Basketball's "Original". (Here Below).

FOR A SPORT AS uninspiringly researched as basketball, it's rather astonishing to discover that everyone agrees that the three greatest pioneer teams in history were the Buffalo Germans (1900-1920), the Original Celtics (1920's), and the Renaissance (1930's).

Since we grew up with the Original Celtics, they had to be our team. Not because we read much about them or ever saw them play, but because we were always surrounded by their lore and the pervasive presence of their superstar, Nat Holman.

What also was astonishing was that four of the Original Celtics were born in the same hard-scrabble neighborhood of New York, and that three others had come from areas only blocks away.

How glamorous were the Celtics in their day? Very little. They'd play anyone anywhere; travel by van, bus, train, or touring car; were always tired; rarely laundered their uniforms; were tough as nails; could beat anyone on any court; and liked each other and fought for one another.

But there were no huge publicity mills, no glamorous leagues, no huge networks, no inspired reportage. The Celtics were, basically, a traveling show.

You can get a whiff of the Celtic aura by checking the accompanying flyer. We found it in a 1981 pro basketball encyclopedia edited by Zander Hollander.

We have no idea who the "Western New York Champions" (Eber's) were, but it was interesting to discover that the only place you could buy a ticket was at a cigar shop! But imagine being able to watch a Celtic game for 40 cents and paying only 65 cents to sit in a reserved seat and watch Dutch Dehnert execute a pivot play.

We had always known that the play had been invented by Dutch Dehnert. But we had never known the details until we read the 1981 encyclopedia.

In a game against the Chattanooga (TN) Railites in 1932, the Celtics encountered a standing guard who set up on his own foul line and never moved upcourt, not even when his team had the ball.

Johnny Beckman, the Celtic captain, called time out and informed his teammates that the standing guard was getting in the way of their passes and that they had to do something about him.

Dutch Dehnert came up with the answer: "I'll set up right in front of him and you can pass the ball to me. I'll then get it back to you."

And so the ball would be passed to Dehnert and he would get it into the hands of a cutter. In time, Dehnert had a progression going. He'd pass the ball to a cutter, or fake the ball to him and pass to someone else, or fake the pass and take the ball to the hoop himself.

And thus was born the most famous play in basketball.

We remain haunted by the Celtic myth. It kills us never to have seen them play or located a film showing them in action. We did see two vintage Celtics in exhibition games and were enormously impressed. And we did know people who had seen Nat Holman in his prime and told us that they had never seen anyone even close to him as a playmaker.