In NBA, Wins Can Multiply By the Power of Three

Three can be company, or it can be a crowd. For those who grew up watching "Schoolhouse Rock" or watched Tim Duncan, Tony Parker and Manu Ginobili sweep LeBron James's one-man show in the NBA Finals, three is a magic number.

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As in: Get three stars, surround them with willing role players and wait for success.

Several playoff-caliber teams around the league -- including Phoenix, Washington and New Jersey -- are already using the three-star system that has produced championships for the San Antonio Spurs in two of the past three seasons.

This summer, Danny Ainge, the Boston Celtics' executive director of basketball operations, assembled another star-studded triple threat when he granted Paul Pierce's wish for veteran help by acquiring former league most valuable player Kevin Garnett from Minnesota and Ray Allen from Seattle.

"Everybody is a copycat. You want to copy success," Celtics Coach Doc Rivers said. "You would love to do the same thing San Antonio does because they do it so right; their management and their coaching. But I think Tony Parker and Ginobili evolved into the other two, because before that, Tim was the Big One. Now, it is the Big Three."

And now, as the NBA's regular season opens, the Celtics have a Big Three. Ainge -- the formerly much-maligned general manager -- has made his organization relevant for the first time since Larry Bird, Kevin McHale and Robert Parish were leading the franchise to three NBA championships in the 1980s. With Garnett's rebounding and boundless energy, Allen's precise shooting and Pierce's relentless slashing ability, the Celtics are considered one of the favorites to win the Eastern Conference.

"I feel they are going to be the team to beat," said Bird, now president of basketball operations for the Indiana Pacers. "On any given night, any one of those guys is liable to get 30 points. It's always good to have the three guys."

In the 1990s, the Chicago Bulls built a dynasty with Michael Jordan and Scottie Pippen and the Spurs followed with Duncan and David Robinson. Then the Los Angeles Lakers dominated the first part of this decade with Shaquille O'Neal and Kobe Bryant. "I think there was prevailing thought that you needed two superstars and the rest of them fit around," said Phoenix Suns Coach Mike D'Antoni, whose team has been to the Western Conference finals in two of the past three seasons.

Now, three is the new two.

D'Antoni said the Suns' all-star trio of Steve Nash, Amare Stoudemire and Shawn Marion works because the team has a scorer in Marion who doesn't need to monopolize the ball to score. While Nash controls the ball, he makes a concerted effort to get his teammates involved. "Ours is a unique situation," D'Antoni said.

But it is certainly not perfect. Marion recently demanded a trade out of frustration over persistent trade rumors surrounding him and fueled speculation about underlying jealousies between him and Stoudemire. Since Antawn Jamison arrived in Washington in 2004, the Wizards have relied on three players for the bulk of the scoring -- first with Gilbert Arenas and Larry Hughes, then with Caron Butler replacing Hughes -- and the team is having its most successful run in decades. Last season, the Wizards' Big Three were the highest-scoring trio in the league, averaging 67.3 points per game. Jamison said he, Butler and Arenas get along well because the team has had success, which eliminates any frustration over who gets the shots or the credit.

"The one cure is winning," Jamison said. "When you're losing, you say: 'I could've converted shots. I could've got a few more looks.' As long as you're winning, you deal with it."