Just as we wrote in the Dwight Howard versus Andrew Bynum debate, normally you’d scoff at this comparison. But with the way this season is shaping out – there are definitely going to be a few highly-popular players who lose out on All-Star spots to lesser-known studs – Kyle Lowry and Rajon Rondo is a legitimate argument. Doc Rivers put the keys to the Celtics in his point guard’s hands, and Rondo is playing more aggressively than ever. He’s averaging a career-high 15 points, and is warning opponents that his shot is now built to destroy. Read More »

On a team known for its experience – and bad knees – Avery Bradley is an anomaly. The 21-year-old combo guard is the youngest player on the Celtics’ roster. In fact, it was just three years ago that Bradley was putting up 19.1 points per game at Findlay Prep, a feat that earned him the No. 1 ranking in the ESPNU 100, four spots ahead of John Wall. Read More »

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Ah, the perils of no training camp, a condensed schedule and disgruntled players. Let’s get to it. Read More »

You have Chris Paul, asking – demanding – for a trade, hanging suspended in limbo at the fingers of the master puppeteer David Stern, playing for a team with no talent in a city where no one shows up on game nights. You have Dwight Howard going back and forth, worried “Will this make them hate me? Will they call me names?” One day he wants out. The next he never wants to leave. You have J.J. Barea, who recently broke the traditional sports code: left a championship team for more money. He went for the cash, and wasn’t looking back. But then you have Paul Pierce, the old cowboy who never left his post, and survived the Antoine Walker era, coaching changes, a nearly fatal stabbing, an 18-game losing streak and the steely glare of Red. Read More »

Deron Williams is probably feeling mad lonely right now over there in Jersey. Dwight Howard this, and Chris Paul wants to go here and everyone wants to team up. Well Williams is sort of stuck in a weird spot in Jersey: He’s with a team in transition, a franchise that has a future but aren’t quite sure what it is yet and while he holds a lot of power, his situation isn’t as sexy as CP going to the Big Apple or Dwight moving to Hollywood. He does have the game to back up any talk, and yesterday he made it perfectly clear: He will play out this season in Jersey and then take his chances as a free agent. So the Nets better get spending. Read More »

Yesterday’s ambush of trade and free agency talk tipped off with a rather awkward rumor: The Celtics weren’t actively shopping Rajon Rondo, but that they’d be open to a deal should anything materialize. In the sports world, that’s basically code for other teams to start calling so they can start the bidding. Danny Ainge and Boston were hinting at something. We just didn’t know what it was yet. So naturally the response from most fans was: WTF? It didn’t help that Rajon Rondo trade rumors are an offseason rite of passage by this point. It doesn’t feel right unless we get a few of them. Read More »

A few weeks ago, I listed Glen Davis as one of the top five pending unrestricted free agents in the NBA Playoffs. And even though he all but disappeared during the Celtics’ short postseason run – averaging an abysmal 4.9 points and 3.6 rebounds per game – I’d still put him on this list. But as Big Baby enters the summer with no locker to hang his jersey, the reality begins to set in that he may be taking his talents elsewhere. Read More »

Over his 13-year NBA career, Paul Pierce has started in 961 regular season games out of a possible 964 for the Boston Celtics. In the postseason, he’s a perfect 110-for-110. But after losing to the Miami Heat on Wednesday night, sending him home for the summer, this somehow got the Celtics brass thinking about what to do with the nine-time All-Star and former NBA Finals MVP. And maybe, just maybe, it’d be better to bring him off the bench. Read More »

It has been 13 years since professional basketball first said hello to Paul Pierce, and luckily, the face of the game’s most decorated franchise hasn’t changed. Living for this moment, Pierce goes to work every night and succeeds in the shadow of irony: an underappreciated star who doubles as the greatest scorer in Celtics’ history. For the world, that should be enough. Read More »

On the night after another wild NBA trade deadline — before which almost 50 players were traded — Chicago looked like the big winner for not doing a damn thing. Trailing Miami by 11 in the third quarter, the Bulls may have been starting to regret not pulling off a deal for somebody like J.R. Smith or O.J. Mayo. Instead, Derrick Rose brought them storming back and the Bulls handed the Heat another loss to an elite team … Chicago was up three with 1:30 to go in the fourth as Rose (26 points) and LeBron James (29 points, 10 rebounds) matched up head-to-head. Read More »