Jayson Tatum and the Boston Celtics are currently in the process of trying to win the franchise its first NBA Finals championship since 2008, which would move the team back in front of the Los Angeles Lakers for the most championships in NBA history with 18. The Lakers tied the Celtics in that department with their own ring in the NBA Bubble back in 2020, but Tatum and his squad look poised to make a run at glory this year, as the team currently boasts the best record in the league by a country mile.
One person who wants the Celtics to get off of their high horse regarding their championship count is none other than former NBA All-Star shooting guard Gilbert Arenas, who recently took to his own Gil's Arena Show podcast to drop an epic, NFSW truth bomb on the true nature of some (the overwhelming majority) of the Celtics' rings.
“95 percent of their championships were before Paul Pierce was even born,” said Arenas, via Emo Jimmy on X, the social media platform formerly referred to as Twitter. “I don't even know if anyone's even alive to remember when they won championships back in those 50's days… they f***ing won all of their championships during the eight-team roster, dawg. In the last thirty years, Boston has been irrelevant in basketball history. Your history was built at the beginning of time, because you had all of the great players, because you guys were prominent. In the last thirty years of basketball, where has Boston been?… One chip in the last thirty years.”
A look back at Celtics history
While Arenas' math may have been slightly off, it is true that four of the Celtics' championships (good for 22 percent) have occurred since franchise legend Paul Pierce was born in 1977. Since then, the Celtics established a mini-dynasty under the leadership of superstar Larry Bird, but have been unable to distinguish themselves from the pack sense.
Of course, Pierce played a major role in the Celtics' most recent championship run back in 2008. However, since the 1980s got underway, it has been the Lakers, and not Boston, who have been the standard for basketball excellence, as Los Angeles has brought home 11 championships in three (four if you separate the different parts of Kobe Bryant's career) different areas, compared to the Celtics' four in that stretch.
Of course, most NBA fanbases would still be thrilled to experience that level of success; however, Arenas' point remains that the NBA landscape back when the Celtics won most of their hardware looks a whole lot different than what we have come to know in the modern time.
In any case, Boston can add to its trophy case for the first time in 16 years this spring with Tatum, Jaylen Brown, and a host of high-profile co-stars leading the way. The Celtics are the current betting favorites to do so, and if they are unable to complete the task (barring injury), there will be some real questions as to what the future of the franchise holds, because they're probably not ever going to get a better chance than this.
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