Did you know that the Boston Celtics have more wins and championships than any other NBA franchise? You didn’t? That’s weird, any person from Boston would’ve happily told you. Well, get ready to hear more, with the debut of Celtics City, a new documentary series brought to HBO by (among others) Celtics superfan Bill Simmons. Over nine episodes, the show promises to tell the whole storied history of the NBA’s (arguably) most prominent team, right up to the present day.
CELTICS CITY: STREAM IT OR SKIP IT?
Opening Shot: We open with the TD Garden, and a patchwork of audio from previous moments of Celtics glory. Then, a voiceover from Basketball Hall of Famer Paul Pierce, who won a ring in Boston in 2008. “Thirty teams in the league, but how many got tradition? How many got things that last forever?” Jump to Celtics legend Larry Bird, one of the NBA’s all-time greats. “The Celtics, we’re different because of all the championships, and all the great players they had.” Next, current superstar Jayson Tatum, fresh off a championship last season. “My rookie year, I saw all these banners, I just thought this was normal. Then you go to other arenas and quickly realize… it’s not the same.” If you thought they were coming in modest or understated here… well, why would you have thought that in the first place? (That’s on you.)
The Gist: Again, if you’re looking for understatement, the Boston Celtics do not have it. The first episode of this series is titled “Founding Fathers”, a signal that the Celtics’ history is that of a proud nation unto itself. We travel back to the moments before the Celtics were a dynasty, when legendary coach Red Auerbach worked to build a winner around Bob Cousy and Bill Russell. This story is told through archival footage and interviews mixed with contemporary commentary, all woven together in a pretty slick and seamless package.
What Shows Will It Remind You Of? The Boston Celtics don’t want to remind you of anyone except the Boston Celtics, and frankly, they’re offended that you would even suggest that someone else could remind you of them, and maybe you wanna step outside and have a little fahkin’ talk about it? (Okay, but for recent comparison, I’d say Peacock’s Notre Dame football-focused Here Come The Irish, which features a similarly-storied and self-aggrandizing team with a green color scheme.) (Crap, they heard me. RUN.)
Our Take: I will be clear from the beginning here: I cannot be objective about the Boston Celtics. I am a lifelong fan of the Cleveland Cavaliers, a team that–like many others–has seen championship dreams dashed by the Celtics. My team was bounced from the playoffs by Boston last season, and despite possessing (as of my writing this) the best record in the NBA, the Cavaliers are an underdog to the defending-champion Celtics in nearly every prominent analyst’s (or betting market’s) mind. What’s more, I find the self-aggrandizement inherent to Celtics fandom to be extremely irritating; where baseball has the New York Yankees, college football has Alabama, and professional football the Dallas Cowboys, the NBA has Celtics fans, who view themselves as the center of the sports universe and everyone else as a background actor in their story.
Thankfully, the filmmakers are well aware of how you might feel about the Celtics–the fifth episode is titled “F**k the Celtics.” Also, one must grudgingly admit you don’t get to be this annoying without a significant history to back it up, and–as Celtics fans will happily remind you–they’ve got a pretty significant history. That history is the focus of Celtics City, and it unfolds steadily over nine episodes from the days of Bob Cousy, Red Auerbach and Bill Russell on through the tensions of the Civil Rights movement, the Magic-vs-Bird battles of the 1980s, the shocking death of top draft pick Len Bias, the lean years of the 1990s, all the way up to their 21st-century return to winning titles.
The first episode, “Founding Fathers”, takes us back to a pivotal moment in NBA history, when legendary coach Red Auerbach laid the groundwork for one of sports’ greatest dynasties around Bob Cousy–a process that saw the Celtics break the NBA’s color barrier by drafting Chuck Cooper, the league’s first Black player, away from the Harlem Globetrotters. Cousy recalls bonding with his teammate: “After a game, we’re in Raleigh, Chuck and I didn’t have a lot of bad habits–we didn’t sniff, we didn’t inject, we didn’t take pills–but we drank a lot of beer. We have two, three, four beers and, y’know, we gotta whizz… we’re lookin’ for the men’s room and see the big, fat ugly signs… I said, whaddya mean I can’t pee with whoever I wanna pee with? Chuck had a bizarre sense of humor like me, so we walked outside and we both peed together. We thought it was pretty funny that we did it to Whitey.”
Still, they struggled to break through, not winning a title in Cousy’s first six seasons–that is, until they brought in Bill Russell.
I won’t recap the whole story here–that’s what the documentary’s for–but Celtics City does a comprehensive job of telling it using both contemporary interviews and archival ones with figures like Russell and Auerbach who’ve since passed away. It’s a sharp, well-crafted approach, and before long even the biggest Celtics hater has to admit that the history of the franchise is inextricably linked to the history of the league–and is a solid vehicle for telling the history of the second half of the 20th century in America. You do, unfortunately, have to hand it to them.
Sex and Skin: None.
Parting Shot: We reach 1963, and Bob Cousy retires with six championships under his belt. How can the Celtics possibly continue their success without him? (Spoiler: they win the next three titles and five of the next six, because they still had Bill Russell.)
Sleeper Star: I shouldn’t be able to count one of the NBA’s all-time greatest players as a sleeper star, but the presence of Bob Cousy–now 96 years old–is a pleasant surprise here. (I’ll confess that I did not realize he was still alive, but I’m happy to see that he is.) He’s a link to the beginning of the Celtics’ long run of success, and he’s also pretty damned funny.
Most Pilot-y Line: Bill Russell–present here in archival interviews from years ago–has a good laugh as he recalls a moment from his college career. “There were things that people thought we should put up with,” Russell says, referring to the racial climate at the University of San Francisco. “This boy walks up to me and says, ‘hey, what they call you, boy?’ And I said, my name is William, that’s my given name. ‘I’m gonna call you Snowball.’ I don’t think you should do that. ‘Well, that’s what I’m gonna do.’ You call me Snowball, I’m gonna knock the hell out of you. So, he called me Snowball, and I tried to knock his head off. The dean calls me in, I said ‘he verbally assaulted me, so I retaliated.’ He said ‘you can’t do that’. I said, ‘well, I did that one!’”
Our Call: STREAM IT. As a resolute Celtics hater, it brings me absolutely no pleasure to report this, but Celtics City is quite good, and has appeal for fans of any NBA team–even the 29 that the Celtics like to look down their noses at.
Scott Hines, publisher of the widely-beloved Action Cookbook Newsletter, is an architect, blogger and proficient internet user based in Louisville, Kentucky.
The post Stream It Or Skip It: ‘Celtics City’ on Max, A 9-Part Documentary Look Into The NBA’s All-Time Winningest Franchise appeared first on Decider.
