Defusing the Celtics 9-2 finals edge over the Lakers

[footey]

What I find really interesting is the fact that we've already had the discussion of the Lakers 15 / 10 titles on CelticsBlog and it seems like the only people who hold so tightly to the belief that the Lakers only have 10 titles are non-fans desperate to keep a quickly dwindling gap between numbers wider.

Anyone with any sense knows that FRANCHISES win championships. Cities and fans do not. (Insert bubble bursting here) If Wyc decided to move the Celtics to Billings, Montana the team would take their championships with them. You get the memories, the team gets the hardware. That's just fact. No matter how far back your family roots go with a team, you're just a fan in a city the team resides in.

No self-respecting LOS ANGELES Laker fan assumes rights to any of those 5 championships from Minn. As a matter of fact, I've noted previously that those 5 titles are consolidated on to one banner hanging in the rafters at Staples Center (next to our 10 championships) with the name Minneapolis quite visibly attached to it.

When we talk about our 15 titles, we're talking about the Laker franchise which just so happens to currently reside in Los Angeles. Reality tends to be unpleasant sometimes, I know, but it's still reality. 

ummmm... everybody is entitled to their own opinion, no? Like I said, so your one of those people that considers the Oklahoma City Thunder to have a championship, right? If you believe that, then we cant take you seriously.

I love this example.  TP for you my friend!!

[footey]

I think we have to concede that the Lakers have been much more dominant since the eighties than the Celtics. There is no getting around it. They won 5 to our 3 in the 80's, and while neither did anything to speak of in the 90's, the Lakers have won 4 to our 1 in this decade.  Kudos to them. 

However, everything up to the 80's, there is no room for debate.  The Celtics were the most dominant team in professional sports, including the Yankees when you calculate on a percentage of championships basis.

I enjoy the fact that there is such a strong rivalry. It is great for the respective cities, their franchises and for the NBA in general.  In the 60's, and even the very early 80's, the Celtics' main rivalry was with the 76ers.  I swear, most Celtic fans did not even think much about the Lakers, because there was not much to think about. That all changed when Magic joined the Lakers.  The media started talking up a new "Laker dynasty" going into the 1984 Finals. The Lakers had previously won 2 NBA championships let by Magic (and Kareem). Although the Celtics won in 1981, our opponents were the Rockets, and we were dismissed by the media as getting lucky with the Sixers, and not having to face the Lakers that year.

It was a foregone conclusion in the national media that the Lakers would dominate the Celtics in the 1984 Series.  When we won that 7th game, I will never forget Red's excitement, and his basic "F You" to the national media (NY and LA dominated) when he said, words to this effect:

"This here is the real dynasty."

That is why we, as Celtic fans, take pride in our franchise' history, and what it has produced.

Thank you, Red. We will always defend "the real dynasty."

[Chris]

What I find really interesting is the fact that we've already had the discussion of the Lakers 15 / 10 titles on CelticsBlog and it seems like the only people who hold so tightly to the belief that the Lakers only have 10 titles are non-fans desperate to keep a quickly dwindling gap between numbers wider.

Anyone with any sense knows that FRANCHISES win championships. Cities and fans do not. (Insert bubble bursting here) If Wyc decided to move the Celtics to Billings, Montana the team would take their championships with them. You get the memories, the team gets the hardware. That's just fact. No matter how far back your family roots go with a team, you're just a fan in a city the team resides in.

No self-respecting LOS ANGELES Laker fan assumes rights to any of those 5 championships from Minn. As a matter of fact, I've noted previously that those 5 titles are consolidated on to one banner hanging in the rafters at Staples Center (next to our 10 championships) with the name Minneapolis quite visibly attached to it.

When we talk about our 15 titles, we're talking about the Laker franchise which just so happens to currently reside in Los Angeles. Reality tends to be unpleasant sometimes, I know, but it's still reality. 

While you should probably tone down your rhetoric about non-fans, I have to agree with you about the franchise thing.  Championships and history are not about a city, they are about a franchise.  

Perhaps it waters down the argument a bit that the championships were split between 2 cities, but I think it is just as ridiculous to argue that it is actually 17-10 Celtics in terms of championships as it is to argue that the Lakers have a more storied history, because they have come in second more than the Celtics.  To me, those are both straw men, that are made by twisting the facts to suit the argument.  I rank both arguments up there with plus-minus, and other stats that while interesting, are not good basis to make any sort of conclusion from.

[hardlyyardley]

To Lakers 55

The Red Sox must have a richer tradition than the Yankees.....two championships this century than the Yankees....sure the Yankees won but those were the Ruth/Gehrig and Mantle/Berra eras

Your logic is silly.....let's not confuse what we're trying to illustrate....The C's had many lean years, but Boston vs LA throughout the history of the NBA is lopsided

[QuinielaBox]

I want to thanks everyone who made a reply. Especially those that realize I am not a troll. I have a good reputation at the board of one of our other NBA rivals as one of their best posters. As a matter of fact, I often call out the Lakers trolls that pollute that site, and would do it here if challenged by one my own. My complaint about "Lakers only" boards is, everyone is usually going to agree with me in concept. I like to see what fans of other teams say.

I got a laugh over the Tommy Points jokes you had here at my expense, criticism doesn't bother me at all. Hey, I have 2 of them, whatever they are! If you guys get spammers that want to sell NIKE shoes, as all NBA forums seem to get, maybe I can buy them with my Tommy Points? Whenever I see a good photoshop made that criticizes the Lakers or their players, I usually make a post to credit the creativity. I'll joke about the Lakers myself, and have several stock jokes you just change the names and the teams around. If I am made to feel welcome here, I'll probably share some of those eventually.

To the original topic, that's just how I view things, my opinion. I am just happy it is now a debate who's better, and love reading everyone's opinions on it. Maybe the next ten years can see a rebirth of the Lakers and Celtics rivalries of the 60's and the 80's. I am old enough to remember the end of the 60's.

So, mostly I am here for the reads available. Of course, I will live up to my  promise to always be respectful to the fans here, and your favorite team.


Thanks for reading this and the thread!

OMG, I can't believe a gave a Tommy Point to a Laker Fan. Thank you for having the courage to post here. Now to motivate my Celtic blogging brothers, we are now down 10-6 since Bill Russell retired. THAT BOTHERS ME A LOT!!!!! DOES THAT NOT BOTHER YOU??

[Redz]

The "edge" against the Lakers is always going to be our bragging right over LA, but if the Lakers pass the Celts in championships someday and won't be diminished by their record against the C's.  A wins a win.

Look at the Red Sox and their 8-0 record vs the Yankees this season.  For all that they're only 1 game up where it counts.

[jacksmedulaoblongata]

The NBA finals is what matters most and the Celtics have dominated the lakers 9-2.  If the lakers had the 9-2 edge they would bring it up all the time and say that it doesn't matter that we have more because they've beaten us for more than half of their titles. They can keep every title they've won in whatever city it doesn't matter to me, we still own them in the finals, and we did suck a lot in the 90's and some of this decade but when we got back to finals we got back to doing what we do best: beating the lakers in the finals. It's funny how laker fans use their championship #'s when annoying other fan bases, but try to come up with other #'s when trying to bring themselves up to the Celtics level because the championship #'s aren't good enough.

[celticinorlando]

boston beats the lakers to win titles...the lakers cant beat boston in the finals. case closed

[twinbree]

If this was tennis maybe I could get behind this argument.
But this is the NBA where being #1 is measured by championships.
If consistency was what mattered there'd be no need for the playoffs and Mavs and the Cavs could each have 1 title.
If playoff success mattered, the title would go to whoever won their conference first and the Lakers could have
been 2008 champs for breezing through the Western Conference.
Really, I applaud the Lakers for their consistency but the fact is the finals are played for a reason. The team with fewer titles AND the loser of the head-to-head battle just cannot have he edge.

[Moranis]

Well according to this thread Princeton would be the greatest Division 1 football team in NCAA history, after all they have the most championships.  Yale would also be #2.

[ram]

My 2 cents:

Team A:

Year 1: Wins Title
Year 2: misses playoffs
Year 3: Wins Title
Year 4: misses playoffs
Year 5: Wins Title
Year 6: misses playoffs
Year 7: misses playoffs
Year 8: misses playoffs
Year 9: Wins Title
Year 10: Wins Title

Team B:

Years 1-10: Loses in Finals each year.

Call the next case.

[star18]

No team that loses by 39 points in a deciding NBA Finals game will ever be the #1 franchise.  The team that won by 39 points in a deciding NBA Finals game will always be the #1 franchise.

[lakersin2010]

Edited.

You kill all you argument with your non educated bye.


Banned.

[greg683x]

It's very unpopular here, but I can easily understand the argument that the Lakers franchise has been better than the Celtics franchise over the course of history. We've had far too many down years while the Lakers have been far more consistent - no major stretches of futility like we had in pretty much the entire 90s. So I can't dismiss the argument. As a Celtics fan, I still put my franchise first, but I would even if the count was 18 to 17.

We have the biggest bullet, obviously, in the 17 to 15 or 10 advantage in titles. However, the Lakers have been to about a dozen more Finals than the Celtics and had far fewer years of non-contender status. And in the past 30 years of the modern NBA, the count is 9 titles, 15 Finals (half of all seasons) and 7 years of non-contender status for the Lakers to 4 titles, 6 Finals and 15 years of non-contender status (again, half of all seasons) for the Celtics. And unlike some, modern history does weigh a little more heavily for me because it has more relation to where the franchises are right now. And what "is" the best franchise is a present-time evaluation, albeit based on history.

That said, the OP's +12 or whatever advantage to the Lakers way overstates things even if the Lakers are a better franchise. You don't get points when a non-contender Lakers team loses in the first round and a non-contender Celtics team misses the playoffs. Neither gets an advantage in that situation. Like others have pointed out, where the teams lose to the same team in the playoffs (i.e., Celtics lose in ECF, Lakers lose in Finals or vice versa), neither gets an advantage - both teams were contenders, neither won it. Similarly where one team wins a championship and the other doesn't make the playoffs, that's a far bigger advantage than one team winning the Finals over the other. Like I said, due to consistency, I can understand the Lakers franchise coming out on top, I just don't think your method of calculation is very good.  

As for the breakdown of types of teams by furball into three categories (champions, playoff teams and non-playoff teams), I respectfully disagree. As you may have guessed, I think that if there are three categories, those categories are champions, contenders and non-contenders.

For example, this year, the Pistons weren't better than the Suns, or even the Bobcats or Warriors or Pacers, just because they got to lose 4 straight games by double digits in the playoffs. None of those teams were contenders at all, so it really doesn't matter that the below .500 Pistons got into the playoffs. They're not of the same quality as the Celtics, Magic, Nuggets, Rockets or Cavs just because they were among the top 8 teams in a 3 deep conference. For that matter, the Hornets, Jazz, Sixers and Heat really weren't contenders either. Truthfully, the only teams that could have won it this year were the Lakers, Nuggets, Rockets, Cavs, Celtics and Magic. So if I were to break it into three categories, I'd say the Lakers are category 1, those 5 other teams are category 2, then everybody else.

In the modern NBA, I'd have to have five categories - champions, legit contenders, longshot contenders, non-contenders and dregs. This year it would go 1- Lakers; 2- Magic, Cavs, Nuggets, Lakers, Rockets; 3- Spurs, Mavericks, Blazers, Jazz, Hawks (differentiation for me isn't based on record but on how a team looks heading into the playoffs - the other playoff teams clearly weren't going anywhere though the Bulls were closest); 4- Bulls, Hornets, Heat, Sixers, Suns, Pistons, Bobcats, Pacers, Nets, Raptors, Bucks, Knicks, Warriors; 5- Timberwolves, ex-Sonics, Grizzlies, Clippers, Wizards, Kings. Of course, back when there were 8-12 teams in the league, you could only have the three, which usually came out 1- Celtics; 2- Lakers, 1 or 2 of Sixers, Hawks, Royals, Warriors; 3- everybody else. If I were to try to numerically evaluate it, I'd give 10 points for a championship, 5 points for being a contender, 3 points for being a longshot contender, 1 point for being a noncontender, 0 for the dregs. Maybe the Lakers come out on top, but at least it more appropriately rewards greatness and punishes absolute futility.

Those are my thoughts. 17 championships are all well and good, but being a non-contender for about 15 straight years in the 90s and 00s is just much much more futility than the Lakers ever had and weighs very heavily for me. (As fun as the 02 Celtics team was, they never had a chance against any of the 8 Western playoff teams that year - I would almost contend there was no real "contender" in the East from 00 through 03). So I can definitely see the argument, and if I wasn't a Celtics fan I might even give it to the Lakers.

I always get irritated when the down years are brought up.  Yes I do understand when it comes down to it they count either way, but seriously we had dark years for a reason.  The Lakers havent had to deal with the kind of adversity the Celtics franchise has had to deal with over the past 25 years, thats why theyve been much more consistant.

Lets turn the tables.  How about Len Bias doesnt die....and on draft night, Kobe Bryant DOES Die?  What would be the championship score now? I know thats getting real hypothetical and probably going a little too far, using the Celtics Dark times against us is just a kick in the balls.  We had the player who was supposed to carry us over to the next generation die, then the guy who replaces him die too.

So bite me with the whole dark ages vs. consistency thing.  Lets see two of your franchise players die tragically, get no cap relief, and lets see how quickly your franchise recovers.

[lakersin2010]

I just don't understand how you still didn't have enough to make the top 8... you still had Walker or Pierce or a combo of the two...

I watched Kobe single-handedly get us to the playoffs during a couple seasons when we had no business being there and teams with 45-50 wins were barely scraping into the playoffs.

But Laker fan EXPECT to be competitive... that's our heritage... we've only missed the playoffs 5 times in our history... which is less than the Celtics last 15 years (don't have to list them all)


1993/94 - 32-50... rebuilding time!
1994/95 - 35-47... 8th seed with 35 wins... Edited.  Profanity and masked profanity are against forum rules and may result in discipline.? hey at least you made the playoffs!
1995/96 - 33-49... this was a tough luck year
1996/97 - 16-67... ouch.
1997/98 - 36-46... didn't have anywhere to go but up!
1998/99 - 19-31... not so good
1999/00 - 35-47... sub .500 is a beantown tradition
2000/01 - 36-46... another year another sub .500
2001/02 - 49-33... nice almost at 50 wins dudes!
2002/03 - 44-38... nice series vs the pacer but swept by nets ouch... still chasing 50 wins!
2003/04 - 36-46... but still made the playoffs in the 8th seed... hrm how does that work?

I always get irritated when the down years are brought up.  Yes I do understand when it comes down to it they count either way, but seriously we had dark years for a reason.  The Lakers havent had to deal with the kind of adversity the Celtics franchise has had to deal with over the past 25 years, thats why theyve been much more consistant.

Lets turn the tables.  How about Len Bias doesnt die....and on draft night, Kobe Bryant DOES Die?  What would be the championship score now? I know thats getting real hypothetical and probably going a little too far, using the Celtics Dark times against us is just a kick in the balls.  We had the player who was supposed to carry us over to the next generation die, then the guy who replaces him die too.

So bite me with the whole dark ages vs. consistency thing.  Lets see two of your franchise players die tragically, get no cap relief, and lets see how quickly your franchise recovers.