It's a numbers game, people

Showdown verdict: Bulls can be top NBA dynasty

There's only once choice: Boston Celtics, 1958-59 through 1965-66. That's eight -- count 'em -- eight championships in a row.

The Celtics had many banner years at the old Boston Garden.

Did the Lakers ever approach that? No.

Can the Bulls come close? Get serious.

Eight straight. It hasn't happened in pro football and it hasn't happened in baseball -- not even the Casey Stengel Yankees won more than five in a row.

In his prime as a coach, Red Auerbach put teams on the floor that featured Bill Russell, Tom Heinsohn, Sam and K.C. Jones and won anywhere from 52 to 62 games each regular season during their eight-year title run.

Bob Cousy played on five of those championships teams as well as the one that won Boston's first title in 1957 with Heinsohn, Russell, Bill Sharman, Frank Ramsey, et al.

Like Cousy, Ramsey also played a major role in that championship string, retiring after they put up the sixth banner in Boston Garden.

The Celtics played 100 playoff games in that stretch. They won 67 of them.

Only it gets better.

	ZONE POLL

Over the span of a decade the Celtics won nine titles, all with Auerbach as coach. Over a period of 13 years through 1969 they won 11 championships, Russell player-coach for the last two.

How can five Lakers championships during the Showtime era compare to that?

How can three consecutive Chicago titles -- four in five years -- in a league with watered-down talent compare to the Celtics' achievement?

Take a step beyond and consider the Celtics' influence from that era to this one.

K.C. Jones and Tom Heinsohn each won titles as coach of the Celtics. Bill Sharman was coach and later general manager with the Lakers. Don Nelson (three titles as a player) became a successful coach in Milwaukee and Golden State.

Wayne Embry ('68) became general manager of the Cleveland Cavaliers, Don Chaney with Houston and a guy named John Thompson (two titles) at Georgetown, where he produced a long line of great NBA big men.

Were the Celtics the best?

"They were something. No matter what, they found a way to beat you," says Atlanta coach Lenny Wilkens, a former St. Louis Hawk. "I played against them, so I know."

Jeffrey Denberg covers the Atlanta Hawks for the Atlanta Journal-Constitution and is a regular contributor to ESPNET SportsZone.