The Boston Celtics crashed when they should have crested.
Their lopsided loss at home this past week to the Cleveland Cavaliers may have cost them their best chance at, shockingly, unseating the Cavaliers as the No 1 seed in the Eastern Conference play-offs, which begin next week.
But if observers were wondering how the Celtics could have fallen so flat in such a big game, there remained a bigger-picture question: how could Boston, a team that has landed neither a superstar free agent nor drafted a franchise-saving player this decade, even have been tied for first place with the defending champion Cavaliers, a team centred around two of the game’s most transformative No 1 overall picks of the last 15 years, LeBron James and Kyrie Irving?
The answer is as simple as it gets: smart personnel moves and a smart coaching hire. That answer also should embarrass organisations that take the cynical approach to rebuilding: deliberately sinking to the bottom of the standings to secure high draft picks.
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The problem with “tanking,” as the Philadelphia 76ers and more recently the Los Angeles Lakers have discovered is, there is no guarantee that those No 1, 2 or 3 overall draft picks will actually become bona fide centrepieces of a championship-calibre team.
Losing by design also puts fan bases into a deep sleep.
Interestingly, the Celtics and Lakers were in similar places by the end of the 2012 season. Both had come off five-year runs at or near the top of their respective conferences, both enjoying championships and multiple, deep postseason runs.
Boston set plans for the future by trading ageing stars Paul Pierce and Kevin Garnett, and letting coach Doc Rivers move on to the Los Angeles Clippers, a more immediately promising situation.
They hired a young, successful college coach, Brad Stevens, who brought with him an innovative approach, revolving around quick shots, offensive rebounding, team depth and players committed to gritty defence.
General Manager Danny Ainge took on role players to fit the system. They also got lucky when they traded for self-assured, but undersized point guard Isaiah Thomas, who was buried on the Phoenix Suns bench. Thomas has evolved into their a true star, a relentless attacker who leads the NBA in fourth-quarter scoring.
Meanwhile, the Lakers slowly went down with the Kobe Bryant ship. There was an ill-fated, one-year, bad-fit experiment with Dwight Howard as Bryant’s sidekick. They also extended an ageing Bryant with a two-year, US$48 million (Dh176.3m) extension that kept him on through 2016, despite the team’s decline and Bryant’s obvious, physical deterioration.
While the Lakers became irrelevant, the Celtics found new life. Boston have not yet won a play-off series under Stevens, but their participation in the upcoming postseason will be their fourth in five seasons with the coach.
By making themselves competitive again, Boston also put themselves on the radar of upper-tier free agents.
Whether Kevin Durant seriously considered the Celtics before signing with the Golden State Warriors last summer is debatable, but Durant did meet with them. And Boston did sign a key free agent, centre Al Horford, away from the conference-rival Atlanta Hawks.
Importantly, the Celtics still own attractive future draft picks, including one from the Brooklyn Nets (Garnett-Pierce trade) that guarantees them a top three choice this spring.
Boston still may not have enough talent to dethrone Cleveland, or overtake the best teams in the West. But they are in significantly better shape now than they were five years ago, when they wisely dismantled their beloved, but post-prime, championship core.
Best of all, for their fans, they never sank, nor tanked, to the bottom. Not even close.
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