The questions have seemed endless in the days leading up to the creshendo that was the Spurs 4th title in 9 years last night.  Are they a dynasty? 

To understand if they are or not, we must first understand what a "dynasty" is.

Webster defines "dynasty" as a succession of rulers of the same line of descent, or a powerful group or family that maintains its position for a considerable time.  The world of sports obviously uses the second definition when throwing around such a powerful word.  Are the Spurs a dynasty?  They are not even close according to Webster.

The key phrase in this definition is "maintains its position for a considerable time".  The Spurs have never even maintained their position as champions for two consecutive seasons.  San Antonio supporters may point out the overall depth and toughness of the West as support for their claim.  The mere fact that they've won the West so many times should count for something shouldn't it?  It does count toward their historical significance in NBA lore, but a dynasty they are not.

Sports fans and writers throw this word around as if it meant, "really good for more than a couple of seasons".  That only cheapens the few real dynasties the sports world has seen.  These are the only true dynasties in sports history:

1 - 1956-1969 Boston Celtics won 13 championships in a 15 year span including eight in a row from 1958-1966.  Loaded with Hall of Fame players, and the NBA head coach of all coaches, the Celtics defined dynasty for the NBA for all time.

2-  1936-1943 New York Yankees won 6 championships in eight years.  This stretch saw the end of Babe Ruth and Lou Gehrig, and the beginning of Joe DiMaggio.  Featuring Murder's Row and legendary pitching, the Yankees claimed the fans of New York from the Giants and Dodgers, never to give them back.

3-  1947-1962 New York Yankees won 10 titles in 16 years including five in a row from 1949-1953.  This era of Yankee dominance brought about Mickey Mantle, Maris' 61, Larson's no-hitter, and other moments that live forever in the annals of baseball history. 

4-  1964-1975 UCLA men's basetball cut the nets down 10 times in a 12 year span including seven consecutive titles from 1967-1973.  Jabbar, Walton, Johnson, Wooden, and others decorate the college basketball history books like no one has before or since.  They tought the people of Lexington, KY and the rest of the country what dominance really was.

5- 1956-1960 and 1976-1979 Montreal Canadians won five and four straight Stanley Cups respectively.  "Toe" Blake led the early version to success behind legends like Rocket Richard,  Jacques Plante, and Henri Richard.  Scotty Bowman raised the Cup behind the "new blood" of Guy LeFluer, Ken Dryden, and Rick Chartraw.  The Canadians and Yankees are the team with the best arguement of haveing two seperate dynasties, since some of the players carried over for the Yankees.

That's it.  That's the list.  Any attempt to include others only lessons the greatness of the aforementioned teams.  Many will try to include the Bulls of the 1990's, but the arguement would be better to support Jordan as an individual more than the team.  The two great Houston teams between their three-peats eliminates them from the conversation.  The Rockets were great in the middle, thus ending their run of a "considerable time". 

(Information was gathered from nhl.com, nba.com, mlb.com, and ucla.edu)

Beantown is still trying to recover from the shock that was the NBA draft lottery, sponsored by the Pacific Northwest.  Each time the NBA's most historically significant team looks as if it cannot get any worse, the four-leaf clover finds yet another way to yield bad luck.  The death of Reggie Lewis, the injury plagued end of Larry, McHale, and the Chief, the selling of the proverbial soul for Pitino, trading Chauncey Billips, and the loss of the Oden/Durant sweepstakes are all events that any franchise would struggle to over come.  Adding them all up, the sum is utter NBA disaster and disarray.  Then 30+ year old NBA fans things back to his/her childhood and views the present state of the Celtics as "unfathomable".  How could the 16 time World Champs have possibly fallen this far?  How could the karma have changed so suddenly and so violently?  The end of every dynasty has a dramatic event, a turning point, a singular event that may seem innocent at the time, but proves to be the undoing of the seemingly immovable object.  Enter Len Bias.

Just eleven days prior to the untimely and tragic death of Maryland legend Len Bias, the Celtics had won their 16th NBA Championship, far and away the most in NBA history at that time.  The Celtics happend upon the #2 pick in the upcoming draft in a trade that sent Gerald Henderson to Seattle.  This was truly "the best of times" for a franchise that had seen better times than any team in league history.  Bird, McHale, and Parrish were in their respective primes, Jabbar was nearing the end in Los Angeles, and Celtics were primed to get a player who could work into the rotation slowly and take over for Bird when he decided to pass the torch. 

The draft featured two "sure-fire" NBA stars.  The first was the 7'0" center from North Carolina, Brad Daugherty, while the second was a tremendously gifted 6'8 swingman from Maryland, Len Bias (if this begins to sound eerily familiar. . .).  Cleveland, with the first pick, did what any team would do, taking the safer pick in the center.  This left Boston with the player that some publications at the time called the best forward prospect of all time.  The Celtics were set. . .so they thought.

The newly selected Bias celebrated his fame and fortune with his friends.  An evening of crack-cocaine later, Bias is no longer with us, and the wheels of age, injuries, and other unexplainable turns of misfortune lead the Celtics to, what Dickens' calls, the "worst of times". 

Outside of the drafting of Paul Pierce, and the historic comeback win in game 3 of the 2002 playoffs vs. the Nets, it's hard to find anything good that has happened for Red's bunch.  Nothing remains of the Celtic dynasty.  Red, the Garden, and Hall of Fame rosters seem closer to the Devil Rays future.  The Celtics have even watched the Miami Heat, who didn't exist at the time of their last title, and the Red Sox. . .THE RED SOX win world championships since.  Oh how the mighty have fallen.