Celtics Aren't a Realistic Model For Success

This morning, Shanoff offered the following take on the Celtics:

Swindle a rebuilding lottery team for its superstar, preferably a superstar without a title but who possesses a maniacal hunger for one. (If you can import another lottery team's superstar to add to the narrative, but effectively be a third wheel, all the better.) ... Then, roll the ball out and let them steamroll the rest of the league, thanks not to offensive firepower but defensive genius.

I'm assuming Dan's being at least a little sarcastic here; Mark Jackson wasn't, when he suggested that the Celtics gave hope to all sorts of struggling franchises. Here's the thing: Everything that went into this championship team involved a lot of luck. The Celtics lost the lottery, the Sonics were scrapping their roster, Boston's young talent was just good enough to trade.

Hats off to Tom Thibodeau, whose defensive vision made this team a powerhouse. His success wasn't a surprise, but wasn't it nice that he was available -- short of all those personnel dominoes falling, can another team count on luring this high-profile an assistant? The Posey signing was solid, but it too was a function of the gathering contending storm. As was luring P.J. Brown out of the woods.

It comes down to this: Very, very rarely do totally singular Hall of Famers come up for trade in their prime. And here, that only happened because Seattle was looking to sabotage itself as a franchise. So instead of looking at this as any kind of new rational model, let's regard it as the bit of magic it was. It's the construction of this team that screams "anything is possible."

This post originally appeared on the Sporting Blog. For more, see The Sporting Blog Archives.