The Big Three 2.0: Bigger, faster -- and better
Doyel: I'll take Big Six
Once upon a time, there was a man named Larry.
He was one of the greatest. He was so graceful, his last name was Bird. He played with a gangly Hall of Famer named Kevin and a skillful guard named Dennis. They were a great Boston trio.
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| Kevin Garnett, shown here in 2004, would have the advantage over his former T-Wolves boss, Kevin McHale. (Getty Images) |
A new threesome -- get your mind out of the gutter -- has eclipsed Larry Bird, Kevin McHale and the late Dennis Johnson. You know which trio I'm talking about.
You laugh. You stumble all over yourself in disbelief how anyone could believe this new Boston Three Party, Celtics 2.0, could be better than Larry, Kevin and Dennis. You type furiously on the message boards "Freeman idiot this" and "Freeman sucks that" and "Freeman's a racist!" (Oh, sorry, that's the other message board). You want me to get pulled down an Einstein-Rosenberg bridge for considering such blasphemy.
These new champion Celtics made fools out of me and almost every NBA media expert out there who picked the Los Angeles Lakers. They're so much better than anyone thinks, particularly The Big Three. I'll take Kevin Garnett, Paul Pierce and Ray Allen over their '80s counterpart of Bird, McHale and Johnson any day, any time.
Doyel is, of course, taking the opposite position and going a step further. He's saying those past Celtics teams would crush the current Celtics. Either way -- pitting the current Big Three or the current team against the old Big Three or the old Celtics team -- I'll take these Celtics. The rest of you can pair up with Doyel and play the roles of co-dummies.
There is this notion that the old Celtics are untouchable and Bird is Jesus. I respect greatly those past champs, but I don't kiss their high tops. It's entirely possible a better Celtics version has evolved. Just like the Troy Aikman Dallas Cowboys could be better than Roger Staubach's.
The comparison between the old greats and these isn't exact, I know, because many consider Robert Parish one of the Big Three. Also, Johnson was a point guard and Allen is a shooting guard and I acknowledge the old Celtics won more titles and this is a first for the 2.0 group.
Points taken. But let's have some fun anyhoo.
I'm using D.J. instead of Parish in my comparison, for the moment, so we have the matchup of guards between D.J. and Allen.
This is why these Celts would beat the old Celts in a pickup game: speed.
