Three can be company, or it can be a crowd. For those who grew up watching "Schoolhouse Rock" or watched Tim Duncan, Tony Parker and Manu Ginobili sweep LeBron James's one-man show in the NBA Finals, three is a magic number.
As in: Get three stars, surround them with willing role players and wait for success.
Several playoff-caliber teams around the league — including Phoenix, Washington and New Jersey — are already using the three-star system that has produced championships for the San Antonio Spurs in two of the past three seasons.
This summer, Danny Ainge, the Boston Celtics' executive director of basketball operations, assembled another star-studded triple threat when he granted Paul Pierce's wish for veteran help by acquiring former league most valuable player Kevin Garnett from Minnesota and Ray Allen from Seattle.
"Everybody is a copycat. You want to copy success," Celtics Coach Doc Rivers said. "You would love to do the same thing San Antonio does because they do it so right; their management and their coaching. But I think Tony Parker and Ginobili evolved into the other two, because before that, Tim was the Big One. Now, it is the Big Three."
And now, as the NBA's regular season opens, the Celtics have a Big Three. Ainge — the formerly much-maligned general manager — has made his organization relevant for the first time since Larry Bird, Kevin McHale and Robert Parish were leading the franchise to three NBA championships in the 1980s. With Garnett's rebounding and boundless energy, Allen's precise shooting and Pierce's relentless slashing ability, the Celtics are considered one of the favorites to win the Eastern Conference.
"I feel they are going to be the team to beat," said Bird, now president of basketball operations for the Indiana Pacers. "On any given night, any one of those guys is liable to get 30 points. It's always good to have the three guys."
In the 1990s, the Chicago Bulls built a dynasty with Michael Jordan and Scottie Pippen and the Spurs followed with Duncan and David Robinson. Then the Los Angeles Lakers dominated the first part of this decade with Shaquille O'Neal and Kobe Bryant. "I think there was prevailing thought that you needed two superstars and the rest of them fit around," said Phoenix Suns Coach Mike D'Antoni, whose team has been to the Western Conference finals in two of the past three seasons.
Now, three is the new two.
D'Antoni said the Suns' all-star trio of Steve Nash, Amare Stoudemire and Shawn Marion works because the team has a scorer in Marion who doesn't need to monopolize the ball to score. While Nash controls the ball, he makes a concerted effort to get his teammates involved. "Ours is a unique situation," D'Antoni said.
But it is certainly not perfect. Marion recently demanded a trade out of frustration over persistent trade rumors surrounding him and fueled speculation about underlying jealousies between him and Stoudemire. Since Antawn Jamison arrived in Washington in 2004, the Wizards have relied on three players for the bulk of the scoring — first with Gilbert Arenas and Larry Hughes, then with Caron Butler replacing Hughes — and the team is having its most successful run in decades. Last season, the Wizards' Big Three were the highest-scoring trio in the league, averaging 67.3 points per game. Jamison said he, Butler and Arenas get along well because the team has had success, which eliminates any frustration over who gets the shots or the credit.
"The one cure is winning," Jamison said. "When you're losing, you say: 'I could've converted shots. I could've got a few more looks.' As long as you're winning, you deal with it."
Garnett, Allen and Pierce have a combined 22 all-star appearances, but no championship rings, with each losing in their lone trip to the conference finals; Garnett as part of a Big Three in Minnesota, Allen as part of a Big Three in Milwaukee and Pierce as part of a two-man chucking crew with Antoine Walker.
Garnett was in Pierce's position as the cornerstone of an offseason remodeling four years ago. For many years the lone wolf, Garnett flourished as a member of a Big Three with Latrell Sprewell and Sam Cassell and won the MVP award in 2004. Cassell came from Milwaukee, where he shared a marquee with Allen and Glenn Robinson for more than four years. Having played in a Big Three with Garnett and Allen, Cassell has no worries about how the newcomers will work with Pierce this season. He is among many who believe that Garnett is the reason this group won't have chemistry problems.
"Kevin is the most unselfish ballplayer in the game of basketball," said Cassell, now a point guard for the Los Angeles Clippers. "Kevin is going to make the game easier for Ray and make it easier for Paul."
Allen said being part of a three-pronged offense "can be stressful" because the player with the more passive personality could easily watch his numbers decrease with teammates hell-bent on putting up shots. Allen and Robinson traded barbs shortly after the two parted ways, with Allen suggesting that Robinson was selfish. Cassell said the primary issue with the Bucks was that Allen and Robinson were young, gunning for all-star appearances and reputations. Former Houston Rockets general manager Carroll Dawson formed two talented threesomes in the late '90s that yielded mixed results. The combination of former MVPs Charles Barkley and Hakeem Olajuwon and Clyde Drexler led the Rockets to the conference finals in 1997. Dawson said that the three stars might not have thrived "if those guys were young and trying to establish their image in this league."
The failed experiment of the Three J's in Dallas — Jason Kidd, Jimmy Jackson and Jamal Mashburn — is a classic example of young players battling for acclaim.
But age and experience doesn't always equal maturity. Feeling that the window for Olajuwon and Barkley was closing, Dawson made a last ditch move in 1999 when he acquired Pippen from the Bulls. But the move backfired, and after the Rockets got knocked out in the first round, Pippen forced a trade to Portland and blasted Barkley's "sorry fat butt" on the way out the door. "The chemistry problem is always the worry," Dawson said. "Sometimes, you're right. Sometimes, you're wrong. When we traded for Scottie, it didn't work as well. He didn't fit in as well."
Bird said every member of the current Celtics "will have to buy in" for it to work, adding that his teams were successful because the players surrendered personal agendas for team success. "I mean, Robert really sacrificed a lot to play in that type of system," Bird said. "He was such a great scorer and shooter, he didn't get as many shots as he probably liked at the time. But to make it all work, he knew for the betterment of the team, it was probably better if he didn't have 20 shots a night."
Garnett said he is looking forward to having some weight lifted from his shoulders. "The thing the three of us share is that the three of us carried teams," Garnett said of himself, Pierce and Allen. "It's good to have help. You're not always front and center."
