The Los Angeles Lakers have reportedly offered Mike Brown their head coaching position. And I haven’t stopped laughing since I heard the news.

Going from Phil Jackson to Mike Brown is like going from lobster to Lucky Charms. Sure, Lucky Charms has some redeeming qualities (in Brown’s case, a defensive pedigree that helped make Lebron a two-way player; in Lucky Charms’ case, marshmallows), but the cereal certainly isn’t lobster. You can’t dip it in butter and feel like you’re entering heaven as soon as it touches your lips. You don’t ask your mother for Lucky Charms on your birthday meal. You don’t buy Lucky Charms if you’re trying to coax another (or more) championships out of the Kobe Bryant Era. Because to put the pieces back together from that quickly-sunken ship, the Lakers are going to need a lot more than “Iso Kobe.”

One of my biggest problems with the NBA is that the same coaches get head coaching jobs, over and over again, no matter how many times they fail. Vinny Del Negro proved himself to have no set offense, no discipline on either end of the court, got into a fight with a Chicago front office executive, and all that afforded him the opportunity to coach Blake Griffin. The New Orleans Hornets couldn’t run Byron Scott out of town quickly enough (remember the 58-point playoff shellacking?) and his trips to the Eastern Conference Finals were a very distant memory by the time Cleveland offered him its skipper position. Mike Dunleavy still gets mentioned for a number of openings, even though he coached the Clippers like a hockey-playing father might coach an 8th-grade CYO team. Meanwhile, Frank Vogel can’t get a job guarantee after turning around the Pacers, and Tom Thibodeau couldn’t become a head coach until he was 52 years old.

So now Mike Brown, whose offense has always been less imaginative than cardboard, looks like he will get the chance to coach the Los Angeles Lakers. Never mind that Brown earned the scorn of every analyst in the country, even while leading Cleveland to two straight imaginary regular season championships. Never mind that the Lakers will go from running the triangle offense to running “get the hell out of Kobe’s way.” Never mind that I woke up this morning and crossed Los Angeles off for next season just because they’re ready to hire Brown. Never mind all that: the Lakers have their man.

And I still don’t get it. Why hire Brown, who has proven he has a ceiling, when you could give Brian Shaw a chance? Why hire Brown when Elston Turner has impressed everyone he’s ever worked with in Houston? Why hire Brown, or anyone else who has failed (and yes, Brown failed in Cleveland, even with all those regular season wins), when there are talented assistant coaches who may turn into the next Tom Thibodeau? If the Lakers hired Brown because fans will recognize his name, well, it’s not like we associate his name with greatness—in part, we recognize his name because teams run better offense than his in pickup basketball. If the Lakers hired Brown because he’s cheap, well, Shaw wouldn’t have been the most expensive candidate either. Plus, a bunch of Lakers already backed Shaw publicly.

Instead, Brown gets another chance. The recycling continues, giving the same jobs to the same flawed coaches, an incestuous cycle that leaves talented assistants waiting in the background. In all fairness, the Lakers could have done worse than Brown. If they had decided to choose a lifelong assistant instead, they could have hired the next John Kuester just as easily as the next Thibodeau. But they could have done better, too. Brown isn’t lobster.

Oh, well. Not even Mike Brown can screw up a Dwight Howard-Kobe Bryant pairing.

“Dwight, get the hell out of Kobe’s way. We’re running iso!”

On second thought, maybe he can.

The Globe made a list of free agents the Celtics might target. If you don’t want to read it for the intriguing names (such as Carl Landry, J.R. Smith, Tayshaun Prince and Tyson Chandler), at least read it for the one time you’ll ever see Ryan Hollins as a potential “young rising star.”

I will write my own list of potential free agents soon. If I describe Ryan Hollins as a young rising star, just know I’ll have to kick my own ass.

His hands are oven mitts made of flesh, the enlarged hands of a natural-born point guard. They are the paws of a man twice his size—you know, if twelve-foot men existed. They allow him to cradle a basketball in ways that make the mind spin, creativity flowing through every phalange like the webs Spiderman casts from his wrist. Through these hands, these oversized gifts that help him to excel at James Naismith’s finest creation, Rajon Rondo carves his imprints on a basketball game. At his best, he controls a game’s ebbs and flows, its pace, its peaks and valleys.

At his best, he is a magician, one who relies on speed and cunning to misdirect opponents’ attention from his real tricks, with those yardstick fingers yo-yo’ing the basketball and waiting to seize any slight opening. Usually once a game, sometimes more, sometimes not at all, Rondo palms the ball in his right hand, and the ball is swallowed whole. He whips the basketball around his back, as if to throw a behind-the-back pass to a cutting teammate, except that his right hand has spun its Spiderman webs and hold onto the ball instead. Rondo’s opponents know his tendency to make this move, how he can deceive with his most common improvisation, but almost always fall victim nonetheless, lunging the wrong way as Rondo waltzes by for a layup.

This isn’t just Rondo’s signature move; it’s also his most impressive trait, the ability to excel at what he does best despite opponents’ constant attempts to expose his most transparent weaknesses. No other NBA All-Star has a more pronounced flaw than Rondo’s jump shot. It limits what he can accomplish. It allows defenders to know exactly what he intends to do. It shapes the way opponents defend him, with the knowledge that he only shoots if he sees no other option. That he still manages to contribute to so many wins is like a Major League pitcher excelling with only one pitch. Think Mariano Rivera. The best closer in history, Rivera primarily throws just one pitch, the cut fastball. The batter knows exactly what’s coming. So does the manager, so do the announcers, so does every fan in the stadium. But because Rivera’s one pitch is so devastating, because he can cold-heartedly command his cut fastball to shatter bats and to break approximately six inches over the final ten feet it travels, that one pitch is all he needs.

In comparing Rondo to baseball’s Greatest Closer Ever, I’m not calling him the most dominant point guard in NBA history—hell, I know calling him the current best point guard would be ignorant and very wrong. Instead, I’m pointing out how impressive it is that Rondo still gets outs with the cut fastball even when the whole park knows it’s coming. Without his compensation in other areas, Rondo’s Achilles heel jump shot would cripple him—he can only thrive by sharpening all his other skills. To succeed despite his painfully obvious limitations, Rondo needs to operate brilliantly in other aspects of the game; he needs the ability to dart through the paint with the quickness of a hummingbird’s wings; to makes passes with both hands, from any angle; to see the court three moves in advance of his opponents; to make a basketball do what he commands it to; to know what his teammates are doing at all times; and to possess a more extensive basketball IQ than any other player Doc Rivers has coached.

Perhaps Rondo’s greatest strength is his ability to thrive in randomness. Some players need a set offense to free them for looks. Think Richard Hamilton, whose most important assets—his ability to score off screens, to make midrange jumpers, and the endurance to run for 48 straight minutes—make offensive execution crucial to his game. If NBA players played pickup games with no coaches, it would be difficult to see Hamilton standing out, even if he were still in his prime. Isolations are hardly Hamilton’s strong suit. Rather, his game flourishes in half-court conditions, when a coach calls out a set and Hamilton runs around three or four screens to lose his defender for at least a split second. In contrast, Rondo thrives where Hamilton does not, in the fleeting moments where the game transitions from one phase of the game to another (from defense to offense or rebounding to offense, or vice versa), during the times when neither offense nor defense is fully set.

If a defense is not set, it is unprepared to take away Rondo’s best assets. In these moments he can make his own rules; in a land where his broken jump shot no longer matters, a land where his strengths expand while his deficiencies go into hiding, Rondo can use his seemingly endless creativity. In the open court, Rondo’s quickness becomes more important than ever. He has more lanes to utilize his vision. He sees the play unfolding one step before his opponent does, and before you know it he’s into the lane, and Ray Allen’s open for three, and the greatest three-point shooter in NBA history has drained another shot, and you can chalk up another assist for Rondo. He succeeds in chaotic circumstances with nobody set and all hell breaking loose, and he succeeds in these situations because even then, even when he draws up moves on the run as if he carries a portable easel onto the court, every move he makes is calculated and purposeful.

Set or not, a defense will have troubles with Rondo’s quickness. He says he doesn’t care about his own defender—paying attention to the defense’s first layer would only waste Rondo’s time, because he can get past the initial defender whenever he wants. So when he decides the best way to attack a defense, he looks past the first defender, to the help defenders, to the other four players on the court. If Kevin Garnett’s defender is playing too far away from Garnett, Rondo might penetrate in that man’s direction. Once the defender takes another step toward Rondo, one more step away from Garnett, Rondo’s job has almost been completed. All he does after that is deliver a pass to Garnett, who now has a wide open look. Rondo’s quickness, in partnership with his vision, has allowed him to create a shot for his teammate.

The union of Rondo’s most valuable skills—the way they mesh so well together—is what makes him so difficult to stop despite his blatant deficiencies. He can control the ball because of his hands, he can control the defender because of his feet, and he can control the game because of his mind. When he starts his go-to move, he has already utilized his quickness to jet into the paint. Then he cuffs the ball, and it almost disappears in the giant sea that is his right hand, and because he knows the defender respects his passing ability, he knows a fake pass will afford him enough time to scoop home a layup. He uses all his talents, and he uses them in unison, like a chain reaction in which one step leads directly to the next, which leads directly to the next.

Rondo is swift and creative, talented and resourceful, daring and intelligent, and even if you know he loves the fake around-the-back pass, the time you don’t fall for the fake will be the time he bounces the ball to his teammate for an easy deuce. He is at times maddeningly inconsistent, but alternately brilliant enough to make you forget any time he loafed through a regular season game. He is flawed and imperfect, stubborn and emotional, argumentative and occasionally careless, but he is still the Celtics’ best hope for the future, still the Celtics’ best hope for next season. He is a tapestry of confusion, a blanket of contradictions, and if you think about him for long enough, Rajon Rondo even starts to make sense.

*****

Prior versions of this feature:

• Diaries of a signature move: Paul Pierce’s step back jumper

Sorry for the lack of posts the past few days, folks. I went to my friend’s college graduation this weekend, and unfortunately his internet worked about as well as Shaq’s Achilles.  Thankfully, since this is the offseason, where the news is slower than Glen Davis’s metabolism, I didn’t miss much.

Almost nothing substantial happened in the Celtics world during my absence, except that my brother created a Tumblr website to assist Celtics Town. We haven’t decided exactly how we’re going to use it yet, but assume we’ll post links and videos and quotes and things like that.

Shifting gears, there’s a basketball game tonight. Derrick Rose (who believes the NBA has a serious performance-enhancing drug problem) will take his talents to South Beach with the intentions of re-gaining home court advantage. Lebron will try to continue re-making himself as “Mr. Clutch.” Carlos Boozer may or may not help the Chicago Bulls. Keith Bogans will waste space on one end of the court. Udonis Haslem will attempt to replicate his efforts from Game 2. And Chris Bosh, if the mood strikes him right, will scream until veins pop out of his neck.

Have at it in the comments section, folks.

It’s not so much that he does it, but the way he does it, and the fact that he can do it even if everyone in the building knows it’s coming. Paul Pierce doesn’t rely on athleticism to execute his trademark shot, because if he did the results would not please Doc Rivers. There are plenty of players in the NBA more athletic than Paul Pierce. One night he might play Lebron James. The next he might match up with Andre Iguodala. On a consistent basis, Pierce’s opponents could beat him in the 40-yard dash or a high jump competition. But Pierce can almost always release his step back jumper with no problems, even if a more agile defender knows exactly what he’s going to do.

The move makes the man, or in this case the move explains a lot about what has allowed the man to succeed. Even when Pierce was younger, he was never the league’s best physical specimen. He was never fat, nor close to it, but nobody has ever called his body sculpted either. He’s quick, but not what anyone would call explosive. He can dunk with ease, but he would never be invited to participate in the dunk contest. He can get past players off the dribble, but not with anything remotely resembling Allen Iverson’s first step or Tim Hardaway’s crossover. Instead, Pierce relies on guile, footwork, strength and a beautiful basketball mind.

Just watch Pierce some time when he catches the ball on the perimeter. His scoring repertoire is very complete. He can beat teams from midrange, outside the arc or getting to the rim. But the way he does it can be confounding, because it’s not easy to see how he creates good shots almost whenever he chooses to. Some players have the ability to beat players in a straight line without very many moves. Think Russell Westbrook, who moves almost solely North-South. With his speed, Westbrook could turn off a light switch and get to the hoop before the light went out. He puts on the jets, his defender stands in quicksand, and Westbrook finds himself past his defender and into the paint. For Westbrook, penetration can be that easy. Pierce doesn’t have the same speed, so he can’t accelerate past people like he’s a Ferrari racing against a parked car. He also can’t rely on the handle of, say, a Jamal Crawford. But Crawford uses his handle to accomplish the same results Pierce does. Specifically, both players thrive on using an opponent’s motion against him. If Pierce can get his opponent moving backwards, he has space to stop and shoot. If he can get his opponent moving left, he can drive past him to the right. If he can change speeds and force his opponent to lose balance, even for a split second, Pierce gains an advantage. Because of Pierce’s strength, balance and variety of shots, all he needs is a fingernail of space.

You’ve seen his trademark move a thousand times. Pierce dribbles to his right, steps back off his left foot, fades away to create even more space, then releases the shot his opponent knows is coming, the shot his opponent still has no chance to block. What you may not realize is why the move works so effectively. Since Pierce can score driving to the hoop just as well as he can fading away from it, defenders need to respect his handle. So when Pierce takes a hard dribble to his right, the opponent fears Pierce will go by him. Of course, if the defender fails to react to Pierce’s initial hard dribble, that’s just what he will do. More often than not, though, Pierce’s defender takes a step back to fend off an easy Pierce drive. As soon as the defender begins moving backward, he’s under Pierce’s control. Pierce stops instantly while the defender is still backpedaling and fades away to create more separation, giving him just enough space to release his shot even as the defender frantically attempts to recover.

That Pierce executes the whole move with efficient, proper footwork is crucial to the move’s success. He can take two long strides to his right and plant his left foot seamlessly, moving into his stepback jumper without any hesitation whatsoever. Certain players, Lebron James being one of them, sometimes use half-steps (almost stutter steps) to prepare themselves for a shot. James, though his attention to detail improves each year, can get by with these imperfections in his footwork because he’s so devastatingly athletic. Since Pierce doesn’t possess Lebron’s superhuman physical traits, he’s not afforded the same margin of error—wasting precious split-seconds of time could prove detrimental.

That he has developed such efficient footwork is a testament to Pierce’s work ethic. In the recently-published book “Basketball Junkie” (which is awesome, go read it), ex-Celtic Chris Herren reminisced about his former teammates. His most notable observations: Kenny Anderson drank too much, Antoine Walker spent too much money (shocker), Vitaly Potapenko did not get along with Mark Blount (there’s an anecdote in the book that involves the use of the word “skull-fuck,” so that was fun), and Pierce would always beat everyone else to the gym. By the time Herren arrived at practice, Pierce would often be doused with sweat. He had already put himself through a number of drills, and would remain after practice to do the same. A number of basketball skills can be developed during full-court play; awareness, certain moves, ball-handling (to an extent), and many other skills I don’t have the time to mention. But good footwork comes best from repetition. Point me to someone with efficient footwork (think Kobe Bryant or, in the post, Kevin Garnett) and I’ll show you a gym rat who spends hours each day going through drills.

During his many hours spent in the gym, Pierce has developed offensive versatility that allows him to score from anywhere inside 26 or 27 feet. You’ve probably heard Pierce and Carmelo Anthony mentioned as “professional scorers.” What the term means is that they can score just about any way you’d ask them to, and with a rare efficiency of motion. They can post up one possession, drain a three-pointer the next, then finish a spin move with an and-one on the following possession. In Chris Ballard’s “The Art of a Beautiful Game,” a basketball trainer named Idan Ravin marvels at Carmelo’s ability to waste very little movement. He remarks that Carmelo hardly ever dribbles the basketball more than three times. Because Carmelo can score from anywhere on the court, he doesn’t have to. He makes one or two hard dribbles and then rises right into his shot. The key phrase from that last sentence: his shot. Carmelo, like Pierce, dictates the terms of his own shot. Rarely will you see Pierce off-balance in any way. Even on his misses, he dictates the shot he takes, rather than letting the defense force him into a bad look. He can do that because his polished offensive game allows him to counter any strategy a defender might take. Pierce has mastered working an opponent to his favorite spots and getting off the shots he prefers.

If you’ve watched Pierce play basketball, you know he doesn’t play with Ray Allen’s natural elegance. If Allen’s game is as smooth as the top of his bald head, Pierce’s game is more like the scruff that The Truth calls facial hair. Everything from Pierce’s shooting form (he often leans his body as if begging the ball to go through the hoop) to his slower, methodical drives to the hoop seem like the result of years of practice rather than natural-born talent. Obviously, at 6’7 and athletic (relative to the general population), Pierce was born with certain traits that translate quite well to the basketball court. But as I mentioned earlier, he doesn’t have the type of otherworldly traits that make basketball look so easy for certain players. He doesn’t have Lebron’s explosiveness, Josh Smith’s leaping ability, Karl Malone’s physique, Rajon Rondo’s speed or Ray Allen’s grace. Pierce is more of a mortal, a star who succeeds not because of natural gifts but because of fundamentals less obvious to the untrained observer.

Next time Pierce gets the ball at the top of the key and the other Celtics clear out, remember all that. The defender should know what’s coming, but there’s always the threat that Pierce will go to the hoop instead of using his patented step back. And the threat of a drive will be enough, because the defender will start to back up, and he’ll lose balance ever so slightly, and as soon as that happens, Pierce is in control.

You know what happens next.

*****

Notes:

1. Today is Kevin Garnett’s birthday. Happy birthday, sir.
2. HoopsWorld mentioned today (and the Globe mentioned a few days ago) that Jamal Crawford would make a good fit in Boston. What do you guys think?

Even though she hasn’t exactly spoken to Shaq about his future, his mother Lucille believes he might return next season. (The Times Picayune)

“He went there to help them win a championship, and they didn’t do that this year,’’ Lucille said. “It bothered him so much that he could not play. He felt like he let the Boston team down and the community down, so I could believe he’s going back to Boston. He’s not in a place to be traded or anything like that.’’

Lucille added O’Neal hasn’t indicated to her what he plans to do.

“I don’t know because Shaquille has got such passion for the game,’’ Lucille said. “(Retirement) we’ve always told him that’s up to him. Whatever decision he makes, we’re still going to be behind him 100 percent.’’

It’s somewhat admirable to watch Shaq hobble around on more or less one leg, doing whatever he can to make it back to the court even though his body refuses to cooperate. It is. But it’s also sad. I don’t want to say it takes away from his legacy, because any amount of late-career injuries can’t change the fact that an in-his-prime Shaq could get 35 and 15 in his sleep. But there’s a generation of children who only know Shaq as “that huge dude whose body parts come apart more often than Mr. Potato Head’s.”

If he’s got anything left, anything at all, the Celtics could use him. He’s cheap, his contract will expire in 2012 (when the Celtics presumably want to rebuild/reload), and, most importantly, he’s still a man-mountain. If Jermaine O’Neal retires (he’s considering it), the Celtics will have exactly zero centers entering the free agency period. But even though it’s admirable, spending half the season in rehab just to play 20 postseason minutes isn’t how a superstar should end his career. Smart money says Shaq will retire, regardless of what his mother says.