Celtics/ Lakers are a way of life

As we get ready to wrap up the National Basketball Association finals and crown a new champion, and more than likely, the Boston Celtics will be adding an eighteenth championship to their rich and presiding history.

Though, as a lifelong Los Angeles Lakers fan, it pains me to say that, but in the words of my father, Kent Falkner, “it’s the ugly truth.”

In this year’s finals, the Celtics have taken a commanding 3-1 lead over the Dallas Mavericks, edging them closer to the finish line. Though 3-1 leads don’t always mean a guaranteed series win thanks to Lebron James and the 2016 Cleveland Cavaliers championship run, soon enough, the Lakers will be sitting alone once again at 17 championships.

What’s insane is to think that after the Celtics and Lakers game, the next closest in championship count is the Golden State Warriors, who had an incredible run and, with a few pieces, could still, to this day, add to their championship count at six and tied with them is the “team of the 90s, “the Chicago Bulls,” that led by the iconic duo Michael Jordan and Scottie Pippen. They too have won six championships.

Both dynasties produced the best two teams in NBA history, but still, they’ll never come close as a franchise to equaling the number of championships both the Celtics and Lakers have.

Another dynasty that lasted two decades, the San Antonio Spurs, only won five championships in almost 20 years.

Since the inaugural NBA championship, there have been 76 total NBA champions. Out of the 76 championships, both the Celtics and Lakers make up 34 of the 76 championships, roughly 26 percent of the championships won.

This has brought us many greats, with 63 Hall of Famers combined. Names like Bill Russell, Wilt Chamberlain, Bob Cousy, Elgin Baylor, Jerry West, Larry Bird, Ervin “Magic” Johnson, Kevin Michale, Kareem Abdul Jabar, Kobe Bryant, and Paul Pierce—I can go on for days listing the greats.

These are some of the most iconic names in basketball and sports history. People criticize the early half due to “a lack of talent, but my question to the critics is: would the NBA even be worth watching if we didn’t have these two franchises to help build the game of basketball?

There have been great rivalries in sports over a century, such as the Chicago Bears/Green Bay Packers, Palmer/Nicklaus, Duke/North Carolina, Yankees/Red Sox, and who could forget Michigan/Ohio State? But none of those rivalries impacted as much as the Lakers and Celtics, and nothing will ever come close.