A little background first: I grew up a huge Lakers fan and got my first drivers license in the summer of 1979. This was also the start of the Magic Johnson era, and it allowed me to spend any summer job money going to see him play.
Magic and the Lakers dominated everybody, with one exception: Boston. The Celtics weren't better than the Lakers in the 80's, but they were almost as good--and they were luckier. After the Lakers won the title in 1980, Boston won it in '81. The Lakers won it again in '82, and Philly snuck one year out in '83.
The 1984 NBA Finals are still on tape in my house, and it goes down as the most painful loss of my Lakers' fan existence. The Lakers won three games in that series by an average of 17 points, while the Celtics seemed to win all four of their games by less than five. When the Celtics won game seven, it marked the eighth time the two teams met in the finals, and the Celtics had won all eight.
After that, I circled the two Lakers/Celtics games the day the schedule came out. Couldn't wait to go....couldn't wait to watch on TV. When the playoffs rolled around, it was the original "must see TV." The Lakers beat the Celtics in '85; Boston won the title in '86, the Lakers won in '87 (against Boston) and '88. It was, and still is, the great sports rivalry of my lifetime.
Fast forward to 2007. The Celtics have been dead for years, but the truth is they've had terrible luck since the 80's. The deaths of Len Bias and Reggie Lewis both happening to the same team? C'mon. The fact that they got nothing for Bird, Parrish, McHale or DJ? That was bad management, but it was also the strange twist of having all of your franchise players go south physically all at the same time. The league is better when the Celtics are good, and they haven't been....for what seems like forever.
But as a Lakers' fan, my team is in the tank now too. After the Shaq/Kobe titles, they've screwed up a lot...on and off the court. They need to make a big splash now, and they're running out of options.
Boston rolls the dice and trades for Ray Allen, which is a huge risk. But at least they're trying something new, which the Lakers haven't done since the Shaq trade. Most of my friends who are Boston fans are nervous about the Allen trade, but it's not like they had anything to get excited about before.
The Lakers do nothing because they're holding out hope that somehow, some way, they can swing a deal for Kevin Garnett to play with Kobe. They make the decision not to make a big move until they know what is happening with Garnett.
Then the news breaks--Danny Ainge and Kevin McHale are about to screw the Lakers again. Ainge, the Boston GM, and McHale, the GM in Minnesota, work out a deal to send Garnett to the Celtics.
To anybody who watched those Finals back in the 80's, this was a flashback of the worst kind. We never cared losing games when Bird hit a big shot or DJ came up with a typical big-time play because those guys had done it to everybody else too. But if the Lakers stopped Bird and DJ, and then got beat by Ainge or McHale, that drove everybody I know crazy. Ainge was the ugly whiner who should have been playing baseball. McHale was Herman Munster, and losing to Herman Munster made you feel like an idiot.
Guess what? I feel today exactly how I felt back in 1984. How could this happen again?
The Celtics now go into this season with Garnett, Allen and Paul Pierce as the odds on favorite to win the Eastern Conference. The Lakers will go into this season with pretty much the same roster they've had for three lousy years. Hopefully, Lakers management can pull a rabbit or two out of a hat and improve the team before October, but I don't see another Garnett out there.
By the way, I know for a fact that the Lakers tried everything possible to bring KG to LA. They worked on it for months, and offered the Wolves half of Southern California. But in the end, McHale clotheslined the current Lakers the way he did Kurt Rambis in the 80's.
I'm going to go rent "Against All Odds," listen to some Joe Jackson CD's and pray that I wake up in 1985. That decade ended a lot better than it looks like this one might. But one good thing came out of all of this: I'm back to hating the Celtics rather than feeling sorry for them.
All the best....
by John Ireland
Magic and the Lakers dominated everybody, with one exception: Boston. The Celtics weren't better than the Lakers in the 80's, but they were almost as good--and they were luckier. After the Lakers won the title in 1980, Boston won it in '81. The Lakers won it again in '82, and Philly snuck one year out in '83.
The 1984 NBA Finals are still on tape in my house, and it goes down as the most painful loss of my Lakers' fan existence. The Lakers won three games in that series by an average of 17 points, while the Celtics seemed to win all four of their games by less than five. When the Celtics won game seven, it marked the eighth time the two teams met in the finals, and the Celtics had won all eight.
After that, I circled the two Lakers/Celtics games the day the schedule came out. Couldn't wait to go....couldn't wait to watch on TV. When the playoffs rolled around, it was the original "must see TV." The Lakers beat the Celtics in '85; Boston won the title in '86, the Lakers won in '87 (against Boston) and '88. It was, and still is, the great sports rivalry of my lifetime.
Fast forward to 2007. The Celtics have been dead for years, but the truth is they've had terrible luck since the 80's. The deaths of Len Bias and Reggie Lewis both happening to the same team? C'mon. The fact that they got nothing for Bird, Parrish, McHale or DJ? That was bad management, but it was also the strange twist of having all of your franchise players go south physically all at the same time. The league is better when the Celtics are good, and they haven't been....for what seems like forever.
But as a Lakers' fan, my team is in the tank now too. After the Shaq/Kobe titles, they've screwed up a lot...on and off the court. They need to make a big splash now, and they're running out of options.
Boston rolls the dice and trades for Ray Allen, which is a huge risk. But at least they're trying something new, which the Lakers haven't done since the Shaq trade. Most of my friends who are Boston fans are nervous about the Allen trade, but it's not like they had anything to get excited about before.
The Lakers do nothing because they're holding out hope that somehow, some way, they can swing a deal for Kevin Garnett to play with Kobe. They make the decision not to make a big move until they know what is happening with Garnett.
Then the news breaks--Danny Ainge and Kevin McHale are about to screw the Lakers again. Ainge, the Boston GM, and McHale, the GM in Minnesota, work out a deal to send Garnett to the Celtics.
To anybody who watched those Finals back in the 80's, this was a flashback of the worst kind. We never cared losing games when Bird hit a big shot or DJ came up with a typical big-time play because those guys had done it to everybody else too. But if the Lakers stopped Bird and DJ, and then got beat by Ainge or McHale, that drove everybody I know crazy. Ainge was the ugly whiner who should have been playing baseball. McHale was Herman Munster, and losing to Herman Munster made you feel like an idiot.
Guess what? I feel today exactly how I felt back in 1984. How could this happen again?
The Celtics now go into this season with Garnett, Allen and Paul Pierce as the odds on favorite to win the Eastern Conference. The Lakers will go into this season with pretty much the same roster they've had for three lousy years. Hopefully, Lakers management can pull a rabbit or two out of a hat and improve the team before October, but I don't see another Garnett out there.
By the way, I know for a fact that the Lakers tried everything possible to bring KG to LA. They worked on it for months, and offered the Wolves half of Southern California. But in the end, McHale clotheslined the current Lakers the way he did Kurt Rambis in the 80's.
I'm going to go rent "Against All Odds," listen to some Joe Jackson CD's and pray that I wake up in 1985. That decade ended a lot better than it looks like this one might. But one good thing came out of all of this: I'm back to hating the Celtics rather than feeling sorry for them.
All the best....
by John Ireland
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