Los Angeles  - The Boston Celtics are NBA champions again. The United States is Olympic champions again.

It took a while, but 2008 saw the basketball world finally returned to its axis.

The year also saw a long-awaited Most Valuable Player award for Kobe Bryant, the emergence of Europe as a potential player in the pursuit of NBA talent and the sentencing of a disgraced former referee who fixed outcomes of games. But 2008 was clearly coloured red, white and blue - and green.

The most storied franchise in NBA history, the Celtics had won 16 NBA titles but were without one since 1986, a stretch that included several seasons as league laughing stock. As recently as 2007, Boston had lost 58 games and appeared to be mired in mediocrity.

That all changed last season, when the acquisitions of superstars Kevin Garnett and Ray Allen teamed with franchise mainstay Paul Pierce to transform the Celtics into NBA power houses once again.

Boston won 66 games - a league-record 42-game turnaround from the previous season - and entered the playoffs as the top seed. The Celtics struggled a bit in the first two rounds as they were pushed to seventh games by both upstart Atlanta and established Cleveland before advancing.

But the pressure seemed to steel the Celtics, who had an easier time with both Detroit in the conference finals and the Los Angeles Lakers in the NBA Finals, securing their first championship in 22 years.

It also was the first championship for Garnett, Allen and Pierce, who had 24 All-Star appearances among them but never had played for a title, let alone won one.

"You guys look at Kevin, myself and Ray, we sacrificed so much of what we did throughout our careers to get to this point because we've done everything we've been able to do individually, won all type of awards, but never made it to the mountaintop," said Pierce, who was named Finals MVP.

All of the Celtics took a well-deserved summer off while a dozen NBA stars comprised the "Redeem Team" - the unit charged with reclaiming the Olympic gold medal for the United States in Beijing.

The U. S. began sending NBA players to the Olympics in 1992 and won three straight gold medals. But each one became successively harder, and the new millennium saw a bold new dynamic: The rest of the basketball world had caught up to America.

Team USA lost three times and settled for a disappointing bronze at the 2004 Olympics, which prompted a restructuring of USA Basketball. With former Phoenix Suns owner Jerry Colangelo taking authoritative control of the roster - including the questioned choice of a college coach in Duke's Mike Krzyzewski - the Americans set off on the "Road to Redemption."

There were a couple of detours along the way, most notably a stunning semifinal loss to Greece in the 2006 World Championships in Japan that forced Team USA into a FIBA qualifier to return to the Olympics. But with committed stars such as Bryant, LeBron James and Chris Paul unselfishly leading the way, the Americans never lost again.

"This was easy," Krzyzewski said. "All these guys committed to Jerry Colangelo three years ago and they said they want to be part of a team. And Jerry said, 'We're going to have one collective ego but we want you to bring all your egos because that's how you get better.'"

The gold medal game against reigning world champion Spain was not easy as Team USA was clinging to a two-point lead with eight minutes to play. But clutch baskets by Bryant - the same sort of play that won him the NBA MVP - secured gold for the Americans.

While NBA superstars were re-establishing their global status over the summer, reserve forward Josh Childress became the first American player in recent memory to opt for Europe over the NBA while in the prime of his career.

Childress signed a three-year, 20-million-dollar contract with Olympiacos of Greece, a deal that doubled what he could have gotten from an NBA club. However, commissioner David Stern doesn't believe his superstars are going anywhere.

"It's not something that we are seeing at the moment other than something that's good for the players, mostly players at the mid-tier or slightly below," Stern said.

Stern also saw his league end one of its most embarrassing chapters as former referee Tim Donaghy was sentenced to 15 months in prison and the NBA hired a former U. S. Army general to oversee referee programmes.

Just another way of restoring order in the basketball world. (dpa)