Green growth

BOSTON -- Rising like Atlantis from the sea after all this time, their green heaven . . .

This isn’t some generic franchise returning from wherever it went for 21 years after winning its last title in 1986.

These are the Boston Celtics, without whom the NBA was like “Paradise Lost” without one of its leading characters -- God or Lucifer -- depending on your point of view.

Riding high again with their big three -- Kevin Garnett, Paul Pierce and Ray Allen -- it’s as it always was. You’re glad to see them back . . . or you wish they could have stayed away a little longer, like until the end of time.

Not that anything is the way it was here in 1986 when the Red Sox were in mid-curse and the Patriots were about to miss the playoffs for eight years.

“When I heard Randy Moss was coming to the Pats, I thought, ‘Finally, a long ball threat for [Tom] Brady!’ ” wrote Celtics fan Ken Tremendous for Sports Illustrated.

“When the Sox acquired Eric Gagne, it was, ‘Two closers! We’re so lucky!’

“And when news of the Kevin Garnett deal came across the wire I thought, ‘I only wish the Celtics were still in Boston.’

“Then I was told that they are still in Boston . . . so great!”

Of course, among Lakers fans, the name never stopped being an attention getter.

As if the teams are bound together, the Celtics’ rise comes at the Lakers’ expense after Minnesota boss (and former Celtics great) Kevin McHale traded Garnett to his old team, turning down his old archrival’s offer.

Instead of Andrew Bynum and Lamar Odom, McHale took Boston General Manager Danny Ainge’s package of Al Jefferson and several lesser players in what many saw as a sweetheart deal.

Asked whether Ainge deserved a pat on the back, Indiana General Manager Larry Bird -- who is friendly, if arch-competitive, with both former teammates -- mused, “Pat McHale, don’t pat Danny.”

As far as the Lakers were concerned, it was poetic, if not justice with Coach Phil Jackson’s joking about Red Auerbach striking from the grave.

If Auerbach had lived to hear that one, he might have had it inscribed on his tombstone: “All you Lakers who think I’m gone, I’m just thinking up ways to beat you in a different dimension.”

No red, no green

Even if karma, not to mention Auerbach’s victory cigars, suggested the Celtics were due for bad times, 21 years is a lot of bad times.

Once they saw themselves as the game’s cathedral. Now they were its comedy channel.

Take M.L. Carr, a clown prince as a player who became a clown prince as coach and general manager, a dual role only Auerbach had held.

Take designated savior Rick Pitino flipping out, noting, “Larry Bird is not walking through that door, fans,” before walking through it himself, going the other way.

Take their light-hearted promotion, auctioning off naming rights to the new arena until a New Yorker put in a successful bid and tried to call it the Derek Jeter Center.

To visit the arena -- now called the TD Banknorth Garden -- is to see how much things have changed with leprechaun mascots, players in white sneakers and, in one they put off until Auerbach died . . . the Celtic Dancers!

If the Celtics pulled away from their tradition, it wasn’t the show-biz touches but Auerbach’s increasingly ceremonial presence after turning over day-to-day control in 1984.

As Celtics great Bob Cousy notes, “Arnold was the tradition.” It was some tradition too, even if they made everyone else crazy by telling them about it.

The Celtics didn’t just win, they taught the NBA how to think about the game, popularizing notions like “roles” and the “sixth man.”

Gruff as Auerbach was, decisions were collegial. Former players stayed involved, not just the greats whose numbers were retired but mortals such as Mal Graham, now a Massachusetts judge who told Auerbach to draft unknown Dave Cowens, reviving the fallen dynasty after Bill Russell retired.

It was as much think tank as dynasty. Auerbach wasn’t a great tactician -- “We ran six plays,” says Tommy Heinsohn -- but as far as being street smart and far-sighted, he was Albert Einstein.

Billy Cunningham, a coach and player with the rival Philadelphia 76ers, once asked Auerbach how he could draft a fourth-year junior who wouldn’t arrive for a year.

The player was Bird. Auerbach could do that stuff standing on his bald head.

“It would take seven, eight men now to do his job,” Cousy says. “He was a one-man show. No assistants. He used to tape ankles from time to time. He’d call up the hotels as traveling secretary, arrange gyms for practice. . . .

“I used to kid Dorothy [Auerbach’s wife who stayed in their Washington D.C., home]. I said, ‘Now Dorothy, here’s the way it works.

“ ‘He stays in Boston in this little walk-up suite of his in the Lenox [Hotel].

“ ‘He brings his Chinese food from the night before to his hot plate for breakfast in the morning. And you don’t have to bother with him.

“ ‘I put up with this guy for eight months. Then I take him to Europe [where they did clinics after the season]. So you’ve got him for six weeks.

“ ‘Can the marriage survive?’ ”

Auerbach was such an organization man, he didn’t bat an eyelash or utter a peep when Pitino demanded his title as president in 1998.

“It got my attention,” Cousy says. “Arnold was never a guy to feel sorry for because he came on so strong. He wasn’t grandfatherly, like you’d put your arm around his shoulder and feel bad for him.

“But even with that said, I felt badly. I never talked to him about it because he would have been uncomfortable, but I thought it was out of place.”

Says Bird: “It broke my heart. Everybody, all the fans, everybody who went through there, every player knew what Red stood for. . . .

“They talk about the leprechaun, but Red was the Celtics. That was really sad to see.”

The big, er, new three

“I don’t make friends easy. I don’t trust easy, but once I do trust, once I do commit, it’s a commitment for life. It’s blood in. It’s blood out.”

-- Kevin Garnett, to the Boston Globe

With all the photo shoots for magazine covers finally over -- “Thank goodness,” Celtics Coach Doc Rivers says -- life is settling down.

Aside from Pierce yelling “We’re b-a-a-a-ck!” in the pregame video presentation, management is so low key, no one is supposed to call Garnett, Pierce and Allen the “Big Three.”

That was Bird, McHale and Robert Parish. Instead, this is the New Three.

By whatever name, they couldn’t fit better. With all three career 20-point scorers, Pierce is the No. 1 option by ability and temperament, Allen’s shooting spaces the floor and Garnett gives them a defense all by himself.

If Allen is 32, Garnett 31 and Pierce 30 and none has ever seen a Finals except on TV, that works in their favor too. As Rivers noted, “I don’t know if this would work if they were all 24.”

Not that anyone saw this coming after last spring’s 24-58 finish when Pierce said they should trade the No. 1 pick and people rolled their eyes, knowing who would go first. Instead, they drew the No. 5 pick in the lottery. TV cameras showed Ainge and Rivers looking numb.

Ainge had vacillated for four seasons between bold rebuilding moves -- last season’s team had four players from high school -- and trades for veterans such as Ricky Davis.

Nothing had worked, but that started to change on draft day when Ainge beat everyone to Allen, whom Seattle was unloading to save money.

The same day Garnett turned down a deal that would have sent him to Boston . . . which was resurrected when he learned Minnesota wouldn’t extend his contract and his pals, Chauncey Billups and Tyronn Lue, convinced him it was time to leave his beloved “Sota.”

The Allen trade, which looked to be another lurch back to the past, now made it more tempting. Still looking for reasons not to leave, Garnett wondered about Boston’s weather, which was temperate compared to Minnesota’s.

“I said, ‘You don’t go out anyway so it doesn’t matter,’ ” Lue, a former Laker who now plays in Atlanta, told the Globe. “ ‘You could play in Alaska.’

“He’s like, ‘Yeah, you’re right.’ ”

Intense as ever, when Garnett is asked about something other than the game after a recent victory, he peered down at the reporter and asked:

“This is your first interview since I’ve been in Boston, huh? A lot of delayed questions. Go ahead.”

Garnett can’t let the past intrude, unseemly as it became with Timberwolves owner Glen Taylor blaming Garnett and Flip Saunders. As Steve Aschburner, the longtime beat writer for the Minneapolis Star Tribune, noted, Garnett sobbed the night they traded Dean Garrett.

That’s over. They’re there and Garnett is here.

“People say it’s bringing a short-term solution to a long-term problem,” Cousy says. “But if it works, that short-term solution for the next two or three years is going to bring a lot of joy to a lot of people.”

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mark.heisler@latimes.com

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(BEGIN TEXT OF INFOBOX

Celtic hide

The Boston Celtics’ last NBA championship came after the 1985-86 season. A year-by-year look at the franchise since:

*--* Year W-L Regular Season Playoffs 2006-07 24-58 5th, Atlantic Division Failed to qualify 2005-06 33-49 3rd, Atlantic Division Failed to qualify 2004-05 45-37 1st, Atlantic Division Lost first round 2003-04 36-46 4th, Atlantic Division Lost first round 2002-03 44-38 3rd, Atlantic Division Lost conf. semifinals 2001-02 49-33 2nd, Atlantic Division Lost conf. finals 2000-01 36-46 5th, Atlantic Division Failed to qualify 1999-00 35-47 5th, Atlantic Division Failed to qualify 1998-99 19-31 5th, Atlantic Division Failed to qualify 1997-98 36-46 6th, Atlantic Division Failed to qualify 1996-97 15-67 7th, Atlantic Division Failed to qualify 1995-96 33-49 5th, Atlantic Division Failed to qualify 1994-95 35-47 3rd, Atlantic Division Lost first round 1993-94 32-50 5th, Atlantic Division Failed to qualify 1992-93 48-34 2nd, Atlantic Division Lost first round 1991-92 51-31 1st, Atlantic Division Lost conf. semifinals 1990-91 56-26 1st, Atlantic Division Lost conf. semifinals 1989-90 52-30 2nd, Atlantic Division Lost first round 1988-89 42-40 3rd, Atlantic Division Lost first round 1987-88 57-25 1st, Atlantic Division Lost conf. finals 1986-87 59-23 1st, Atlantic Division Lost NBA Finals *--*

Source: basketball-reference.com

Los Angeles Times

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