It’s time to give some love to the modern Blackified Celtics
OPINION: If we’re all about really rooting for everybody Black, then why not show them some love?
Editor’s note: The following article is an op-ed, and the views expressed are the author’s own. Read more opinions on theGrio.
Black people, it’s OK to like the Boston Celtics. It’s not the 1980s anymore. They once symbolized NBA whiteness but they are no longer a whitey-white squad. It’s OK to let go of the hate. You’re free.
I understand where the initial sense of Black hatred for the Celtics arose. During the ’80s, the Showtime Lakers starring Magic Johnson and Kareem Abdul-Jabbar were an extremely Black squad. Not just in personnel but in their playing style. Their fast break offense and Magic’s brilliant passes made it look like they had taken playground ball and elevated it to its highest level. They looked like what improvisational jazz might look like if it was somehow transformed into basketball. Those guys were cool, and the way they played was cool. And throughout the ’80s, their main enemies were the Boston Celtics.
In the ’80s, the Celtics were led by Larry Bird, one of the best white players of all time and probably the best player of all time who could not jump. The squad Bird led played a more fundamental brand of basketball so there was an obvious stylistic clash with the jazzy Lakers. I mean, Bird was proof that white men couldn’t jump, and yet he was out there torching teams. If you were Black and you loved basketball, you loved the Lakers and hated the Celtics no matter where you lived.
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Well, actually, not everywhere. I grew up in Boston. It’s not my fault — my parents chose to move there before I was born and did not ask me if I was OK with that. I was not. Whatever. My dad grew up a New Yorker and a huge fan of Jackie Robinson, but after decades in Boston, he loved the Celtics. Sometimes other Black Bostonians questioned him about liking them. Dad would remind them that the Celtics were the first team in the NBA to draft a Black player — Chuck Cooper in 1950.They were the first NBA team to have an all-Black starting five. And in 1966, they made Bill Russell the first African-American head coach in professional sports. For much of the ’80s when Larry Bird and Kevin McHale were leading them, their coach was Celtics legend KC Jones, a Black man. Dad loved to point out that the Celtics had a Black man in charge of white men as opposed to other teams like the Lakers who had a white man in charge of Black men like it was a plantation. When he said that, people did not know how to respond.
I say all this to say that the Celtics’ reputation as a whitey-white team is not accurate. But also that was a long time ago. The character of teams changes over time, and the Celtics over the past two decades have been very Black — this was a team that gave you Paul Pierce, Antoine Walker and Kevin Garnett, three of the most brotherliest brothers to ever dribble.
The current Celtics core group is very Black. They’re led by Jayson Tatum from St. Louis and Jaylen Brown from Atlanta. They have a Black coach, Joe Mazzulla. If we’re all about really rooting for everybody Black, and the Celtics are truly Black, and the Lakers are in Cancun, then why not give some love to the modern Blackified Celtics?
Toure is a host and writer at TheGrio. He hosts the TheGrio TV show “Masters of the Game,” and he created the award-winning podcast “Being Black: The ’80s” and its upcoming sequel “Being Black: The ’70s.” He is also the creator of “Star Stories” and the author of eight books, including “Nothing Compares 2 U an oral history of Prince.” He also hosts a podcast called “Toure Show.” He is also a husband and a father of two.
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