It’s easier being green with Garnett

It hasn’t been easy being green for more than two decades. While Jordan and Shaq and Kobe and Tim Duncan have ruled the NBA, the Boston Celtics have been beset by luck both bad and tragic since 1986, leaving the good old days a generation removed.

The younger set has been left to play videos and rely on older guys’ recollections to learn of the team’s 16th and final championship run.

The older guys have only those long-ago memories of the original “Big Three,” Bird, McHale and Parish, memories seemingly made more vivid by the lack of new highlights to replace them.

We remember Bird’s magician-like ball skills and gunslinger’s mentality. We remember McHale’s ability to make his gangly body perform basketball ballet in the low post.

We remember Parish’s stoicism, his 15-foot jumper, and the time he pummeled McFilthy, or was that McDirty?

And then there were DJ and Ainge, and glimpses of Walton.

Only Ainge remains part of the franchise 21 years later, albeit in a vastly different role.

And after a few years of uncertainty about whether he was up to rebuilding a franchise, he finally has struck with a championship move, trading some of the youth that provided him cover for a chance to win now.

Today there’s a new Big Three in town, because in adding Kevin Garnett and Ray Allen to Paul Pierce, there suddenly is hope where before there was only potential.

Already oddsmakers are making the Celtics a favorite to reach the NBA Finals.

I won’t go that far, but instead of going to Celtics games hoping they could merely compete with the best teams for three quarters, next year those trips will be buoyed by optimism for home-court victories.

Ultimately the Celtics’ ability to achieve their most avid fans’ goals depends on more than just having the new Big Three under contract.

Good health, of course, is a prerequisite. All three are at – or in Pierce’s case approaching – their 30s. Pierce and Allen are coming off injury-marred seasons, and Garnett might be physically older than the average 31-year-old all-star because he went from high school directly to NBA superstardom.

The other key is finding the appropriate supporting cast.

The five-for-one (or seven-for-one, if you count draft picks) trade that brought Garnett to Boston didn’t cost the Celtics that much in terms of talent save for Al Jefferson and perhaps Gerald Green.

But it left the team devoid of depth, particularly at point guard where the promising Rajon Rondo will be entering his second NBA season with no safety net.

Early reports have several veteran free agents suddenly reconsidering Boston as a destination point, much as Garnett reconsidered Boston after the draft-day trade that brought Allen back to New England for the first time since his college days at UConn.

Perhaps the new rookies, Gabe Pruitt and Glen “Big Baby” Davis and Brandon Wallace, will provide depth.

Or perhaps there are free agent mercenaries out there to help, like the newly signed Eddie House, or P.J. Brown or Brevin Knight or Dikembe Mutombo.

It’s a big question, just who will play with the new Big Three.

But it’s a much more palatable question than the question that has nauseated Celtics fans for more than two decades – will they ever win again?

Now there’s reason to hope, and perhaps other teams will again become green with envy.

Ernie Clark may be reached at 990-8045, 1-800-310-8600 or eclark@bangordailynews.net