"ever since i was little, i loved basketball more than just about anything. randomly, inexplicably, coincidentally, the greatest team basketball player of my lifetime landed on my team, in my formative years, and i had the privilege of watching him, day in and day out, for 13 years. his work ethic and his competitiveness rubbed off on his teammates. he always rose to the occasion when it mattered. his passing was contagious. when you watched him long enough, you started to see the angles he was seeing; instead of reacting to what just happened, you reacted to the play as it was happening. there's mchale cutting to the basket, i see him, get him the ball, there it is ... layup! bird gave that to us."
-an apostle of basketball jesus-

“larry bird just throws the ball in the air and god moves the basket underneath it.” it's hard for me to justify my love for larry bird. in bird's prime, i was still in taiwan and not conversant in basketball or english. during the celtics' three titles (1981, 1984, 1986) i didn't really watch any sports. the only reason i liked larry bird and the celtics was because my dad liked larry bird and the celtics. that was enough for me apparently. with every other sport, i just decided to pick a player, a team, or a city (usually pittsburgh) and liked that organization until i found a better reason to like another organization.

i had all sorts of weird reasons for liking certain players. i collected baseball cards of players with mustaches for awhile and knew only those players. i didn't even really like mustaches, just players with mustaches. i liked the way "bonilla, bonds and van slyke" sounded together. i enjoyed how every team in pittsburgh had gold and yellow as their team colors. i admired the asymmetrical helmets of the steelers. i liked saying "roberto clemente" and was touched by the circumstances of his tragic death.

through it all, i only ever truly loved the celtics. which is odd considering i never saw any game in which the celtics were actually really good. i saw bird, mchale and parrish as they were declining. i never saw dennis johnson play. i saw danny ainge in phoenix and portland, but not in boston. i feel like all my "memories" of great celtic wins are only from (the same) highlight reels.

i've read nearly every celtics related book i could get my hands on, and have a respectable base of celtic knowledge, but i wasn't fortunate enough to be cognizant of bird when he was the living legend. it's not like i can honestly say that "those celtic teams were great" because i've never really seen them play. it makes me question just how much reason we really have to have to like anything. then again, if mustaches are reason enough to collect men, then why not any reason under the sun to like anything?