Let’s start with the obvious disclaimer that I’m a Celtics fan and I can’t stand the Los Angeles Lakers or Kobe Bryant. With that out of the way, let me explain why I think that the vast majority of basketball fans should be rooting for the Boston Celtics to win the NBA Championship this post season. If you’re a fan of one of the other three teams still remaining, you’re excused. We can all appreciate loyalty. Otherwise, your rooting interest should go to the Celtics for one very simple reason: Team.

The NBA has long pushed individual superstars. Whether it be Wilt, Magic, Bird, Michael, Kobe, or LeBron, the NBA has marketed individual greatness. It has ridden the back of individual superstars and turned them into marketing icons. For myself and I suspect at least some others, that emphasis on the individual has become a turn off – a gross and crass exuberance for the celebration of the selfish. Kobe Bryant and the media’s “LeBron Sweepstakes” obsession are the pinnacle of this trend. As great as Magic, Larry, and Michael were individually, the best thing about them was the way they helped spur their teams on to the greatest heights. Michael Jordan made Bill Wennington and an aging Bill Cartwright look like integral parts of championship teams. Kobe Bryant needed the individual skills of Shaq or Pau Gasol to help him win a championship. I actually hear complaints from Laker fans when Kobe doesn’t take enough shots. Wow.

Frankly, I’m sick of hearing about the “Black Mamba” and LeBron, and to my eyes, the Boston Celtics look like the antidote to a basketball culture that’s become all about “me.” The Celtics are so fun to watch right now because more than any other team they are winning by their combined talents. They buried LeBron James and the Cavaliers not with individually great performances (although Rajon Rondo’s impressive triple-double was just that), but by working together. To watch the Celtics pass the ball when their offense is running on all cylinders is a thing of beauty.

Watching three aging stars, a great young point guard, a tough center who does the little things, and a bench of misfits come together to shock the media darling teams has been a great pleasure, but more than anything, it represents a triumph of the team over the individual. Growing up, I was taught that team sports were about coming together to form a whole greater than the sum of the individual parts. That’s the Boston Celtics, and I for one hope they dispatch the Orlando Magic and go on to win the championship by proving that “we” is better than “me.”

You can keep Kobe, L.A. I’d rather have a team anyway.