Helping Kobe Bryant name five Boston Celtics

Kobe Bryant has said that he can’t name five current Boston Celtics players. To be exact – he said, “nope.”


The Celtics players Kobe did reference have moved on from Boston – Paul Pierce twice over, Kevin Garnett and Kendrick Perkins – to elsewhere in the league.

From Steve Bulpett at the Boston Herald, Kobe said:

What’s really weird is my kids, when we watch TV and we watch the games. They’ll see Kendrick Perkins and they’ll see Paul (Pierce) and see KG (Kevin Garnett) in different places, and they’ll be like, ‘Wait, what are they doing there?’ You know what I mean? It’s like really awkward. And it puts things in perspective, because I’m seeing things from their perspective.

Whether being sincere or perhaps a tiny bit facetious – with Kobe being a member of the longtime rival Lakers and all – it kills me to agree, but his sentiment holds validity. The Celtics have made almost a half dozen moves since the Lakers faced them in Boston last December. At the very least, his lack of Celtics player knowledge is a positive reinforcement of the rebuild that Danny Ainge is executing.

Looking ahead, Kobe has exactly one month until the Lakers host the Celtics at the Staples Center. It seems like a reasonable amount of time to learn five names and I think I can help.

We can apply a formula using the last letters of Celtics players' first names to spell out, NERDY (which ironically after this post, I might be described as):

EvaN Turner
JaE Crowder
TyleR Zeller
JareD Sullinger
AverY Bradley

To make it potentially even easier – and admittedly, pretty cool – we can use the last letters of five Celtics’ last names to spell out, GREEN:

James YounG
Jared SullingeR
Tayshaun PrincE
Gerald WallacE
Marcus ThorntoN

Crisis averted. You are welcome, Kobe. See you on February 22nd for a quiz.

Follow me on Twitter @stephmbenz
Share