November 10, 2008 – Dr. Anklesnap
A little while ago I told all of you about a new book being released this month about the championship Boston Celtics team of 2007-2008, chronicalling their meteoric rise from being a lottery team to being the NBA champions in just one season. Well I read the book this weekend and it was amazing. There were so many inside looks through quotes and stories about the events leading up to the transactions to acquire Garnett, Allen, House, Posey, etc.
One of my favorite chapters in the book however was called “Ubuntu” and it gave a behind the scenes look into the Celtics now famed chant from last season “One, Two, Three, UBUNTU!” I had heard about the chant quite a few times but until I read the book I didn’t know the true meaning behind the word Ubuntu or why Doc Rivers chose the word itself to motivate his team.
In the chapter when Coach Rivers first introduces the word to the new look Celtic squad he tasks the rookies with doing some research on the african word and giving the rest of the team a short presentation on what it’s true meaning is. I don’t want to give away too much for those of you that haven’t read Peter May’s book Top of the World yet, but I guess the least I can do is give you Glen “Big Baby” Davis’ take on what Ubuntu means to him:
“I just told them it was a word that represented the start of a journey, that we were all in this together, and we were going to stand by this word and live by this word, verbally and nonverbally, if we had any hope of winning a championship.”
For those of you who read Top of the World already, you’ll agree with me that the Celtics were successful in standing and living by the word Ubuntu last season. And by doing so they received the greatest reward possible.
Are the Celtics still living by Ubuntu? Can they repeat their success from 2008?
