A member of the 2007-08 NBA champion Boston Celtics has something to say about our "Settle the Argument" series.
With help from our friends at Strat-O-Matic, the market leader in sports simulations, we put six of the best Celtics teams in franchise history against each other in a tournament-style battle. The field includes the 1961-62, 1964-65, 1972-73, 1980-81, 1985-86, and 2007-08 squads.
The 1985-86 and 2007-08 teams are the No. 1 and No. 2 seeds in the tournament, respectively. On Wednesday's Celtics PostUp, Eddie House made the case for the '07-'08 team as the greatest in C's history.
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"(The 1985-86 Celtics) had a lot of Hall of Famers on their team, but let me say this. To make the case for us, I would look at their bench," House said. "I believe we had a better bench, a deeper bench. You've got (James) Posey, you have myself, you had Leon Powe, you had Big Baby (Glen Davis), P.J. Brown being huge coming in, and also Sam Cassell. I think we had six players at any given moment, any given day, any given game could take over the game and have huge games.
"I didn't even mention the four Hall of Famers and then Kendrick Perkins. We were a very physical team. So we could have played with that physicality. We also could have ran. I don't think that was a team that wanted to run. So, we would have been able to have speed against them if we wanted to. We could have played the slow-down game if they wanted to, but I don't think that they would have been able to match our speed, our athleticism top to bottom with their roster."
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Our Celtics insider Chris Forsberg agrees the 2007-08 team would be tough to beat, but he issued a rebuttal in favor of the 1985-86 group.
"There was just so much talent out there that there's only one Kevin Garnett to go guard everybody, and as good as everybody else was on that team, there's just so much talent at the top end of that Celtics team from '85-'86," Forsberg said. "The 'Big Three' with Robert Parish and (Larry) Bird and (Kevin) McHale, and then you've got Danny (Ainge) and DJ (Dennis Johnson) doing their thing. You've got Bill Walton coming off the bench.
"Keep this in mind. As good as you guys were, that team was 40-1 at home that year. Just absolutely dominated teams. I mean, blew the doors off them. ... Just the style and brand of basketball that they played. They were very malleable. They could have played with, I feel like, anybody. Even in the modern NBA. The question it would come down to is, could they shoot enough threes? Could they meet the modern game in a way that would have allowed them to be competitive? But man, I would have loved to have seen that matchup."
There is a strong argument to be made for both sides. Both teams are NBA champions, both feature a handful of Hall of Famers, and they thrive on both ends of the floor.
Since we'll unfortunately never get to see the two all-time squads go head-to-head, we'll have to settle for the simulation. After an interesting quarterfinal round in our "Settle the Argument" tournament, both teams will advance to the semifinals for a chance to battle for the title of best Celtics team ever. The semifinal results will be revealed on Thursday.