Tom Curran • E-mail

It was May 30, 2007 — exactly one year ago Friday — that Kobe Bryant said, “I would like to be traded. And as tough as it is to say that, as tough as it is to come to that conclusion, there's no other alternative.”

Goodbye Kobe in L.A.? Goodbye NBA relevance for the Lakers.

A continent away, the Boston Celtics weren’t worried about Kobe. The C’s were still in intensive care after getting iced in the NBA Draft Lottery on May 22, 2007. The ping-pong balls came up wrong. There would be no Greg Oden. There would be no Kevin Durant. And the Celtics were on their way to re-signing their long-term lease in NBA oblivion.

Celtics and Lakers in the NBA Finals? Only on ESPN Classic, friends.

And yet, here we are. Thursday, the Celtics and Lakers will get it on in a reprisal of arguably the greatest NBA rivalry of them all. Simply. Astounding.

People will tell you in the coming days this is the matchup everyone wanted to see. Folks in San Antonio, Detroit, Cleveland and Utah (to name a few) would beg to differ. But it is the matchup with the greatest lure because of all its lore.

Two decades ago, Celtics-Lakers was a rite of late spring. You had Dancing Barry in L.A. and temperatures in the 100s inside Boston Garden. Bird vs. Magic. Parish vs. Kareem. Worthy vs. McHale. East Coast vs. West Coast. Showtime vs. Celtic Pride. Ready-made storylines in a trilogy of NBA Finals meetings in 1984, 1985 and 1987.

Now, even though the cities and the uniforms are the same, the storylines have changed. The Garden’s been demolished and you can’t even find Dancing Barry with a Google search.

This time around, the meeting is about the incredible roads these teams traveled to get here and what winning will mean to the legacies of the protagonists — Kobe on the Lakers side; Kevin Garnett, Paul Pierce and Ray Allen on the Celtics side.

Kobe Bryant is the closest thing on the planet to Michael Jordan in style, intensity and offensive genius. For him to win a title without Shaquille O’Neal, with HIS Lakers, will cement his place at the right hand of His Airness.

For those Celtics, these Finals are about validating great and possible Hall of Fame careers (KG is close to a lock; Pierce and Allen could creep closer to being worthy of consideration).

The historical references to Wilt and Russell, Jerry West and John Havlicek and, yes, Bird and Magic will be stacked high but there is no unbroken line connecting these teams to those.

Special feature Where are they now? NBCSports.com spills the whereabouts of past Celtics and Lakers stars. NBCSports.com

This is its own entity borne of the new era NBA. The Celtics were the worst team in the Eastern Conference last year. Now they are in the Finals thanks to the dealing done by Celtics GM Danny Ainge who pushed all his chips into the middle of the table to get Allen and Garnett and made Pierce want to stick around.

And the Lakers are here because salve was applied to Bryant’s wounded sensibilities and the Lakers hoop whisperer, Phil Jackson got Kobe to buy back in.

Special feature Rivalry renewed The Lakers and Cetics are meeting for the 11th time in NBA Finals history. NBCSports.com

Boston’s road to the Finals has been harder. After going 66-15 in the regular season — the best record in the league — they struggled through seven-game series’ with the Hawks and Cavaliers. Then the Celtics had to negotiate their way past Detroit — a team with less talent but a ridiculous edge in experience. Boston finally put it together Friday night in Game 6. Trailing 70-60 with 10:29 to go in the fourth, the Celtics ripped the Eastern Conference title from the Pistons on their home court with a 29-11 run down the stretch. The big game concerns about Garnett, the notion that they’d be out of gas after their previous series, the fear that the Pistons wouldn’t ever die were all wiped out in that stretch that delivered Boston.

NBA Finals: Celtics vs. Lakers Boston wins series 4-2 Green Machine! Celtics roll to 17th title Curran: Big Three sacrifice to win Big One Ventre: Lakers must improve defense   Slide show: Images from the NBA Finals Vote: Will Celtics repeat?  |  MVP? Jones: Not so fast on a Celtics-Lakers rematch Participate! Share your thoughts  |  Send photos Look at each Celtics title  |  How they were built

And now they face a Lakers team led by the best player in basketball and the winningest coach in history. If Boston can pull this off, it will arguably be the greatest turnaround in league history. If the Lakers pull it off, the idea that Bryant is as good as Jordan in his prime may not be as heretical as people undoubtedly think.

This may not be The Finals everyone wanted. And it definitely isn’t The Finals anyone foresaw 365 days ago. But it will be one nobody forgets.

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