It's a special thing for a superstar to play his entire career for one team.
The Boston Celtics know that as well as anyone. The core players from their dynasty in the 1950s and 60s all played for the Celtics and the Celtics alone: Bill Russell, Sam Jones, J.C. Jones, Tommy Heinsohn, and for all intents and purposes Bob Cousy (no one is counting his bizarre few weeks as a player-coach in Cincinnati seven years after he retired).
John Havlicek also played every game of his career for the Boston Celtics. So did Kevin McHale. And the most famous Celtics star of all time, Larry Bird, wore Kelly Green for his entire storied career.
Other players have done the same for different franchises. Magic Johnson and Kobe Bryant, two foils that Boston knows all-too-well, played only for the Los Angeles Lakers. Tim Duncan fostered a dynasty of his own in San Antonio. Dirk Nowitzki made his patented one-legged elbow jumpers only for the Dallas Mavericks.
Another opponent the Celtics know well is Stephen Curry, the greatest shooter of all time and the problem the Celtics could not solve in the 2022 NBA Finals. That was the fourth ring and sixth Finals appearance for Curry, who alongside his running-mate Draymond Green has achieved all of that success for only one franchise, the Golden State Warriors.
And yet now, as the Celtics and other teams contend for titles, the Warriors have fallen apart around Stephen Curry. They didn't even make the playoffs last season, and now are floundering at .500 and are on track to finish 11th or 12th in the Western Conference. Chalk some of that to injuries, some of that to poor shooting, but the big-picture takeaway is that the Warriors are not a contender.
What's more, it doesn't seem like there is any viable path to getting there, either. After months of reporting that the Warriors were searching for a star, and very real trade talks involving Paul George and Lauri Markkanen, the team appears to have given up. In recent days head coach Steve Kerr and both Curry and Green have come out publicly and said that it's not worth giving up future assets to make this year's team better.
When it ends for an all-time team, it is usually painful and ugly. And for most such teams, the years of maintaining excellence come with a bill due on the other side, one involving years of losing to rebuild the war chest. The Warriors are facing a few more seasons of fighting to stay relevant around Stephen Curry and then years in the wilderness recovering.
The Celtics can provide the road map for the Warriors
The Boston Celtics were faced with a similar situation a dozen years ago. After two NBA Finals runs and one championship, the core of Kevin Garnett, Ray Allen and Paul Pierce was on its last legs. Allen left for the rival Miami Heat and the Celtics didn't have the juice for another title run.
Sound familiar? A lifelong Celtic (compared to a lifelong Warrior, Curry), an all-time defender (Draymond Green v Garnett) stuck trying to drag along a dying contender, while the elite sharpshooter left for an in-conference rival. The parallels echo as loud as a Kevin Garnett roar.
What did the Celtics do? They didn't sit back, shrug their shoulders, and let things play out on the court, with Garnett and Pierce unable to carry the roster to the upper tier anymore. They also didn't mortgage the future in a desperate attempt to ignore the reality right in front of their faces.
Instead, the Celtics looked to the future and traded their franchise icons. Every Celtics fan likely thought Paul Pierce would retire only having played for Boston, but then at the 2013 NBA Draft they agreed in principal to a trade to send Pierce, Garnett and Jason Terry to the Brooklyn Nets for a boatload of draft picks.
The Nets proceeded to not turn into the overnight contender that they expected with Pierce and Garnett, and their team fell apart rather quickly. The Celtics, on the other hand, could not only rebuild themselves but now had a collection of draft picks from the Nets.
The Celtics won the lottery (literally once and figuratively the year before) and they came away from the 2016 and 2017 drafts with Jaylen Brown and Jayson Tatum. Those two All-Star wings have formed the foundation of their current championship team - and would have never been in Boston if the Celtics were still trying desperately to stay competitive with the last gasps of Pierce and Garnett's careers.
It likely was not an easy decision for Danny Ainge and the Celtics to make, just as it will not be an easy decision for Mike Dunleavy, Steve Kerr and the Warriors to make to trade Stephen Curry and Draymond Green. But if they act now, they can get something of value for Draymond and an entire treasure chest of assets for Curry. Wait, and the losing will continue and bring with it an empty return.
Most teams don't have the bravery -- and the lack of emotion, on some level -- to make that decision. If the Warriors can find their way to pull the trigger, however, it could save their franchise years of losing -- and instead start them on a path to their next championship team.
That's what happened for Boston, at least.