The Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame will welcome three new Hall of Famers from the Boston Celtics this weekend. Celtics play-by-play man Mike Gorman is receiving the Curt Gowdy Media Award, Bill Russell is being inducted as a coach, and Paul Pierce is going in as a player.
Here are 10 thoughts on the franchise’s newest inductees.
1. For a kid from Los Angeles, Paul Pierce is so Boston.
His IDGAF attitude was on full display in a Sports Illustrated article earlier this week. He is unapologetic about anything, including a racy Instagram video that got him fired from ESPN. “You can’t tell me what to do” might as well be Boston’s board of tourism motto as well as the inscription under Pierce’s Hall of Fame plaque.
2. He really also dislikes LeBron James.
This line from the piece about leaving ESPN was gold.
“It wasn’t a great fit. There’s a lot of stuff over there that you can’t say. And you have to talk about LeBron all the time.”
Pierce and LeBron battle too often for Pierce to wax poetic about him on TV. That was never going to fly for him.
3. Pierce remains underrated, even as he heads into the Hall of fame
There was nothing physically imposing about Pierce. He kind of had an “old man” game for his entire career. He caught a few bodies, but wasn’t the dunker Vince Carter was. He could hit 3’s but wasn’t the shooter Ray Allen was. I’m not sure there was one thing he did that you could point to and say “he’s the best in the league at that.” The beauty of Pierce’s game is that he was pretty good at a lot of things, and the cumulative impact of that is what made him a Hall of Famer.
4: Here’s the one thing he was best at
Pierce had one obscure skill that was pretty unmatched: I’ve never seen anyone get fouled but still get a shot up with a chance to go in like Pierce. No matter how he was fouled, he managed to get that ball up on the rim.
Pierce is wider than people realize, which made him hard to corral. It also made him pretty strong. He’s what people today might call “sneaky athletic,” and he used that to get a bunch of 3-point-play opportunities.
5: Pierce’s journey of redemption make him relatable
He went from promising young star, to a brash malcontent, to target of media outrage, to lovable star.
Who among us hasn’t had to overcome some sort of youthful arrogance or similar realization of unseemly behavior?
There’s power in redemption. There are people who say admitting being wrong is a sign of weakness, but in fact, it’s quite the opposite.
Anyone can dig in, deny they’re wrong, and simply be obstinate. The true strength is the admission of being wrong, learning what’s right, and adjusting one’s behavior. That’s true change and growth.
That’s what Pierce did. When he and Doc Rivers got past their early troubles and Pierce recommitted to the Celtics, he grew into the player we revere today.
“I know, at the end of the day, that I earned everything I got,” Pierce said in his Hall Of Fame press conference. “Nothing was ever given to me and I love that. “You have these guys who are heralded coming in and everything's thrown to them, and I wasn't that guy. But I wouldn't have been the player I am today, I wouldn't be standing here, If there was any other path. And I'll take any day.”
By the way, I’m pretty sure that was another shot at LeBron there.
6: It’s going to be fun to see the band back together
I’m pretty sure a lot of the ‘08 champions will be at the induction ceremony. I would pay anything to hear them reminisce about that season. There was something special about that team.
People outside of Boston question the reverence for that team and why a championship won 13 years ago is still so celebrated. It’s hard to explain, but the combination of Boston coming off such a horrible season, getting Kevin Garnett and Ray Allen, Pierce’s redemption and turnaround ... all of that is just such a special combination.
It was different. It was also fleeting. They went from nothing, to champions and contenders, then back to nothing in such a flash.
It was like some torrid summer affair. It began out of nowhere, it was hot and heavy, and then it was gone. And even though you’ve moved on, gotten married, and had kids, you sometimes think back to that summer and smile.
7: Let’s end the Ray Allen beef
Speaking of Ray, can everyone please just grow up already? Can we all just be adults here, put something that happened a decade ago in the past, and just move on?
8: It’s great that Bill Russell is being honored as a coach
He was the NBA’s first Black head coach and he won two championships while coaching and playing.
Can we just take a second to appreciate just how hard that is to do? Playing NBA basketball is hard enough, I just can’t comprehend how smart someone has to be to understand every facet of what’s happening on the floor to make substitutions, call plays, and manage timeouts.
He couldn’t even put his head down to catch his breath at the foul line. Every time the horn sounded, he had to look around, check the matchups, understand everyone’s foul situation, and adjust on the fly.
That’s just insane to me. It seems impossible regardless of era. Russell did it and won two chips.
It’s hard to imagine a more impactful person on the game. What a true giant.
9: He was a tough coach to play for
One of my assistant coaches in college, the late Bruce Seals, played for Russell in Seattle. When I was having my own issues with my coach in my senior year, Bruce pulled me aside and relayed some stories about Russell’s coaching that I can’t repeat here lest your screen melt from the heated obscenities.
He told me his technique for dealing with Russell was to imagine a big middle finger as he was being cursed out, and that I should employ a similar technique.
First of all, it worked. Second of all, it hammered home how tough Russell was as a coach. He had the highest of expectations, and he demanded nothing less from his players. Sometimes it worked, sometimes it didn’t. But Russell demanded it from them because it was what he demanded from himself as a player.
10: Mike Gorman is a national treasure
I’m happiest for Gorman, the Gowdy award recipient.
I remember watching him as I was growing up in Rhode Island and he was anchoring the Channel 12 sportscast. Then, he was on my TV when I watched the Providence College Friars play Big East games. Then he was on my TV when I watched Celtics games.
One of the joys of my job has been getting to know and talk to Mike from time to time. Sometimes it was in passing, sometimes it was an extended conversation, and every time we talked I got a little bit of a thrill.
Gorman is genuine and humble, and he’ll be the first to try to downplay his accomplishment. I’m here to do the opposite.
Mike Gorman is simply one of the greatest to ever do what he does, and he deserves to be immortalized in this way.
We all talk about the Tommy Heinsohn part of “Mike and Tommy”, and those decades of partnership were incredible to watch in large part because of Tommy’s big personality. But Gorman was the straight man to Heinsohn’s punchlines, occasionally getting in his own little jokes that landed with precision. Mike made that partnership work, too.
He knows how to let the moment speak for itself and when to punch it up. He’s one of the best to ever do it, and this is a tremendously well-deserved honor.
