Why We Can Probably Say Goodbye to the Big Three Era in Boston

Does anyone else see the similarities between the current Celtics roster and the late 1980's teams? 

For the record, I'm not talking about the '86-'87 team that lost to Magic Johnson's Lakers. This year's Celtics team feels exactly like the '88 team that lost to the Pistons in the Eastern Conference finals. I was only 8 years old at the time, but as we all know the loss to Detroit started a slow slide that it took the Celtics years to snap out of.

During the Celtics' 22-year championship drought, there were some good teams, but you certainly couldn't say any were title contenders. In fact, the best team during the drought was probably the 01-02 team that lost to the Nets in the Eastern Conference finals.     

In the late 1980's, we saw Red Auerbach misfire on a couple of draft picks. Len Bias tragically died of a cocaine overdose, while Michael Smith turned out to be a stiff. In the past few years Danny Ainge hasn't gotten much out of the draft picks he's made. The chances of getting good talent are lower when you're picking as late as the Celtics have recently, but Ainge has shown he can draft reasonably well no matter where he picks. If the team had added some quality role players, they could've complemented the Big 3 and extended their title window. The last good role player the Celtics added through the draft was probably Glen Davis. 

Let's look back at the Celtics draft picks of the past few years. Neither JR Giddens or Semih Erden did much while they were here. In 2009 the team didn't have a first round pick, and drafted Lester Hudson in the second round. Did they get anything from Hudson? No. Last year the team took Avery Bradley and Luke Harangody. Harangody is already gone, and while I don't want to say Bradley is a mistake just yet, he certainly hasn't worked out. 

Right now the team looks old and slow, and they're on playoff life support. In retrospect, their window for winning an 18th title probably closed last year when Ron Artest hit that now-infamous three-pointer.

No matter where you stood on the Kendrick Perkins trade at the time, it feels like the verdict is in. Was it a good trade for the Celtics? HECK NO! It's hard to guess what could have been, but let's try. Would they won this year if they kept Perk? I don't think so; there isn't enough offense.  On the other hand, would they have won without Perk? Nope. Shaq couldn't stay healthy, and the Celtics traded Semih Erden. Jermaine O'Neal has played moderately well in the playoffs, but the team has clearly missed the tough interior defense Perkins provided. 

Dwayne Wade has made five or six dirty plays in this series so far, and it's because he knows the Celtics won't retaliate. Perkins wasn't good at a lot of things, but he would have clocked Wade a couple of times and made him think twice about driving to the hoop. I miss that. He was a great enforcer, much like Charles Oakley used to be.       

If I'm right and it is, in fact, the end of the Big Three era, I'm okay with that. It was a hell of a ride. 

It's incredibly difficult to improve your team in the NBA. You need to draft well, make great trades, keep a lot of cap space, and be very lucky. Just look at San Antonio: they were lucky the ping-pong balls went their way, and Tim Duncan fell right in their lap. In 2007, Seattle got lucky when they got the second pick and Portland took Greg Oden. To a certain extent, the Bulls got lucky in 1984 as well. Houston picked Hakeem Olajuwon, and the Blazers foolishly took Sam Bowie over Michael Jordan. 

Danny Ainge was able to stockpile enough assets to land KG and Ray Allen, which made the Celtics winners again in 2008, and for that I'm extremely grateful. 

Now, if you'll excuse me, I'm going to go pray that I'm wrong.