The year was 2007, and I sat squished alongside five friends in my buddy’s single dorm room. The seating arrangements could have been (much) better: sitting six people into a Skidmore College single is like fitting 17 in a Toyota Corolla. But I was in New York, I didn’t get Fox Sports New England, and my buddy Harry was the only person I knew who shelled out enough money for the cable package that included NBA TV. I wanted to, needed to, watch the new-look Celtics open preseason against the Toronto Raptors in Italy.

The C’s had just suffered through “The Gerald Green Year,” a youth movement of sorts that — combined with Paul Pierce’s injury-riddled campaign — left the Celtics with the NBA’s worst record, Doc Rivers with a bulls-eye on his back that columnists regularly took aim at, and fans with a “please lose as many games as possible so we can select either Greg Oden or Kevin Durant” mentality. When the NBA Draft lottery came and the Celtics were granted the fifth pick, I pondered my options. I could …

1) change allegiances and become a fan of some other team — ANY other team that wasn’t destined for failed season after failed season. But that really wasn’t an option, because, really, what kind of fan switches teams?

2) continue my existence as a miserable Celtics fan, blame Sebastian Telfair for everything bad that happened in life (“my keys got lost — screw you Telfair, you overhyped, underachieving son of a bitch!”), ask God daily why he ever mustered the cruelty to place Green, Telfair, Tony Allen and Wally Szczerbiak on the same team, and fall asleep each night muttering, “Allan Ray. Seriously?”

Or

3) talk myself into fully embracing Yi Jianlian, who Danny Ainge was reportedly enamored with at the No. 5 pick.

I chose the third choice. A seven-foot tall Chinese dude with soft touch and decent athleticism? Forget Durant and Oden! Yi’s the future of basketball! The Celtics got lucky to fall to the No. 5 pick!

FML.

The events that took place following the Draft lottery can only be described as stunning. The Celtics traded for Ray Allen on draft night, turning from laughing stock to “hmm, that team might be fun to watch” literally overnight. Rumors about the C’s acquiring Kevin Garnett shortly followed. I checked into HoopsHype 759 times per day from the computer where I worked at the local swimming pool. On the umpteenth day of The Garnett Watch, HoopsHype afforded me some ridiculously good news, which can only be judged by my reaction: in front of 75 kids, 15 mothers, three hot mothers and my boss, I loudly screamed “F*** YEAH” at the top of my lungs. I almost got fired, but who cares about a job in a time like that? The Celtics had just paired Kevin Garnett with Ray Allen and Paul Pierce. Thank you, Kevin McHale. Would you like chopsticks with your pu-pu platter?

The Celtics quickly became the hottest ticket around town, but it’s important not to forget: there were serious question marks about whether they could contend in year one of the Big Three era. Ray Allen was 32 years old and coming off double ankle surgery. Paul Pierce had just finished his own injury-prone season. Kevin Garnett was still one of the five or six best basketball players in the world, but could the three of them really carry Rajon Rondo and Kendrick Perkins on their backs? Remember, at that stage, neither Rondo or Perk had accomplished anything in their NBA lives. We knew very little about them. Rondo was young, uber-athletic and showed flashes of unadulterated brilliance, but lest we forget, he spent his rookie year backing up Telfair. And I assure you, it’s never a good sign when your team’s starting point guard was known as “Sebastian Telfair’s backup” just months ago. Perk was hulking, he frowned a lot and he had worked hard during his early years to cut a load of baby fat. But his offensive game was less complete than my latest Rubik’s cube, and it was difficult to calculate his defensive capacity. For so long, his defensive acumen had been hidden alongside young, immature teammates with nary a clue about how to play defense.

I really just used the word nary. But I digress.

For the first time, packed into the tiny dorm room, surrounded by the hot stench of my friends’ body odor, I saw the new-look Celtics in action. A few truths were immediately evident: Kevin Garnett looked odd wearing anything besides Minnesota Timberwolves colors, but he treated even preseason games like the NBA Finals. Ray Allen shot like a goddess, even when he missed, and also has enormous calves. James Posey would help everything, so much, even when he didn’t score. Eddie House had a quicker release than a virgin on his first time. But mostly, I watched and marveled at one thing: in the Celtics offense, the ball moved from side to side like a crowd’s eyes at Wimbledon. Back and forth, forth and back, the Celtics moved the ball like a Pete Carril Princeton team. You could never tell that two of the Big Three had recently been ball-stopping superstars with the basketball constantly in their hands. On this team, surrounded by so much talent, everyone wanted to keep everyone else happy. Maybe even too much so. The C’s passed up a few open shots to make the extra pass. But that was a trivial matter that more practice time would take care of. After watching Gerald Green for the previous year, this was like updating from Soulja Boy to Tupac.

At that point, watching NBA TV in that crowded, hot room, I still had no idea where the Big Three era would lead me. I didn’t know the Celtics would forge so quickly and rattle off 66 regular season wins, more than any team (1985-86, 67 wins) but one in Celtics history. I didn’t know they would struggle to beat the Hawks, barely nudge past a locked-in Lebron, find their inner playoff warrior against the Pistons and embarrass the Lakers in Game 6 to take home the franchise’s 17th title. I didn’t know “Anytthhinngggg isssss posssssiiibblllleeeee.” I didn’t know the slew of what-ifs that would follow in the coming years. What if Garnett didn’t get hurt? What if Perk never tore his ACL? What if Danny Ainge never traded for Jeff Green, or Rajon Rondo never dislocated his elbow? I didn’t know how joyful it would be to root for this Celtics team, even in the playoff losses, always so valiant and selfless and inspired, even if certain regular season games — especially the second night of back-to-backs — have been frightful to observe. I didn’t know Paul Pierce’s transformation into a mature man would finish. I didn’t know Rajon Rondo would blossom into one of the league’s most exciting, creative players, and also one of its most confounding. I didn’t know just how nice it would be to watch Ray Allen spot up on the wing in transition. I didn’t know Eddie House would become one of my favorite Celtics ever, James Posey’s hugs would be etched into my memory forever, or that Perkins — with his jaw that always seems set for war — would prove his worth and then some. I didn’t know losing to the Lakers in Game 7 would hurt so bad. I didn’t know I would come to love Tony Allen, even if I still hated him half the time. I didn’t know Stephon Marbury would be so strange, Glen Davis would make me feel the entire spectrum of human emotions, and Sam Cassell would never, ever stop shooting ill-advised shots. I didn’t know P.J. Brown would play such a crucial role in the only Celtics championship of my lifetime.

I didn’t know four years later, the NBA lockout would threaten to bring the Big Three era to a close without us seeing it through to the end. This glorious era that began when the Celtics got screwed in the NBA lottery might have just one season left. For the love of Scott Pollard, let us — let me — enjoy it.

There are more than a million reasons for the NBA lockout to end, not least of which is the following question: do you really want the NBA D-League to be the most competitive basketball in America?

But the 1,287,493rd reason to end the lockout came yesterday within a Chris Sheridan column.

Sheridan discussed who might play for the United States during the 2012 London Olympics. After reading the first ten players who Sheridan considers mortal locks to make the roster, I suddenly realized, “Holy box of crackerjacks. Sheridan hasn’t included Derrick Rose, the defending NBA MVP.” Then I looked at the ten locks (Dwight Howard, Kevin Durant, Chris Bosh, Blake Griffin, Lebron James, Kobe Bryant, Dwyane Wade, Chris Paul, Deron Williams and Carmelo Anthony), thought about the situation rationally, realized that Bosh and Griffin were around for size, and thought, “Jumping bag of Kit-Kats, maybe Rose doesn’t deserve to be a mortal lock.”

In the remainder of the column Sheridan advised that after his ten mortal locks, the USA should select at least one center to keep pace with Spain, which added Serge Ibaka to an already potent frontcourt. That would leave Rose to compete for the 12th roster spot, about which Sheridan writes, “If you want a third point guard, 2010 Team USA members Russell Westbrook and Derrick Rose are your guys (in fact, it’ll be interesting to see whether either of them can beat out Paul and/or Williams at training camp next summer in Las Vegas).”

I’m not here to call Sheridan correct in his belief that Rose should be firmly on the roster bubble, nor to confirm his suspicion that Rose is a candidate for third point guard. I’m not here to call Sheridan wrong, either. All I’m saying is that if you can have a legitimate conversation about the United States Olympic roster and advocate leaving the defending NBA MVP off the roster entirely, NBA talent is off the charts.

End the lockout. Sooner rather than later.

Please.

Two days after reports that Kendrick Perkins routinely criticized teammate Russell Westbrook during the past season, reports from Oklahoma City described a mini training camp the Thunder held last week at the University of Texas. Two-thirds of the Thunder participated in the workouts, ten players. Nazr Mohammed called their games “the best pickup games in America,” and the Thunder used what could have been a wasted summer to step a little closer to an NBA championship.

All of which begs the question: should fans be concerned that the Boston Celtics haven’t met once this offseason?

Many teams have organized offseason workouts. Mike Conley brought the Grizzlies together. Amare Stoudemire rallied the Knicks. Durant rounded up the Thunder. But the Celtics have yet to gather in the same area.

Last week Kevin Garnett suggested he would plan a Celtics get-together soon, but his details were vague and the plan hardly seemed like one of his priorities. He said, “I’m going actually to the East Coast sometime soon and I am actually going to try to get everybody together just to be in the same area.” But when and where were not mentioned, and Garnett even admitted the workout likely would not consist of more than four or five players.

The problems are in geography and numbers. Garnett and Pierce live in California, and Pierce spent time barnstorming in China. Jermaine O’Neal and Avery Bradley work out in Las Vegas. Ray Allen was most recently spotted in Connecticut. E’Twaun Moore is playing professionally in Italy. JaJuan Johnson, based on his tweets, spends most of his time in Indiana. Rajon Rondo is working out at the University of Kentucky, sometimes with Lebron James. Glen Davis, Delonte West and Jeff Green aren’t officially Celtics. Neither are Nenad Krstic, Carlos Arroyo, Von Wafer, Sasha Pavlovic or Troy Murphy — Krstic left to Russia, Carlos Arrroyo competed with the Puerto Rican National Team this summer, and Wafer, Pavlovic and Murphy presumably are still picking splinters from their rumps and having nightmares of the end of Boston’s bench.

With only seven players under contract (eight if you include E’Twaun Moore, a second-round pick who does not have a guaranteed contract), the Celtics could not possibly host a ten-man mini training camp like the Thunder did. But meeting at least a few times, if only so JaJuan Johnson could have heard Kevin Garnett’s advice or Avery Bradley could have asked Rajon Rondo some questions about running a team, would have been beneficial. Instead, the Celtics — led by so many veterans, who we assumed would remain unfazed by the lockout, if only because the main Celtics already experienced one in 1998 and should have learned from it — have allowed the summer to disconnect them and leave them scattered across the country, working out (or not working out, you never know) mostly on their own.

It’s nothing to worry about, at least not yet, as the Celtics still have plentiful experience together and don’t necessarily need extra reps like the young Thunder or Grizzlies do. But you have to admit — you would have preferred that the Celtics spend at least a portion of this summer together as a team, working out, bonding, and pulling a successful season just a little bit closer to their embrace.

When the Goodman League competes against the Indy Pro-Am on Sept. 24,  Celtics draft pick JaJuan Johnson will reportedly suit up for the Indy Pro-Am squad. He will compete against Jeff Green, who could potentially be Johnson’s teammate whenever the NBA returns.

John Wall, Kevin Durant, Michael Beasley and DeMarcus Cousins have all committed to join Green in representation of the Goodman League, according to separate reports by Mike Wells and Michael Lee. Johnson’s Indy Pro-Am team will reportedly also include Zach Randolph, Mike Conley, Eric Gordon, George Hill, Lance Stephenson and Gordon Hayward.

Note: I am about to ramble about Gordon Hayward for a short period of time, just because his name triggered some great NBA League Pass memories. Bear with me.

On April 5, 2011, Hayward put on one of last season’s least-expected shows, metaphorically staring Kobe Bryant straight in the eyes until Kobe blinked.

Two nights before, Hayward had established a career high of 19 points against the Sacramento Kings, but nothing about his bland rookie season signaled that Hayward was ready to build on the career night, especially not against the Los Angeles Lakers. The Jazz had played the Lakers earlier in the week and Hayward was both inefficient and  unproductive. He finished the game with 7 points on 3-9 shooting, playing 29 minutes and barely putting his fingerprints on the game. The Jazz lost after leading by 17 points and Hayward scored only two points in the second half, an alley-oop from Earl Watson after the game was already out of reach.

The Lakers were on a typical tear, winning 17 of their past 19 games, and the Jazz were somewhere between listless and helpless, losers of eight straight, a franchise in shambles after Jerry Sloan’s retirement and Deron Williams’s trade, a franchise watching idly as the memories of two great decades burned slowly to the ground. Al Jefferson was acquired in the offseason, but he and Paul Millsap did not mesh in the front-court. Derrick Favors came to Utah as part of the Williams trade, and he could provide occasional entertainment with a fierce dunk or a high-flying block, but his prime was years away at best. Tyrone Corbin tried to fill Sloan’s enormous shoes, but Utah’s talent was lower than it had been in years and Corbin, well, Corbin was not Sloan. Meanwhile, the Jazz’s lottery draft choice, the league’s next white hope, Gordon Hayward blended into the background, struggling to deal with the strength and quickness of his NBA opponents.

Kobe Bryant is not normally the right prescription for a rookie struggling to find his NBA calling. But the second time Hayward played Kobe that week, he transformed into something different, something better, the player Utah hoped he would be, a player his parents and friends could be proud of, a player who dueled against Kobe Bryant and scored 22 points, including 10 in the final quarter, grabbed 6 rebounds, dished 5 assists, drilled the game-winning free throw, forced Bryant into a turnover on the game’s final possession, and walked off the court with at least one new fan.

“I’m very, very fond of him. He’s a very-skilled, all-around player,” said Kobe Bryant. “I think he’s going to have a very bright future in this league. He reminds me of a more talented Jeff Hornacek. Jeff couldn’t put the ball on the floor as well as (Hayward) can.”

Less than two weeks later, the Jazz ended their season by beating the Denver Nuggers. Hayward pumped in 34 points.

I was trying to lift weights three weeks ago, but as normal, I spent far too much time flapping my gums instead.

I meant only to say hello to my friend’s father, but hello turned into a 15-minute conversation. Procrastination makes me talkative.

After less than thirty seconds of talking about real life, the topic changed to basketball.

“Remember Matt Hall?” he asked me. “He’s playing overseas now. Doing pretty well, too.”

“He was such a late bloomer,” I responded. “Sophomore year he played junior varsity, then the next season he killed the entire region. Windmill dunks, pull-up jumpers, everything.”

“Yup. He got even better in college, too.”

“I know. I saw him a couple summers ago at Hubbard Park, playing against John Williams.”

Williams, the best player ever to play at my high school, became a Division II All-American, started for the D-League’s Bakersfield Jam in 2009-’10, and now stars in Holland or Germany or some other country that I once knew and I’m now forgetting. My high school obviously doesn’t churn out NBA players very often, or even Division 1 players. UConn’s Kevin Freeman is Longmeadow High School’s most famous basketball alumni, but in high school, Williams was better.

“Because of that night, there’s still a warrant out for Matt Hall’s arrest,” I continued. “He’s wanted for the murder of John Williams. John could not handle him. It was the first time I ever saw someone outplay John.”

Two or three years after the fact, I was still talking about a summer league game.

Kevin Durant and Lebron James met yesterday when the Melo League battled the Goodman League for world supremacy, err, or something like it. Durant continued his assault of the summer tour, scoring 59 points. Lebron threw an alley-oop  to himself off the backboard, dropped either 32, 38, or 42 points, depending on who you believe, and won the game.

“People will say KD got the best of [Lebron],” wrote SB Nation’s Andrew Sharp, “but for every vicious crossover Durant threw, Bron countered with, say, an effortless fadeaway. For everything backbreaking three from Durant, there was LeBron wreaking havoc on the fast break. And yeah, Durant scored 59 to LeBron’s 38, but LeBron had to split his shots with Carmelo.

“Much as I’d love to give to the edge to KD, LeBron was every bit as unstoppable, and in the end, there was no clear winner.”

5,000 individuals spent $40 per ticket to watch several NBA stars compete in a contest that was at once  meaningless and the most important game ever played at Morgan St.’s Talmadge L. Hill Field House. Summer league basketball has always been played and stars have always participated, but the entire experience has never been so mainstream.

The NBA lockout has pushed previously unimportant games off grocery store shelves and into the kitchen of basketball-starved fans. If Durant had scored 66 points at Rucker Park last summer, we would have heard a brief whisper about it before going back to our “Stephen A. Smith reports that Dwyane Wade and Lebron James will — gasp — team up in Miami” headlines. But now there is no free agency to divert our attention, no NBA rumor mill, no promise that the NBA will return at the end of October. So we spend more time caring about summer exhibitions than ever before.

ESPN covered last night’s game. The Washington Post reported on it. SB Nation too. Tweeters tweeted about it. But only 4,500 people saw it in its entirety. There’s an exclusivity to summer league basketball that can beget legends and tall tales and myths, an aura that comes from the fact that this game won’t ever show up on ESPN Classic and it couldn’t be DVR’ed.

Whether you like it or not, our society gets facts more correct than ever before. We end arguments with simple Google searches. We check advanced statistics to explore players in more depth. We write blog posts expanding on blog posts which already expanded upon a column in the Boston Globe. We have become, or maybe we always have been, an information-crazed society. Our knowledge of sports can now be supplemented with facts that are more easily attainable than at any other point in history. But sometimes our easy access to undisputed truth can cloud the best stories in sports.

Could Dr. J grab a nickel off the backboard? Did Bill Russell really average somewhere in the vicinity of ten blocks per game in his prime? Did Pistol Pete Maravich once shoot a halfcourt heave to end a game, put his index finger in the air, turn his back to the basket, and trot off the court as the shot fell through the nets? I can’t prove that any of these events happens, but I can’t prove otherwise either. And maybe I’m better off not knowing. Maybe I’m better off left to contemplate whether such exploits are even possible, never mind whether they actually happened.

There’s something mystical about hearing that Kevin Durant scored 59 points but not knowing exactly how it happened. About hearing that Lebron scored 42 points, or 38 points, or 32 points, and not being able to prove which count was correct. About breathlessly following Michael Lee’s tweets about the game and imagining how the plays actually occurred.

Summer league basketball is becoming more popular than ever, but maybe it’s better off left in the shadows. Keep ESPN out of it and let the 5,000 people in attendance at these games weave tales and stories and try in vain to explain how majestic Durant’s performance was, how he stood toe-to-toe with Lebron and got the better of him, or how Lebron answered every call Durant made and also helped his team to a win. Learning all the facts is great and our knowledge of sports has never been better, but sometimes I just want to hear about a player’s accomplishments and wonder if they’re even possible without any proof one way or the other. I want to watch a game and remember it exactly how my mind tells me to, not how it looks when I re-watch it on YouTube ten years later.

In my mind, Matt Hall scored 50 points against John Williams on that day two or three summers ago. He drilled improbable fadeaway jumpers and impossible pull-up threes. He jumped so high that he kissed the net before laying in a finger roll from about a foot above the rim. The crowd buzzed, knowing we were witnessing something special, and Hall’s right hand kept getting hotter and hotter.

I can’t Google that game and tell you my facts are right. I can’t YouTube it and watch the highlights. I can’t search for the box score or explore the advanced stats or re-watch every play on Synergy Sports. Memory is all I have.

But damn it, that’s one hell of a memory.

The first three quarters were simply this:

And this:

The C’s finally picked up their defense in tonight’s fourth quarter. There were only two problems: the defense was a few quarters too late, and the offense didn’t come along for the ride. The result was an ugly 89-84 loss to the Oklahoma City Thunder, a loss that never should have happened. Not with Kevin Durant injured.

Westbrook and his scorching hot hand finally ran into the law of averages in the fourth quarter, but his run of bricks was matched by an equally brick-tacious Celtics squad. The Thunder missed their final thirteen field goal attempts, but the C’s missed nine straight of their own. The final miss was a Delonte West three-pointer from the corner that would have tied the game. The Celtics amped-up defense was electric, but they didn’t deserve this win. Not after three quarters of listless play.

Say what you want about the Thunder’s 6-9 three-point shooting clinic being an aberration (they came into the game last in the league in three-point %), but any guard in the NBA can make wide open jumpers. Okay, there are a few who can’t. One Celtic comes to mind. But almost every guard can make wide open jumpers, and that’s what the Thunder were getting. In the fourth quarter the Celtics finally started actively contesting shots, and guess what happened? Bad shooters missed tough shots. That’s kind of what happens, folks. As the defense improves, shooting percentages go down. There were a few Thunder shots that were lucky (I KNOW Royal Ivey didn’t call glass), but for the most part they made the easy shots and missed the difficult ones. It wasn’t rocket science.

Now comes where I break down individual performances. Do you want the good news or bad news first? Okay, we’ll start with the good. Shaq continued to play like a perfect fit. He positioned himself for easy shots, and the Celtics found him. It’s that simple. The Ray-to-Shaq alley was beautiful in the eye of any beholder. Paul Pierce’s dunk was also spectacular. My neighbors are still pissed off after my reaction. Luke Harangody played 21 seconds. That was a blast. Glen Davis drew a few more charges. To be expected. Rondo’s putback slam made him look like Shawn Kemp. Ridiculous. And Delonte West played great defense on Westbrook down the stretch. Good stuff.

Which brings us to the bad news. Why was West in the game down the stretch? Because Rondo hurt his hamstring and couldn’t finish out the game. Plus, Westbrook was abusing him so thoroughly that Bill Simmons tweeted, “Do any other Celts fans think Westbrook drove Rondo to pull Al Czervik’s ‘oooh, my arm, I think its broken!’ routine or am I too cynical?” Simmons is being too cynical. Firstly, Rondo’s as competitive as NBA players come. He’s no Vince Carter. Being torched made Rondo play harder, and he had already picked up the intensity before being forced to the bench. But Westbrook still treated him like a child for most of the night.

The C’s also couldn’t rebound worth a damn. Garnett only mustered two boards, and the C’s were out-rebounded by six caroms. The Thunder are frail inside. That should never happen. One more major flaw: It’s getting to the point where backup point guards eyes light up when they play the Celtics. Eric Maynor (13 minutes, 9 points, 4-6 shooting) is just the latest decent player Nate Robinson allowed to look like an All-Star. But hey, look on the bright side: at least it wasn’t Jose Juan Barea this time! And oh yeah, Glen Davis shot two fer ten. And two fer six from the line.

The Celtics dug in late, but failed to take advantage of opportunities. They enraged me pretty much throughout the entire 48 minutes, and at one point during the fourth quarter (I think it was when Shaq was called for a bogus flagrant foul), I’m pretty sure I was homicidal. Those are the times when I repeatedly whisper “Woo-sah” and remind myself, “Hey, at least it’s only one game.”

To beat an NBA team, even if Kevin Durant misses a game, you have to try for more than one quarter. Or at least, if you only try for one quarter, you can’t make only two field goals in said quarter.

Remember, folks: It’s only one night. Thank God.

(Images via @jose3030)