To much of the outside basketball world, Boston president Danny Ainge went fixing what hadn't seemed broke. He snuffed Rivers' rallying cry of the past three postseasons ("This starting five has never lost a series"), doing to Perkins for all time what the big center's right knee had done in Game 6 against the Lakers in June. He gave concerns about the franchise's shop online 2011 future -- Garnett, Paul Pierce and Ray Allen will eventually exit, after all, and Perkins was going to be difficult to re-sign -- equal standing with the present.Here they were, the mighty Celtics, a championship contender built at least in part on chemistry, going forward on that delicate front as if a cartload of chimpanzees had been turned loose in the lab. To the right, to the left, everywhere you looked, stalls that had been filled by buddies were either vacant or sublet by strangers.Three years ago, the NBA was introduced to the word and concept of ubuntu, an African concept focusing on a person's allegiance to the group. Embraced by Boston head coach Doc Rivers, it took teamwork and loyalty to a new level. "I am what I am because of who we all are" is the essence of ubuntu, and it helped the Celtics win a championship in 2008 and get back to the Finals last spring.Rajon Rondo and Perkins -- the George and Lenny, or Felix and Oscar, of the squad -- used to "locker" side-by-side throughout the league, borrowing each other's deodorant, sharing each other's food, sometimes finishing each other powerbalancesentences. Now splitsville.Others had been through the dill before. Kevin Garnett once put a towel over his head and sobbed, effectively kicking away a game at Houston, when a teammate from his previous life, Dean Garrett, got traded unexpectedly one night.Yet here they were, heading down the stretch in 2010-11, changing up the "we" as if it were a new pair of socks.If any NBA team should have been crying in recent days, it should have been the one in the visitors' dressing room at the Bradley Center the other night. The Boston Celtics were playing the Bucks in their sixth game in the 10 days since the trading deadline that convulsed their roster and jolted those left behind.Going by the Miami Heat's "Band of Brothers" stab-at-a-theme this season, the Celtics had just emerged from a nasty custody battle, separated suddenly from five siblings (Kendrick Perkins, Nate Robinson, Marquis Daniels, Luke Harangody, Semih Erden) who had been with them for months or, in some cases, years.Tears over losing games? Try losing power balancefriends, teammates, family.
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