The Boston Celtics who are the most celebrated franchise in the history of the National Basketball Association, have not had a team good enough to come close to winning a championship in the last ten years. The Celtics have won sixteen championships in their franchise history, but they haven't raised a banner since 1986 when Larry Bird, Kevin McHale, and Robert Parish led the team. In a period of about seven years they lost these three players to retiremere and free agency. Larry Bird and Kevin McHale retired, while Robert Parish went on to play for the Charlotte Hornets, and then for the Chicago Bulls. The Celtics tradition of winning NBA championships quickly diminished and in the 1996-1997 season, they recorded their worst record in history with only 15 wins and a whopping 67 losses. It was clear to everyone in the organization that changes needed to be made and quickly.

So, after their horrific 15-67 season the Celtics decided to fire head coach M.L. Carr and find a new coach. The coach that they wanted was University of Kentucky coach Rick Pitino. The problem was that Pitino had a good situation at Kentucky that would be hard to leave, so they offered him a lucrative deal worth $50 million for seven years. This, and the fact that Pitino wanted a new challenge in coaching, made him decide to take the job and become the coach of the worst team in basketball. Pitino quickly cleared out most of the players and found young players with a lot of potential. He thinks he can turn them into a team that will revive the tradition and bring more banners to a team with sixteen NBA championships. Will he be able to accomplish this? No one knows. We will just have to wait and see how he does this year and in the next couple of years. Who knows, we could be adding number seventeen to the rafters in just a few years. l