have the first shot at.

“Red, to me, was one of the smartest people I’ve ever met, especially in terms of understanding our pro game,” says Cleveland Coach Paul Silas, who played on two Celtic championship teams in the ‘70s.

“I used to sit in with him before every game. I’d go in his office and we’d talk basketball. He was a special man.

“He told me one time, ‘Paul, I’ll always be successful because people make a lot of mistakes in this league and all I do is sit back and wait till they make a mistake and then I’ll be able to benefit from it.’

“He had a vision of players and what they could do for the Celtics and you just don’t find that too often anymore.

“Bob Ferry [Washington Bullet GM] used to say, ‘I’ll never trade with Red because at the end of the year, you’re gonna be seeing the guy that I traded in the playoffs and they’re talking about what a smart move Red made and how dumb I was.’ ”

Russell retired in 1969, ending the run in which the Celtics won 11 titles in 13 seasons. By 1974, Auerbach had rebuilt another championship team around Cowens, Havlicek and Silas.

They were gone by 1980. By 1981, Auerbach had rebuilt another championship team around Bird.

Bird and McHale were gone by 1993, but Auerbach was removed from day-to-day operations and they wouldn’t bounce back as fast, or at all.

The absentee owner put inexperienced, fast-talking M.L. Carr in charge. When Carr went down in flames, Gaston shelled out big bucks for Rick Pitino, who demanded the title of president, which Auerbach still held ceremonially.

Pitino lasted 3 1/2 turbulent seasons, finding out he couldn’t get his players to press and without that, his system, which relied on three-point shooting, didn’t work in the NBA. Auerbach could have told him that.

The heritage weighed heavily on them. Pitino, Walker and Pierce tried to introduce white sneakers, which went over like a bonfire made of the championship banners.

“Like I say, man, it’s a whole new era,” Pierce says. “I mean, you respect the guys for what they did for their time and what they meant for the league and for the Boston Celtics, but I play for a whole new generation now and I’m trying to make my own history.”

At a low point, Pitino railed at the press, “You’re the ones who are being negative. Larry Bird is not walking through that door, fans. Kevin McHale is not walking through that door and Robert Parish is not walking through that door. And if you expect them to walk through that door, they’re going to be gray and old.”

Pitino finally resigned in January 2001, noting ruefully, “This is not like Bill Parcells leaving after [winning] a Super Bowl. I don’t think anybody’s going to be shedding any tears as I depart the town.”

Low-key assistant Jim O’Brien was such a welcome change, the Celtics made the Eastern Conference finals in his first full season, even if they were still running Pitino’s system. Celtic fans enjoyed it, but the old Celtics were unimpressed.

“The question was asked to me, ‘How do these guys compare with Celtic greats?’ ” McHale said. “And I said, ‘Well, they don’t.’ ”

That summer, Pierce played on the U.S. team that finished sixth at the World Games in Indiana. Assuming the same prerogatives he had with the Celtics, he tried to take over when things went bad and it didn’t go over well with teammates.

Proving McHale’s point, the Celtics fell back into the pack in the 2002-03 season. Walker and Pierce were Nos. 1 and 10 in the league in three-point shots, and Nos. 79 and 82 in accuracy.

Taking over in the fall of 2003, Ainge kicked the props out from under the mediocre present, trading Walker. O’Brien resigned not long thereafter.

Ainge hired Rivers, who set about reclaiming Pierce for conventional, non-Pitino basketball, but it wouldn’t be easy.

Getting to Know All About You

Late in a victory over Milwaukee on Dec. 1, Rivers yelled at Pierce to fill a lane on the fastbreak, saw him fade to the arc, instead, and yanked him.

There was a heated exchange on the bench, but Rivers subsequently put Pierce back in.

On Jan. 8, the Celtics lost in Chicago, Rivers benching the starters in the fourth quarter and Pierce looking upset.

One of the Boston writers mentioned to Pierce that stuff like that can happen in the course of a season.

“What stuff happens?” Pierce asked. “An All-Star gets sat down? That’s what happens throughout the course of the year?”

Nevertheless, Pierce has been coming around. His shooting percentage, which had dropped to 42% and 40% in the last two seasons, was at 47% in February as the Celtics went 8-4. People around the team noticed a sunnier Pierce.

“He was used to getting the ball in the elbow,” Rivers says, “and then flattening the floor for him and just going iso [getting the ball alongside the free throw line while his teammates went to the baseline so he could go one on one.]

“And what I told him is, your field goal percentage is down because of that. It’s easier to guard you. With the new rules, it’s much easier to play you and that’s not the way you want to play basketball and it’s no fun for your teammates....

“I knew it would be tough early on because he was struggling at the beginning of it. He thought ball movement meant not shoot for a while. I mean, it was funny.”

Nevertheless, it’s still an open question in Pierce’s mind if they can find him help fast enough and if he can wait that long.

“I’ve definitely been through a lot but it’s all part of the business, man,” says Pierce, whose average has dropped from a high of 26.1 in 2001-02 to 21.8 this season. “When you go through new coaches, go through new players, it’s definitely humbling, when you’ve got a guy who’s been around for a few years and he’s not with you or a coach steps down. Having a successful year or not having a successful year, it’s definitely a humbling experience.”

Humility is good. He just doesn’t want to overdo it.