Tonight is the big night for the NBA.
After years of wavering popularity, the league is ready to command center stage in the sports world with its most successful season since Jordan ruled culminating with two powerful words – Lakers, Celtics.
Even those cynical sports fans are likely to be paying attention when Kobe takes on “ubuntu”, Phil takes on Doc, green takes on gold.
There’s simply too much history to ignore.
But for all the excitement this NBA Finals promises to bring to the table, it is bound to lack a few of the critical aspects that made the mid-80’s rivalry between the Celtics and Lakers so memorable. And we’re not talking about the obvious ones – Bird, Magic, Kareem, McHale – rather a mixture of the players, the era, the time period and all the crap that came with it.
While we eagerly anticipate the 2008 version, it would only be made better by the inclusion of these aspects that were prominent when the two teams met in 1984, 1985 and 1987…
A Rainbow of Mustaches
Any Series can feature prominent mustaches. It takes a legendary one to feature the veritable rainbow we saw for that stretch in the 80’s. Imagine if we had HD broadcasts back then?
Knee Pads
What the elbow sleeve is to the 2008 NBA player, the common knee pad was the 1980’s NBA player. From the stars, to the bench scrubs to the Kurt Rambis’, the Lakers and Celtics both prominently featured a collection of kneepads that would make a women’s volleyball team proud. Why would this make today's series better? It wouldn't, we just think they're funny.
Dudes who looked like Bernie Casey aka U.N. Jefferson
Anytime you can look at one of the stars of the NBA Finals and immediately picture him helping the Tri-Lambs take on the Alpha Betas, things are just a slight bit more enjoyable.
Truly Unique Players
Sure there are some unique guys that will take the court in Boston tonight, but the Lakers and Celtics not only went head-to-head on the court in those three epic 80’s series, they went head-to-head to see who had the most unique player on their roster.
The Celtics offered up a Mormon dude who could have starred in two different professional sports in two different countries:
The Lakers countered with a jheri curled virgin who suffered from chronic hiccups (at least according to Wikipedia):
As hard as I’ve looked, I haven't been able to find either of these on the current rosters.
Greg Kite
Neither team has a Greg Kite. No explanation needed.
Eyewear
Damn the contact lense. Damn Lasik. These newfangled inventions rob us fans of one of the true characteristics that gave these players the character that is so absent these days – their shades. We’ve delved into Tom Henke’s Army of spectacle-wearing baseball players on this site many times, but never looked at their basketball brethren. Let’s just say that if such an Army existed in the NBA, its headquarters would have been Los Angeles circa 1985.
Caricature shirts
As our friends at The Sports Hernia have documented in detail, one fad that took hold 25 years ago that is sure to remain on the sidelines in 2008 was the caricature t-shirt. People in the 80’s were apparently mesmerized by comically insulting cartoons of their favorite athletes.
People in the 80's were also mesmerized by this guy, so nothing should surprise us.
Video Games
If the Lakers vs. Celtics rivalry inspired one thing that we are truly thankful for, it might be the video game by the same title, and we don’t say that because the game play was particularly memorable or even because it featured James Worthy’s goggles on the title screen. The game is significant for one primary reason - the Tom Chambers super triple-pump dunk from the three point line that was as unstoppable but much flashier than the Double Dribble corner shot.
It was about damn time Chambers got his due.
This year’s series should be interesting, certainly moreso than the Spurs-Pistons alternative would have been. But one can only speculate as to how much better it could have been if they could have somehow found a goggled, mustachioed virgin that looks like UN Jefferson, wears giant kneepads and loves it when people draw insulting caricatures of him.
Or maybe they can just see what Greg Kite is up to.
[After we initially created this piece, it came to our attention that our counterparts at the top-notch site The Sports Hernia basically did the same exact thing on Monday. Damn you and your creativity, Hernia.]