Celtics guard Rajon Rondo, right, driving to the basket past Nuggets center Marcus Camby during the second quarter last night, and his Boston teammates were too much for Denver to handle in Boston’s 119-93 victory. Story, Page D3.

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AP / Charles Krupa

Remember all those people around here the past few years who said they hated the NBA?

All those who said they didn’t watch it anymore?

Well, there are a lot less of them now.

Why?

Simple.

The Celtics are good.

Which is not to say that some of the NBA’s image problems still don’t persist as we enter another season. Some of this is generational, of course, the fallout from the fact that hip-hop culture now runs through the NBA like a fast break. There are still a generation of fans that cling to the Bird era as though it’s like the memory of childhood, something that never can be replicated, and see the contemporary NBA as basketball heresy, full of too many tattoos, too many thugs, a different game than the one they used to love.

Some of it, certainly, is the obsession with both the Red Sox and the Patriots, to the point that the seasons seemed to go from the Patriots in the playoffs to spring training.

Anything else?

Anything else was off the radar.

But, truth be told, the main reason why people around here didn’t like the NBA was that the Celtics weren’t any good. Or how do you get them excited about Rajon Rondo and Leon Powe when they had seen Larry Bird and Kevin McHale ? Or how do you get them excited about rebuilding when they had seen titles being won and banners hoisted into the rafters?

That’s essentially been at the core of the Celtics’ problems for the past two decades, the fact that we were all spoiled. We had seen the best. We knew the history. This wasn’t Orlando or Sacramento, places where the NBA was still as new as first love, and where it was a big deal to even be in the playoffs. This was Boston, where the 16 championship banners all but stare down like accusers.

Is it any wonder why too many people didn’t seem to care a whole lot about the Celtics?

Well, they do now.

You’d have to have spent the summer on the dark side of the moon not to know that the Celtics are very different than they were a year ago, that the blockbuster moves made in the summer have the Celtics as one of the favorites to win the Eastern Conference and get to the NBA Finals. That’s what happens when you add Kevin Garnett, one of the true NBA superstars, and sweet-shooting all-star Ray Allen to go along with Paul Pierce.

For there’s no real mystery to this. The NBA is not about what kind of defense you play, or what your offensive philosophy is. It’s not really about who the coach is. It’s about talent, pure and simple. Good players win games. Mediocre players do not. And three great players transform you overnight.

Which certainly doesn’t mean all the questions are answered. Rondo is still a second-year point guard, as green as the away uniforms, and still can’t shoot. Kendrick Perkins is serviceable at best, a young center with few offensive skills. Can you be a great team with both a young point guard, and a young center? Can you be a great team with the two most important positions a question mark?

That’s the unanswered question.

Still, this team has been transformed in ways that are almost unimaginable from a year ago.

Remember last spring when the unofficial game plan was to lose games and get one of the first two picks in the draft? Remember the doom and gloom when the Celtics seemed buried forever, trapped on some interminable treadmill of rebuilding and young players that didn’t know how to win? Remember when this year figured to be the same as last year, another year off Pierce’s career, while the team went nowhere?

Remember last year when Danny Ainge was getting routinely crushed for the mess he had made of the Celtics, and Pierce was making public announcement that he wanted some veteran players around him, his fear being that by the time the Celtics’ young players were truly ready to win his career would be on fumes?

But thank the Hoop God for McHale, right?

Well, that’s the easy answer.

But Ainge’s ability to get Garnett from Minnesota transformed this team changed everything. Did he come here because Minnesota had turned into such a mess? No doubt. Did he agree to come here because Ainge already had traded for Allen? Probably. Did he come here because Ainge conned McHale? You tell me.

Ultimately, though, none of it matters.

What matters is they are here.

What matters is this team is relevant again in ways they haven’t been in too long.

You can see that everywhere, from the buzz that started as soon as Garnett became a Celtic. What do you think of the trade? What do you think of the Celtics? These were the two questions that reverberated throughout the summer, the two questions that put this team back on the radar screen.

That’s the first step, and it’s a significant one. Especially when the Red Sox just won their second World Series in four years, and the Patriots are the best team in football. No longer is there the perception that they are floating off in the periphery somewhere, all about memories and rust.

Maybe it’s this simple: the Celtics are important again.

And they are good.

And oh yeah.

There are a lot more NBA fans around here than there were a year ago.

breynold@projo.com