What a difference a year makes in NBA

WALTHAM, Mass. – Paul Pierce and Kobe Bryant were playing pickup basketball in a UCLA gym last summer, a couple of frustrated NBA stars trying to sweat away the memory of a disappointing season. Talk soon turned to trades.

Bryant had lashed out at Lakers management for assembling a team that hadn’t won a playoff series in three years. Boston had gone four years, and Pierce worried that he might become trade bait for the rebuilding process.

“I remember being in the gym with Kobe, and me and him were arguing over who was going to get traded first,” Pierce said Monday after the Celtics held their first practice in preparation for the NBA Finals.

“He went public about getting traded, … and I was like, ‘Shoot, I’m going to getting traded before you,’ and betting that it would happen. That’s what so crazy, now we’re both here sitting in the Finals. A year ago we were in the gym.”

No one wound up paying off the undisclosed stakes. Instead, both players stuck with the only NBA teams they’ve ever known and earned the chance to play for a championship.

Game 1 of the best-of-7 series is Thursday night in Boston.

The Celtics and Lakers have played each other in 10 previous championship series; the Celtics have won eight. Celtics coach Doc Rivers, who watched the Bryant drama unfold from afar, said he wouldn’t want it any other way.

“I was just happy he stayed out West” where he would only face Boston twice a year, Rivers said. “But I’m glad it worked out the way it worked out. Just like Paul Pierce is a Celtic, Kobe is a Laker.”