BOSTON — What a statistical oddity it was that both the Los Angeles Lakers and Boston Celtics — the NBA’s most bitter rivals and historic, title-rich organizations — entered Friday night’s game at TD Garden with precisely the same number of wins in franchise history: 3,252.
“It is crazy, it is crazy,” Lakers coach Luke Walton said before the game.
The Celtics, in a fact sheet distributed to the media, calculated the probability of just such an event at 1 in 8,252.
In the grandest terms, the Celtics’ 113-107 win crowned Boston as the winningest franchise in NBA history, though Walton pointed out before tipoff that such a title for either team was, of course, only temporary.
“If they lose the next game [and] we win, we’re having the same talk again,” Walton said. “It’s definitely crazy it’s happening on a night that we’re playing, but in the big picture, it doesn’t mean that much unless one team takes it and runs with it.”
However, for the first time since the end of the 2000-01 season, the Lakers do not at least share the all-time NBA lead in wins by a team, according to the Elias Sports Bureau.
To be sure, the Lakers’ tumble from that aforementioned pedestal didn’t pick up speed until the 2013-14 season, when they lost a franchise-high 55 games. Then, they set a new mark in that category in each of the next two seasons (61 losses in 2014-15 and 65 last season).
At the start of the 2013-14 season, the Celtics, meanwhile, had a rookie coach in Brad Stevens, a bevy of unprotected first-round draft picks from the Brooklyn Nets after trading away Kevin Garnett and Paul Pierce and hope that their assets could turn them around quickly.
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Both are still trying to return to form from their heyday, but since that season, the Celtics are arguably much further along, with one of the league’s top head coaches, a bona fide star in point guard Isaiah Thomas (who scored 38 points Friday), a top free-agent acquisition in Al Horford and potentially the top overall pick in the 2017 draft, courtesy of the Nets. More than that, the Celtics are eyeing the No. 2 seed this season in the Eastern Conference playoff chase.
Meanwhile, the Lakers are, for the fourth straight season, placing a ton of faith largely in pingpong balls, hoping they bounce their way during the draft lottery, thus allowing them to keep their top-three protected pick in the upcoming draft. They have a promising rookie coach in Walton and several recent draft picks they hope will develop into star-caliber contributors.
In other words, there’s more hope than in years past, but it remains unclear when the Lakers can say for certain that they’ll at least be contending for a postseason berth.
For the Lakers to keep pace with their ascending rival, they’ll need some lottery luck, plenty of key steps forward by their young players, an impact free agent or two and stability in the front office — none of which will come easy and all of which seems like a daunting task. But that’s what lies ahead for the Lakers during one of their most crucial offseasons in recent history.
The path to success is not a straight line, Walton often says, but it was stark to see the NBA’s most famous rivals meet with identical all-time wins, given where each is, where each is trying to go and the speed at which they’re moving forward. For now, players and coaches can wax nostalgic about the rivalry’s greatness, but until the Lakers hold up their end, it will be a one-sided affair, with one team putting the other further and further in the rearview mirror.
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