BOSTON – David Lee and Amir Johnson bring experience, division titles, an NBA championship and an old school, blue collar brand of basketball to the Boston Celtics.
But beyond their talent, they also bring increased optimism that their arrival will be just what the Celtics need in order to improve upon last season’s strong regular season finish and maybe – just maybe – advance past the first round of the playoffs for the first time since the lockout-shortened 2012 season.
“Those guys have been on winning teams,” said Boston’s Marcus Smart. “David Lee was on a championship team and he knows what it takes, and those two are very great players and anybody would love to have them on their team.”
When the Celtics acquired Lee during the offseason from the Warriors, there were some concerns that the 32-year-old Lee might not want to be part of a team in the middle of rebuilding after having played for a championship team last season.
“Actually, coming here might have been tougher if we didn’t win a championship in Golden State last year,” Lee told CSNNE.com. “It would have felt like leaving with some unfinished business still out there. But having the season go as it did, coming here feels good. We have a young team, a talented team; a team that’s definitely on the rise.”
And that youth will benefit from the experienced tandem of Lee and Johnson.
“That’s fine with me,” Johnson told CSNNE.com in relation to being looked upon as a leader. “I’ve had a lot of good mentors being in the league. Now it’s my time to take some of what they taught me and helped me with, and pass that on to the younger players.”
Isaiah Thomas spent this offseason trying to drum up interest for the Celtics among potential free agents. While he didn’t have the kind of success he would have wanted along those lines, he feels good about his new teammates.
“They are great veterans,” Thomas said. “They've been in the league ten-plus years, and David Lee has won an NBA championship, he's been an All-Star, you can learn from that; anybody on this team can. Amir Johnson, every time his name comes up you only hear good things about him, and that says a lot about him, not just as a basketball player but as a person and those type of guys help team chemistry. All in all and we can't wait to get out there on the court with them.”
After spending the first few weeks of training camp getting a feel for what they could do, both Lee and Johnson seem ready to contribute both on and off the court.
“I'll just say having gone through the battles in the league, I think that being able to teach the young guys a little bit, never to get too high, never to get too low, and I think consistency is a very difficult thing to have in the NBA,” Lee said. “That's what I think experience has brought me, is knowing who you are as a player. And for every guy that's different, but going out there and playing the best you can to your strengths, and keeping the focus on the team and keeping the focus on helping the team win games … I think if you keep that focus and be consistent with that, then everybody pulls their weight, then your team can be that much better.
Lee added, “I used to think you have to be a hero every night when I was younger in the league and by putting up 30 points every night, that's what I had to do. But when you look back on it, if you can be efficient on the floor and you can do the things that you're put out there to do, that makes everybody around you better.”
And that – making those around you better – has been one of Johnson’s strengths especially when he was in Toronto.
“Amir's a guy that when you look at him, you see all of the things that he does well,” said Celtics head coach Brad Stevens. “He's not the person that somebody will point to and say ‘he is an unreal scorer, he's an unbelievable rebounder, he's an unbelievable pass,’ but he does all of those things well and as a result, his teams do well when he's on the floor. That's been pretty consistent throughout the last few years, and I expect that it will be the same this year.”
His former head coach in Toronto, Dwyane Casey, echoed similar sentiments about Johnson.
“You’re just a better team with him, then you are without,” Casey told CSNNE.com. “He’s all about doing what’s best for the team.”
Which is why despite not being one of the more talked-about players on the free agency market this past summer, Johnson was a player the Celtics targeted early.
“That was a surprise because I hadn’t really heard much about Boston leading up to free agency,” Johnson said. “But after talking with Danny (Ainge, the Celtics’ president of basketball operations) and Brad (Stevens, the team’s head coach), it came together pretty quick after that. I could see we were all on the same page. They wanted someone to come in, work hard, provide some leadership and just do what it takes to win. That’s my game.”
And Wednesday night’s season opener will offer up the first glimpse as to how the Celtics’ two newest members will not only mesh with their new teammates, but also with a fan base that both admired from afar.
“Just years of being around the league, they (Celtics fans) are very protective of their team,” Johnson said. “They have your back 100 percent and I love that. When it comes to the Boston fans it's almost like religious. The teams around here, they worship the teams and I love that about them.”