Pierce: "I'm gonna choke Danny *just like this* if he doesn't make any moves soon." Doc: "Have faith, son. But me too."

Paul Pierce doesn’t sound too pleased with the offseason to date. Yup, he’s just like the rest of us. (ESPN Boston)

“I thought it was a great move picking up Jermaine [O'Neal], giving us an inside presence in case Rasheed [Wallace] retires, but sometimes I’m looking at all the players signing and wish we would get on the ball a little bit. I trust in Danny to put a good team around us, but I’m sitting here watching all these good players fall to other teams.”

Pierce seemed particularly stung by the loss of reserve swingman Tony Allen and suggested the Celtics have “a lot of work to do” in filling out their bench.

“We got a lot [to add] right now,” said Pierce. “We lost TA, we don’t have Nate [Robinson], we might not have Rasheed. We gotta add a bench. We got our work cut out. We need perimeter defense and we need to add a backup point guard to help out [Rajon] Rondo, if Nate doesn’t come back. And we need another big.”

I never thought I’d live to see the day when Tony Allen’s departure was met by so much angst. But that day came and the angst is warranted. The Celtics could really use Tony Allen next season. (Note: It’s still weird to say that.) I mean, wouldn’t you feel far better about the way this offseason has gone if Ainge had just kept Tony? Then they would have been looking at a bench of Jermaine, Big Baby, Nate (potentially), Tony and whatever they would have fetched for Sheed. But now, without Tony, the bench could end up being brutally thin.

Ainge is saying they offered TA as much money as Memphis, but David Aldridge and Alex Kennedy (Hoops World) are both reporting that the C’s offer fell well short. Which is weird because, given the market, Memphis probably underpaid for TA. What’s the truth? Who knows, but really, who cares? The only thing that matters is that TA’s exit is leaving the Celtics far short of a perfect summer… so far.