Celtics Wearing the Banner of Unity

The Boston Celtics opened camp at Salve Regina University last week, a little more than three months after winning the franchise’s first championship in two decades.

The 6-foot-11 Kevin Garnett, one of the greatest all-around players in NBA history, set the tone for the season in brief remarks to the team. He cautioned that this season would be infinitely more challenging than the last one, that every game would be harder, more intense.

Garnett also reminded the team of ubuntu, a South African concept introduced by Coach Doc Rivers last season to underline the importance of selflessness, unity and teamwork: When the team is elevated, the individual is elevated; when the team is diminished, the individual is diminished.

“Kevin said: ‘Hey, you guys. This is a different journey, but ubuntu never leaves the way we play,’ ” Rivers recalled. “I couldn’t have summed that up better.”

Garnett and Ray Allen, perennial All-Stars, joined Paul Pierce on the Celtics last season to form the so-called Big Three. Rivers knew that the only way three superstars could flourish was if they embraced the essence of ubuntu.

“A person is a person through another person,” Rivers said. “I can’t be all I can be unless you are all you can be.”

We like to write sports articles about teams with less talent defeating the more talented team because of grit and superior teamwork. In an era of ferocious individualism, the Celtics are an example of great individual talent yielding to the team concept.

Before practice on Thursday morning, Rivers asked the rookie Bill Walker to read a passage about unity. The theme was: the strength of a team is its players; the strength of the player is the team.

“You can’t do it by yourself,” Rivers said. “Individuals don’t win, teams win.”

As Rivers spoke about team and unity, I thought about a brief but poignant visit to the Knicks’ camp two days earlier. That trip underlined the necessity of quality leadership and the perils for teams — and franchises — that fail to develop it. The atmosphere at Celtics camp was a sharp departure from the mood in Saratoga Springs, N.Y., where the Knicks opened camp at Skidmore College.

While the Celtics’ best player was talking to his teammates about maintaining an “all for one and one for all” mentality, the Knicks’ best player, Stephon Marbury, was embroiled in a controversy that had nothing to do with winning or losing. Would Marbury stay or would he go? Was he the cure or was he the problem?

Contemporary millionaire athletes walk a difficult line between the love of the game and the business of the game. This creates constant tension to avoid the love being used against them and the business making them cynical.

The Celtics have a clear view of a second straight championship because the best player is also one of the team leaders.

I asked Rivers if he saw hope for the Knicks. Ever.

“Absolutely,” he said. “I was a part of it when the Knicks were good. I was there. There was no better feeling as a player than playing in that city when you’re winning. It was a phenomenal feeling, with that whole ‘Go New York, go New York, go.’ The city was going nuts. That will return. I don’t know what day, what year, but it’s going to return.”

Rivers spent two-plus seasons with the Knicks and came close to a championship. He was part of the 1992-93 team that lost to the Chicago Bulls in the Eastern Conference finals and the 1993-94 team that lost to the Houston Rockets in the N.B.A. finals. He never won a championship in 13 seasons as an N.B.A. player, and began to wonder if he would ever win one as a coach. Rivers remembered being serenaded by chants of “Fire Doc!” two seasons ago — during a loss against the Knicks in Boston.

What made the championship so sweet was the hard road it took to get there. Walking that road required Rivers, Pierce, Garnett and Allen to move out of their comfort zones and accommodate one another.

“There’s an amazing amount of hurt that goes with that,” Rivers said. “The only way you’re going to win is that you’ve got to open yourself up to hurt. You’ve got to open yourself up and go for it. You may have to pass more, you may have to set an extra pick, you may have to dive on the floor for a loose ball.”

The team has no new phrase or slogan this season. The Celtics’ motivation comes from the city itself. The Boston area has become a nominal Titletown. The Red Sox are the defending World Series champions; the Patriots were undefeated before losing to the Giants in the Super Bowl.

Rivers’s team is competing against the N.B.A. and the franchise’s legacy. The Celtics have won 17 championships, including eight straight from 1959 to 1966.

“We’re one of many banners,” Rivers reminded his players.

That theme again: one of many.

Rivers’s concept of ubuntu is a beacon for all players — from Stephon Marbury to Kevin Garnett: putting ego aside, putting team first.

Sounds old-school, but it works.