That's probably why, in the NBA, the Boston Celtics and Los Angeles Lakers teams of the '80s, led by Larry Bird and Magic Johnson, respectively, rate higher than the Michael Jordan-led Chicago Bulls clubs of the 1990s.

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As such, the Knicks' role players struggled mightily against the Pacers and, before that, the Boston Celtics, a pair of teams that pride themselves on making opponents shoot from midrange, by far the most inefficient area of the court.

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The Philadelphia 76ers share their facility (the Wells Fargo Center) with the Villanova Wildcats, and North Carolina, Michigan State and Connecticut all have professional basketball teams (Charlotte Bobcats, Detroit Pistons and Boston Celtics, respectively) within a 51-100 mile range from where they play their regular season home games.

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Eight of the 20 teams on our scorecard hail from that decade: the Boston Celtics of 1984 and 1986, the Los Angeles Lakers of 1985, the Calgary Flames, and the Montreal Canadiens and San Francisco 49ers of 1989, along with the 1984 Detroit Tigers and 1986 New York Mets.

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Manchester United itself was publicly traded as recently as 2005, and three American professional sports teams have also been traded on American markets in the past: the Boston Celtics, Cleveland Indians and Florida Panthers.

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Lebron James looked at the careers of stars like Ray Allen and Kevin Garnett, who were All Stars but unable to win a Championship until they left their mediocre teams and joined forces with Paul Pierce to form the BIG 3 of the Boston Celtics.

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"I think when you go through tragedy as a city you kind of look for something to cling on, and really I believe that the city of Boston lives and dies with our sports teams and they're going to be watching closely, " longtime Celtics star Paul Pierce said.

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