The Celtics stole Garnett.
Fucking stole him.
I don't care how many potentially excellent down-the-road players and draft picks they exchanged - any time you get the opportunity to fuck the hottest girl in the club, you spend a couple bills on some drinks and some blow, you bring your A-game, you take her home, and you fuck her senseless.
Without Garnett, the chances of the Celtics winning the NBA Finals in the next three years were approximately zero.
Now, they've got a legitimate puncher's chance to contend for the title for three (or maybe even four) seasons.
Role players like Robert Horry are nice complementary players to have - but there are literally dozens (if not hundreds) of them.
While I'm not the biggest Garnett fan, he is, admittedly, one of the 10 best players in the league, and along with Pierce (Top 20) and Allen (also overrated, but still Top 30-ish), the Celtics could fill the rest of their roster with the worst nine players in the NBA and still have an infinitely better chance to win the title than before they made this trade.
It's not a perfect analogy, because Shaq was indeed The Great Aristotle, and Kobe was (and is) <censored for over-the-top-LL-Kobe-homoerotic-hyperbole>, but take a look at the rest of the Lakers' rosters from 2000, 2001, and 2002 - they THREEPEATED with two superduperstars and ten players who could barely start in the WNBA.
You don't (with the notable exceptions of the Pistons a couple years back) win championships with a collection of very good to excellent players - when play-off time comes along, teams like the 80's Lakers and Celtics, the 90's Bulls, and the Early '00's Lakers won the overwhelming majority of the NBA Finals because they had MULTIPLE SUPERSTARS - and because there are only five players per team on the court at any given time, it's virtually IMPOSSIBLE to stop MULTIPLE superstars simultaneously.
As a Knick fan, I'm disappointed - the East *was* wide open for the taking, but now, in my opinion, the Celtics, Cavs, Nets and Pistons are the only Eastern Conference teams with a reasonable shot at making a serious run at the title - and to be honest, I'd install the Celtics as next year's Eastern Conference favorite over those other three very good, but not quite excellent teams.
Celtic fans should be lining up to deep throat Kevin McHale right this second.