Not to worry: Delonte West is a free man. (AP file photo)

Considering Delonte West‘s history with law enforcement, the news that the Celtics free-agent guard appeared in court on Tuesday morning could have been a lot worse, but he simply had a motor vehicle summons dismissed.

West and his attorneys appeared in a Stamford, Conn. courtroom as a result of what they called “a paperwork mix-up with his car registration” when state police stopped him in his Range Rover at a rest stop on I-95 at 11:30 p.m. on May 12 — the day after the C’s Game 5 loss to Miami in the Eastern Conference semifinals — according to the Stamford Advocate.

“There’s nothing to this,” West’s lawyer, Matthew Adams, told the paper.

That’s good news, since the last time West ran into the police (September 2009) he was hit with a couple gun possession charges while on his motorcycle near his Maryland home. That eventually resulted in a 10-game suspension when he returned to the Celtics this past season. West remained under house arrest for much of the 2010-11 season until he was released in March.

A couple other Celtics items of note on a Tuesday afternoon …

Read the rest of this entry »

Kevin Garnett

For the first time since the end of the 2010-11 Celtics season, Celtics forward Kevin Garnett contributed to his Anta shoe company blog, expressing his desire to start working on next season and discussing his upcoming trip to China this summer. Here’s the entire entry:

What’s up China? Having a great summer right now. Wish the season ended better, but making the best of my time. Been relax’n and catching up with some things that I don’t get to do during the season. Getting ready to get back to the “lab” and get my body right! Thinking about getting everything set up for my trip back to China! Man, can’t wait! Sitting at the crib listen’n to my man Damani’s album “On Vacation from Vacation.”

Thanks for the support and catch up with you all soon. Maybe by blog or when I’m in China! Geeked for the trip!

All the best and Reach Higher

KG

Unlike Garnett, Glen Davis seems to contribute to his Ayo Baby Blog every chance he gets. If you have any interest in seeing Davis as a lobsterman, you can do that below. What will these guys do when there’s actually a lockout?

Read the rest of this entry »

Glen Davis

MEDFORD — Of all the Celtics free agents, perhaps the trickiest decision involves Glen Davis. On the one hand Davis is an unrestricted free agent and so the decision does not lie with the team alone. On the other, the Celtics are in desperate need of big bodies with only Kevin Garnett and Jermaine O’Neal under contract for next season.

In his fourth season with the team Davis emerged as a legitimate Sixth Man of the Year candidate after averaging a career-high 11.7 points, 5.4 rebounds and playing almost 30 minutes a night. Davis was often on the floor at the end of games and seemed to have found himself in the perfect situation to utilize his unique skill-set. Yet things became complicated in the postseason when he averaged just 4.9 points and 3.6 rebounds while shooting 39 percent.

“I pride myself on playing good basketball, especially when you need it,” Davis said on Monday after a team-sponsored charity event. “Every postseason I’ve played tremendously good to the point where it was like, wow, and this [spring] it didn’t happen. Because I felt mentally I wasn’t ready and prepared enough for what was in front of me. It affected the way I played and that’s what I’ve been doing this offseason, concentrating on that and making sure postseasons like this don’t happen to me.”

In an interview with WEEI’s Dennis & Callahan after the season, Celtics coach Doc Rivers said that he thought Davis was affected by his upcoming free agency. While acknowledging his own poor play, Davis also responded to Rivers. “I know Doc talks a lot. I don’t pay attention to that,” Davis said. “That’s what he does. That’s Doc. He loves to talk.”

Davis said that he has thought about leaving Boston, but that ultimately he wants to be in a position where he can be himself.

“I can’t perform the way I need to perform if I’m not Glen Davis,” he said. “I need to be in a situation where I can be Glen Davis. If it’s here with the Celtics or with somebody else. I just want to make sure I’m Glen Davis.”

Asked if he could be “Glen Davis” in Boston, he said, “It just depends on the system, the people who are around the system. Who’s going to let Glen Davis be Glen Davis, not make Glen Davis something that they think he should be. Glen Davis is Glen Davis. Everyone knows who Glen Davis is. You’ve seen Glen Davis play the game like it’s supposed to be played.”

On the surface there doesn’t appear to be much hope for Davis to remain with the Celtics. After the team was eliminated in Miami, he said that he wanted the chance to be a starter. That’s not happening with the Celtics, at least not with Garnett here for at least one more season.

But once you cut through the rhetoric — and the third person — the Celtics are still the right fit for Davis and he is for them. The Celtics need someone to back-up Garnett and O’Neal and there’s 30 minutes and 10 shots a night for that someone. His name may not be called in pregame introductions, but those are starter’s minutes and the Celtics gave him a starter’s responsibility by having him close games.

A new labor agreement will help clarify matters for both Davis and the Celtics. Under the old rules, the Celtics would have been able to use their Bird rights to make him a strong offer. If those rights are modified (or even eliminated) under a new collective bargaining agreement, then the team may have no choice but to let him walk. By the same token if the league adopts a harder salary cap, Davis may not find the opportunity to go anywhere else.

“You don’t know,” Davis said. “You don’t like that feeling but at the same time you just got to wait it out be humble, be patient, just wait. It’s not under my control.”

*****

Davis was in Medford as part of a charitable effort by the Celtics and RE/MAX of New England called the home court makeover. Three families were awarded a driveway and court resealing, a new basket stanchion, backboard, scoreboard and a ball rack. (Disclosure: I was part of the committee that picked the winning entries.)

First up was the Donlan family, nominated by its 18-year-old cousin Timothy Stevens, who is confined to a wheelchair. Davis played one-on-one with the kids and then conducted a free basketball clinic at the Medford Boys & Girls Club with Cedric Maxwell.

Following an atrocious performance for the Celtics in the conference semifinals against the Heat, free agent Glen Davis is refocusing on two things that made him so successful to start the 2010-11 season — working out and eating right — as well as one new hobby: blogging.

Here’s a bit from Big Baby, who took some time out from eating chicken burgers, pasta and kale with strength and conditioning coach Kevin Kearns to blog at iambigbaby.com:

I am very excited to start working out again, set some summer goals and really get ready for next season. It is all about a balanced lifestyle, putting time in at the gym and eating right. I have a great team around me and as you will see my main man, my trainer, is already trying to one up me in the first edition!

While Davis may have a great team of trainers around him, he doesn’t have a basketball team to play with quite yet. The Celtics have said they will offer Davis a contract but won’t match an offer from another team that exceeds his value to the Celtics.

Of course, as is always the case, the blog isn’t always entirely accurate (it is the Internet after all). In his second entry, two weeks ago, he was under the impression that the Celtics had gotten a No. 2 seed in the NBA Playoffs. Perhaps that’s why he seemed so confused in Miami.

IMPORTANT NBA COLLECTIVE BARGAINING AGREEMENT DATES

If you’re at all interested in the possibility of an NBA lockout, Ken Berger‘s piece over the weekend is a must read. He highlights a few important dates in the negotiations and compares the NBA’s predicament to the current NFL fiasco. Here’s an important note:

Read the rest of this entry »

Doc Rivers said part of the reason he re-signed with the Celtics so quickly was to quash rumors that he was headed elsewhere. (AP)

Celtics coach Doc Rivers joined the Dennis & Callahan show Monday morning, three days after agreeing to a five-year contract extension to remain with the team.

Rivers said that rumors he was contemplating whether to take a sabbatical from coaching so that he could spend more time with his family weren’t accurate — at least not this year.

“Last year, they were probably more right,” he said. “Last year I was absolutely leaning that way. This year I really never was. After last year’s summer and going through the decision that we went through, I was pretty sure I was coming back and I was pretty sure I wanted to come back here.

“This is a special place. And I’ve said that before. You can’t get a lot of these jobs where you coach teams like the Celtics, or the Red Sox, or the Yankees, and I have one of them. I work with a great GM in Danny Ainge and I have good ownership. So, why change?”

Following is a transcript of the conversation. To hear the interview, go to the Dennis & Callahan audio on demand page.

Doc, if you don’t mind revealing this, whose idea was it for the longterm contract? Was it you that wanted the extra years, or did Danny want to lock you up for the extra years? Whose idea was it?

Danny brought it up to me. When he first brought it up, I was surprised by it. This was a while ago that he brought it up. I think actually he brought up even more years to start.

I never thought of it in those terms. Because we kept doing these one-year or two-year deals, and I never thought of it. Danny walked in my office and said, “Listen, I want you to be here with me for a long time. And I want to make this something where we’re together for a long time.” And so he brought up the number of years.

You’ve got to process that when you commit to something for that long. We did, and we thought it was the right thing to do.

Read the rest of this entry »

MIAMI — As the Celtics head to a summer with a little more certainty than last year, one of their biggest decisions will be made on Glen Davis who will be an unrestricted free agent. Davis didn’t help himself with a poor posteason, but he said again that he feels like he can be a starter.

“You can’t just base it on just the playoffs,” Davis said. “My whole body of work I feel like I can play in this league, I can start in this league. My second year when Kevin [Garnett] went down, my third year playing in the playoffs and this year was my best year. I just didn’t play well in the playoffs this year. Things happen like that. I don’t think this playoffs is going to hurt me as much.”

Asked whether he wanted to stay with the Celtics, Davis said, “I have given thought about that. I love Boston and [hope] I can stay. But you never know, like [Kendrick Perkins] situation. He was here for eight years, he wanted to stay but it just might not work my way. It’s just how it is.”

Asked what he wanted out of his career, Davis said, “I want to be a player in this league. I feel like I have a lot more to offer. I want to show the world my talent.”

MIAMI — There was much to discuss with coach Doc Rivers prior to Game 5 of the Celtics’ playoff series with the Heat, but the key question is: How will they perform facing elimination?

“They’ve got great pride,” Rivers said. “I think you’ll see that tonight. I think I’ll enjoy the way we play.”

Rivers won’t have Shaquille O’Neal, but he does expect Rajon Rondo to play. The coach said he will have a wait-and-see attitude with Rondo to see how he responds to his dislocated left elbow.

The first order of business for the Celtics is to stop turning the ball over. They had 18 turnovers in Game 4, which led to 28 points for Miami, an enormous swing considering the way both teams payed defense.

“As poorly as we played we still had a shot to win the game in regulation,” Rivers said. “But when you gift a gifted team turnovers like we did, in the playoffs you’re usually not going to win that game.”

Rivers expects Kevin Garnett to recover from his disastrous Game 4, when he shot 1-for-10 and was involved in a pair of breakdowns on both ends of the floor late in the contest.

“I expect the same from Kevin every night,” Rivers said. “I expect him to be great. I also understand as a coach that we’re coaching humans. He owns up to everything. I said all the time you can coach one guy or work with one guy in your career, you should coach Kevin Garnett at some point. He’s a pro’s pro. He understands when he plays well, and when he plays well he comes back the next day to play better. That’s just who he is.”

As for Glen Davis, who has struggled throughout the playoffs, Rivers sounded less optimistic.

“We need him, but he’s been struggling for a while,” Rivers said. “It started before the playoffs and he’s still in it. He had an occasional light. We’ve just got to keep going to him and see if we can get anything out of him.”

Asked whether Davis’ impending free agent status may be affecting him mentally, Rivers said, “I have no idea what’s in his mind. I don’t even want to get in there. It’s safer where I’m at.”