Rating Kerr & Co. with Celts’ dynasty
3-peat possible: Some say Golden State might outdo Boston’s champs
Jim Barnett was fresh off graduation from the University of Oregon when he arrived at Celtics President Red Auerbach’s office to sign his rookie contract.
Before discussing terms with Barnett, Auerbach read a letter aloud from Leon Clark, Boston’s second-round pick, in which Clark asked for a two-year guaranteed deal totaling $40,000. After ripping up the letter, Auerbach locked eyes with Barnett, who had gone 10 spots before Clark in the previous month’s draft, and offered him a one-year nonguaranteed contract of $11,000 with a $500 signing bonus.
This was Barnett’s introduction to life in the NBA. It was June 1966, more than two decades before the dawn of free agency, and players could leave teams only if they were cut or traded. Although that autocratic man
agement style wasn’t fair for the men under contract, it was ideal for dynasty-building. Once Boston added Bill Russell to its roster in 1956, it was free to rule the league, winning 11 championships in 13 years.
The Warriors swept Portland in the Western Conference finals Monday to become the only team other than those Celtics to reach five straight NBA Finals. Because of free agency and the salary cap, Golden State has little chance of eclipsing the 10 consecutive Finals appearances Boston made from 1957 through ’66. But some league historians believe that, given all the constraints the Warriors navigated to reach this point, they already boast a feat more impressive than anything the Russell-led Celtics accomplished.
To be on the verge of its third consecutive NBA title and fourth in five years, Golden State required sound decision-making and luck. It made unconventional hires (general manager Bob Myers, head coach Steve Kerr), drafted three perennial All-Stars (Stephen Curry, Klay Thompson, Draymond Green), rounded out the roster with savvy role players and signed a generational free agent (Kevin Durant).
If not for an inflated salary cap and the ankle issues that made Curry one of the biggest bargains in NBA history, the Warriors couldn’t have brought on Durant in the summer of 2016. But that doesn’t change the fact that, in an era of fleeting allegiances and near-annual roster turnover, Golden State has used continuity to achieve a feat not done in 53 years.
“It’s probably more astonishing than what Boston did because the Celtics were loaded with talent, and they played the same guys every year,” said Barnett, who has spent the past 34 seasons as a TV analyst for the Warriors. “Once they started the domination, it was easier for them to repeat and repeat and repeat.”
Being in the NBA today comes with certain perks: charter flights, team meals at five-star restaurants, suites in the RitzCarlton, use of the club’s car service, nationally televised games and global appeal. It’s conceivable that Curry, Durant, Green and Thompson, all of whom boast endorsement portfolios that trump their NBA contracts, could become billionaires.
This would have been beyond comprehension for Russell’s Celtics, who flew commercial, earned relatively modest salaries and were lucky to play on national TV once a week. Boston’s entire front office staff was five people.
Toward the end of Russell’s career, he was grateful for the handful of times per season that the team owner, real-estate mogul Marvin Kratter, loaned his charter jet for trips. The only problem? It sat just 10 people, forcing a couple of seldom-used reserves to stay home.
Winning solved most problems. With Russell patrolling the middle, point guard Bob Cousy could take defensive risks. The result was an up-tempo team fueled by an aggressive trapping defense. In Russell’s first 10 seasons, the Celtics won nine NBA titles, including eight straight from 1959 through ’66.
Their biggest opponent was age.
After he won his 11th championship (second as a player-coach) in 1969 at age 35, Russell retired, triggering a mini-Boston rebuild. During his 13 seasons, the NBA had expanded from eight teams to 14. Russell didn’t have to survive more than three playoff rounds to win a title.
“If Bill Russell came back today with the same equipment and the same brainpower, the same person exactly as he was when he landed in the NBA in 1956, he’d be the best rebounder in the league,” said Bob Ryan, a former Celtics beat writer for the Boston Globe. “As an athlete, he was so far ahead of his time. He’d win three, four or five championships, but not 11 in 13 years, obviously.”
The more the league grew, the tougher it became to maintain a dynasty. The Lakers (1982-85) and Celtics (1984-87) both reached four consecutive NBA Finals, only to be denied a fifth by the Rockets and Pistons, respectively.
Until that time, teams depended largely on drafting well. Hitting on a pick was the chance to groom a franchise cornerstone. If a player wasn’t happy, he often had little choice but to make the best of his situation.
That changed in the summer of 1988, when a new collective bargaining agreement introduced unrestricted free agency. Tom Chambers — the NBA’s first unrestricted free agent — soon left a crowded Seattle frontcourt to sign with the Suns. The next season, Chambers averaged a then-career-best 25.7 points to lead Phoenix to a 55-27 record and the West finals.
His success hastened a freeagency revolution that remains today. More than a half-century after Clark — a high-scoring forward out of the University of Wyoming — ended his NBA career before it started by trying to negotiate with Auerbach, players often have more power than coaches.
This makes the Warriors’ modern-day dynasty only more of an outlier. In a league in which many players have inflated egos, Golden State’s players have sacrificed numbers in the name of winning.
The question now is how long this charmed run can last. In little more than a month, nine Warriors players — including Durant, Thompson and DeMarcus Cousins — will become free agents.
“Five straight Finals hasn’t been done since the ’60s, since Bill Russell’s Celtics,” Kerr said. “And it hasn’t been done for a reason: It’s really, really difficult.”