I can believe Shaq has committed crimes before. Maybe an illegal download here or a nice jaywalking session there. Who knows? On nights when he was feeling a little crazy, maybe even a public urination.

But ordering murders?

Robert Ross, the same ex-gang member who claims that Shaq had him kidnapped in 2008, has filed a lawsuit that claims among other allegations that Shaq also masterminded a series of murders, according to TMZ.

In the suit, Ross alleges, “For many years O’Neal requested and directed [Ross] to perform many personal favors and directed him to perform various tasks including, but not limited to: ordering [Ross] to kill a member of the Downtown Gangster Crips who had disrespected O’Neal in front of his wife Shaunie.”

O’Neal is also accused of issuing “an order to kill a woman whom O’Neal had impregnated and paid for her abortion” and “an order to kill a renown record producer.”

Ross also alleges that O’Neal issued “an order to break an NBA player’s shooting arm.” …

Shaq’s lawyer, Michael J. Kump, tells TMZ … “The outlandish claims by Robert Ross in his civil complaint are pure fiction.  Shaquille O’Neal befriended Mr. Ross in an attempt to help turn his life around.  Sadly, Mr. Ross abused that friendship again and again.

Kump adds, “Shaquille’s commitment to law enforcement is well-known and documented.  He will not dignify these defamanatory allegations with a response.”

Unbelievable? Yes. Shocking? Entirely. Any reason for us to listen to a word Robert Ross says? Umm, I don’t think so. This is a civil lawsuit brought by a former gang member reported solely by TMZ. In basketball speak, that’s like a trade rumor started by Jerome James’s third cousin and reported solely by Perez Hilton. Perhaps Ross is telling the truth, but the Ross-TMZ combination doesn’t exactly scream “reliable.”

I’ll still pay attention to this case because, well, SHAQ IS ACCUSED OF ORCHESTRATING MURDERS! But it sounds a lot like a former gang member trying to make some easy dough.

P.S. – The weirdest part of the story is Shaq’s friendship with Ross. When most NBA players want to help turn somebody’s life around, they donate time or money to a youth organization. They donate turkeys at Thanksgiving or gifts at Christmas. They don’t find a gangster and take him underneath their wing.

(Editor’s Note: This has nothing to do with the Celtics. Sorry, folks, but enjoy.)

The basketball court at Hubbard Park, as it often does, smells of marijuana.

On a night when the park hosts its ‘A Division’ summer league games, a couple hundred spectators will surround the court, weed smoke will rise into the sky like clouds, and viewers are more likely than not to be carrying 40-oz. bottles of malt liquor. But on this night the C Division is playing, so attendance was lower and the scene was more tame. The strong scent of pot is the only sign that trouble would soon find its way to Hubbard Park.

The game begins as all games do, with a jump ball at center court. Night has already vacuumed the daylight, so only the park’s lights allow players to see. Mosquitoes have invaded the court; players are not so affected because running serves as a bug repellent. But the spectators who do not apply Off! spend the game swatting fly after fly, with the persistence of Mr. Miyagi but with neither his patience, nor  his serenity (or chopsticks). Normally, the summer league’s director brings a bottle of bug spray to the games. Anyone can ask him to use it, but only the experienced Hubbard Park-goers know that the bottle of bug spray is for public use.

My team wins the tip. Our center used to play guard, and back then he was soft. He lived on the perimeter during his youth despite standing close to 6’5, despite possessing arms built to fix light bulbs and pick items from the top shelf. But the years have hardened him.

He, like myself, is nowhere close to ancient. Just graduated from college. Struggling to find a full-time gig. Living at home and asking himself why. His story should ring true to a lot of folks. But somewhere along the way, probably during college intramurals, he learned how to dominate the paint. He mastered the art of contesting or blocking shots without fouling, learned the perfect timing of a Rolex watch, finally utilized his gift from God—arms that started on Saturday and went straight through ’til Sunday. Our center had gone from a shot-happy point guard to the Hubbard Park C Division’s version of Dennis Rodman, and his teammates could not be more thrilled.

We start the game slowly, though. Our ball movement does not exist. Our possessions end in bad shots or worse, turnovers. We part the seas like Moses so the other team can get wide open layups. Everything is in slow motion; we are all a step behind. Maybe it is because a couple of us went to the bar before the game. It was my first time ever drinking before a game. I drank two beers. Two too many. Never again. I play in quicksand all night. We are on our way to a loss, but a loss doesn’t seem too bad compared to what would soon occur.

At least once in the past three years, a Hubbard Park summer league game was cancelled due to a murder threat—there was a hit out on one of the competitors. Several players each summer wear house arrest anklets. Fights break out routinely, though almost all of them are strictly verbal. One ref likes to berate the first player who speaks to him. One white man in his thirties says the n-word repeatedly. When I asked a black man why nobody responded to the racist comments, the man replied: “He’s from the projects. That white boy right there is blacker than any of us.” Oh.

Only the league director has a little bit of control. Kuda commands respect even from the people who don’t respect others very often. Springfield is the birthplace of basketball, but now it is a cesspool of violence. Just last week, a 16-year old got shot in the face while driving in his mother’s car. That set off a 48-hour span with three shootings. Authority has stopped meaning as much. But, at Hubbard Park, everyone listens to Kuda.

Everyone also has his own story. One had Big East offers to play both football and basketball. Legend has it that he once dunked between his legs, wearing jeans and Timberland boots, after no warmup whatsoever. Yet he scored low enough on his SATs that he never played a single college game. He started a boxing career that looked promising until he found out his jaw was made of glass. Now you can see him at the local bars, picking up women, drinking nightly, either trying to enjoy life or trying to avoid it. If he doesn’t wonder what could have been, everyone else does.

Another player was ranked number two in his high school class, so the legend goes. In the country. Unheard of for a Springfield boy. But this kid was good. Real good, they tell me. The best, others say.

“The Tom Brady of high school basketball,” one man explained to me. “He was just so smart. But a lot more athletic than Brady. He’d dunk on your head, too.”

Now he carries a tire of blubber around his waist. He can still score in spurts and his intelligence is always visible, but basketball never took him anywhere. The players who make it—some players in the Hubbard Park league have played in the NBA Developmental League, others have made good careers overseas—never attain legendary status. At least not like the players who had the good life at their fingertips and found a way to treat it like a dead goldfish, flushing it all away.

The opposing team’s point guard begins the game with two three-pointers. I briefly wonder what his story might be—I have played him every summer for five years, but I don’t even know his name. I know he can shoot with just a hair of space and I know he’s quicker than a virgin’s first time, but I don’t know whether he graduated college, or where he works, or whether he’s married, or if he has kids. I don’t know where he lives or what he calls his favorite basketball team. All I know is that he just hit two shots in my eye, and I better get a hand up. He is like I am, not a legend but one of the league’s peripheral figures. He or I could abruptly stop playing in the league and nobody would ask where we went.

A minute or two before halftime, someone emerges from the group smoking weed in the corner of the park and walks to the court. He looks menacing. He’s not too tall and he’s not particularly muscular, but there’s something about the way he walks, and the flames beneath his eyes reveal him as someone you should not fuck with. He stands silently until a dead ball. Then he starts in on the opposing point guard, the one I know so little about. I can’t hear every word Menace says, but I pick up enough.

“You’re a rat fuck,” he says. “A snitch. A bitch. Come and get it.”

Later, my brother tells me Menace also accused the point guard of smashing his car with a baseball bat. I have known the point guard for five years. He always seemed like a good guy. But if I do not know his name, I obviously don’t know much.

The point guard replies, “I don’t want any beef with you. I’m just trying to play basketball.”

“I’ll be right here after the game,” Menace smirks. He lifts up his shirt to reveal his belt buckle, and, I assume, what’s underneath it. I am not wearing my glasses because I have previously broken them while playing basketball, and I am not wearing contact lenses because, three weeks after getting them, I still cannot put them into my eye. But I have no doubts that when Menace lifted his shirt, he showed a gun.

The game goes on without stopping. My team continues to falter. I continue to play poorly. None of it seems to matter as much as it did a minute ago. At every stoppage in play, the point guard stares vacantly at Menace. I assume the point guard fears for his life. I assume he is counting down the minutes until he becomes dust. At halftime, he has twenty minutes left. Then it’s down to five minutes.

Finally, the last minute arrives and my team finishes our loss, and I don’t know why the cops came briefly and then left without helping anything, but I fear I might witness a murder. My heart beats like I just drank fourteen Red Bulls in five minutes. I want to do something, but there’s nothing I can do. I might as well be an accessory to murder. At the very least, I am no hero.

The two teams start to shake hands, but we stop immediately. The point guard has sprinted off the court. Menace stands between the point guard and his car, and Menace looks like he could bite through steel. The point guard bobs and weaves like Mike Vick, somehow navigating around Menace. I am enthralled, and the scene takes less than four seconds, and I still fear for the point guard’s life, and I am more spooked than I have ever been.

The point guard opens his front door and jumps inside, and in one motion puts the keys in the ignition. If he had missed the ignition on the first try, Menace would have opened the door and who knows what would have happened. But the point guard puts the keys in seamlessly, and he drives away while Menace gropes for the door handle, and if you saw the same getaway in a movie you would walk out of the movie theater calling it unrealistic.

A few seconds later, the point guard’s teammate is the first one to speak.

“Man, he left with all my stuff in his back seat.”

I shake my head. Who cares about stuff? We almost just witnessed a death.

Menace returns to his group of friends and gets ready to leave the park. Nobody speaks to him, and he looks at nobody. All the players grab their things and prepare for departure, too. I am convinced I came inches away from seeing a man die.

I walk to my car to drive home with my brother Tommy and one of our teammates.

“When he lifted up his shirt, he was showing him he did NOT have a gun,” Tommy explains.

At Hubbard Park, sometimes you need glasses to see the difference.

Lawrence Frank is not the leader in the clubhouse for the Detroit Pistons head coaching job, but he is close. The Celtics’ lilliputian assistant coach impressed the Detroit front office during the interview process and remains a finalist for the Detroit position. (ESPN)

NBA coaching sources say that the Pistons are inching closer to a decision, though.

Of the five known candidates for job, sources say that former Pistons assistant Mike Woodson is still the closest thing to a favorite, thanks largely to Woodson’s good working relationship with Pistons president of basketball operations Joe Dumars and the fact that Detroit would know exactly what it’s getting after Woodson’s work under Larry Brown during the Pistons’ 2004 title run.

Yet sources say that one reason Detroit’s search has dragged out so long is the strong impression that Lawrence Frank made on new Pistons owner Tom Gores and his advisers, among them former New York Knicks executive Dave Checketts.

Detroit’s choice, then, appears to be a tossup between the unattached Woodson and Frank, who remains part of Doc Rivers’ staff in Boston.

The other three known candidates to get interviews are Kelvin Sampson (about to leave Milwaukee to become Kevin McHale’s lead assistant in Houston), Pistons legend Bill Laimbeer (last seen on Rambis’ staff in Minnesota) and Checketts favorite Patrick Ewing (from Stan Van Gundy’s staff in Orlando). But sources have maintained throughout the process that Detroit’s preference is to hire a coach with previous head-coaching experience in the NBA after the recent unsuccessful stints for first-time head coaches Kuester and Michael Curry.

When Tom Thibodeau was still a coaching free agent, I knew he deserved a head job. I watched Boston’s defense every night, and that was enough to know Thibs would succeed elsewhere. With Frank, I’m not quite as confident. What did he do in Boston? He coached a defense with Thibodeau’s principles. He screamed his head off. He lathered on sun screen to keep from sun burn, even in the winter. What did he do when he was head coach in New Jersey? He won games with talent, lost games without it. Three seasons above .500, three seasons below .500 and one season at 41-41. He won his first 13 games in New Jersey and lost his final 16. Nothing to keep him from getting another job. But nothing that shouts, “This guy’s a perfect head coaching candidate!”, either.

Perhaps Frank will succeed elsewhere. He obviously has quite a reputation—hell, he has interviewed for almost every opening this summer. But I don’t have the same confidence in Frank that I did with Thibs. Frank just isn’t as sure of a home run—even if he’s born on my mother’s birthday, one hell of a day.

When Rajon Rondo’s elbow bent 45 degrees in the wrong direction, we knew his body would not snap back like a rubber band. The injury was too gruesome. Even when he impossibly returned to the game a few minutes later, the arm was a deflated air mattress. He would need time to recover after the season, we knew. And he still needs more time.

At his basketball camp in Kentucky, Rondo admitted his arm still bothers him. (Fox 41 Kentucky via ESPN Boston)

“It’s the most pain I’ve ever been in playing ball,” he said. “I’m feeling a little pain now, but the swelling is down. The only thing is there’s swelling in my joint. I’ll be fine, it just takes time. I’ve got a couple more weeks that I’m off, as far as rest and the repetition of weights.”

I would be worried by his long recovery, but I expected he would need months to fully recover. In my experience (not me personally, but a guy I know), that’s what happens when your arm bends in ways it isn’t meant to.

Adding to my security is that we have no idea when NBA games will return. For all we know, Rondo might have a full year and change to get his elbow right. At the very least, it looks like he’ll have a longer summer vacation than usual—meaning extra recovery time, meaning I’m okay with his elbow hurting in July, meaning call me if it still hurts in September.

Until then, I’m taking this news optimistically. Or, at least, as optimistically as you can take it when your favorite team’s All-Star point guard has bothersome swelling in his elbow joint.

P.S. – Rondo says we should not be concerned about the Big Three, either:

“I’m not concerned about the Big Three,” he said. “There’s a lot of things that people don’t see, behind the scenes. They take care of their bodies. They are in the gym early, in the gym late… We still have a chance to get another ring.”

P.P.S. – Rondo said he has spoken with his agent about going overseas. But then he said he just wants to get ready to help the Boston Celtics. So, really, he didn’t say much, unless you count speaking in circles.

Lawrence Frank will not be considered for the Minnesota Timberwolves vacant head coaching position, according to SI’s Chris Mannix.

“Celtics assistant Lawrence Frank not in the mix for the Timberwolves job, sources say,” Mannix tweeted.

What is Frank, 5 foot nothing? With a bald spot, tenacity to burn, and not a speck of athletic ability? Never mind that Frank never made his high school team and played for a local Jewish Community Center rec league instead—I’m surprised Kahn isn’t interested in signing Frank as Minnesota’s 6th-string point guard rather than the team’s head coach.

All jokes aside, I’m excited to see who the Timberwolves pick as their coach. The way the organization treated Kurt Rambis—deciding to fire him, then keeping him in limbo for a month—will surely (and rightfully) turn off some potential candidates. So will Kahn’s occasionally-wacky personnel decisions and oft-nutty public comments (for example: calling Darko Milicic a manna from heaven). But the Wolves have a young nucleus that should make the team interesting for years to come.

I’m not saying Minnesota will contend next season, or the year after that. But if you aren’t excited to watch Ricky Rubio throw no-look alley-oops to Derrick Williams while Kevin Love boxes out thirteen men at once and Michael Beasley does whatever Michael Beasley does, you hold an off-putting dislike of basketball and quirky experiments.

Anyway, Lawrence Frank is getting closer to returning as Doc Rivers’ lead assistant. You know, if the lockout ever ends.

As A. Sherrod Blakely writes on CSNNE, a season-erasing lockout could improve Boston’s chances of acquiring Dwight Howard.

Blakely’s reasoning is simple: if the lockout is lifted, Orlando could very well trade Howard. He does not seem intent on staying in Orlando, so the Magic’s best bet could be to trade him to the highest bidder before Howard departs for nothing in free agency. If the Magic do trade Howard, the Celtics, with limited assets, almost definitely could not make the highest bid.

On the other hand, if the lockout does wipe out the entire season, Howard could opt out of his contract and become a free agent. Then, Boston’s lack of trade assets would not matter and the cap space they have built would.

Of course, the Celtics would love to acquire Howard. Any team with a GM (not even any team with a competent GM; just any team that has a GM) would love to add the NBA’s best center. The problem is that Boston adding him, while not completely impossible, seems entirely far-fetched.

Reason #1:

When’s the last time the Celtics signed a superstar free agent in his prime?

(Waits for answer.)

(Still waiting.)

(No, Rasheed Wallace doesn’t count.)

(No, Shaq’s decomposed body doesn’t count.)

(No, Patrick O’Bryant doesn’t count.)

Do you give up? That’s because the answer is never. The Celtics traded for Kevin Garnett and Ray Allen, drafted Paul Pierce and Rajon Rondo. They drafted Bill Russell, Bob Cousy, John Havlicek, Dave Cowens, Larry Bird, Bill Walton and even Danny Ainge. They traded for Kevin McHale, Robert Parish, and even Dennis Johnson.

Players have consistently spurned Boston in free agency for at least two reasons:

1) The city has a reputation for racism dating back to the Russell era (and beyond). As much as Russell did for the Boston Celtics—I would never say a bad word about his contributions to the franchise—his comment calling Boston a “flea market of racism” stuck. He was the NBA’s best winner, yet a group of Boston morons had broken into his house, left racist graffiti on his walls, vandalized his trophies and poo’ed on his beds. The city deserved Russell’s harsh criticism. But his words certainly did nothing to improve Boston’s odds of signing a premier free agent.

A “flea market of racism” reputation doesn’t go away easily, although Kevin Garnett might have finally changed it. Garnett, at least according to reports, initially did not want a trade to Boston. He worried about the city’s attitude. He wondered whether the city was still a cesspool of bigotry. But Paul Pierce and Doc Rivers convinced Garnett to give Boston a chance. The city has changed, they said. And it has embraced Garnett with open arms, just like James Posey did so many times.

With Doc Rivers signed for the next five years and the local reputation changing, the Celtics could become a more desirable location for black players. But still, the next superstar free agent the Celtics sign will be the first.

2) Boston is cold, and it isn’t New York. Players will always want to play in New York City. The media spotlight shines brighter there than anywhere else. It’s the biggest market in the country, “the Mecca of basketball,” yada yada yada. Players can bear the snow when it comes alongside endorsement deals, fan support, basketball history (not so much professional basketball history, but still) and more attention than players could receive anywhere else.

Boston’s a big market, too, but it isn’t New York. And given the choice between living in South Beach or Southie, the white sand, mid-90s weather and zany nightlife sound pretty good.

Reason #2:

Yes, the Celtics could have miles of cap space for next season. Yes, Rajon Rondo will wear Green and White for the foreseeable future. But the Celtics’ future is murky.

Consider this: the Celtics have two players signed for the 2012-13 season. Just two. One is Rondo, who is an All-Star but probably not the type of free agent drawing card Chris Paul should be. Why not? There are serious questions about Rondo’s game. He can’t shoot. He disappears occasionally during the regular season, if not the playoffs. He battled nagging injuries, including plantar fasciitis, all last season; the injuries (and maybe a laissez-faire attitude toward the regular season) derailed what had been a Stockton-iffic start and left Rondo average for the final quarter (at least) of the regular season. Playing alongside Rondo would presumably be oodles of fun. But teaming with him is not necessarily a free ride to the NBA Finals.

The other player Boston has under contract for 2012-13, Paul Pierce, will turn 35 before playing a single game that season. If a free agent (such as Howard) is looking to build a Super-team, the Celtics won’t be his best bet—especially considering he could move to New York, play in the Mecca of Basketball, and call both Amare Stoudemire and Carmelo Anthony his teammates. Or he could move to Los Angeles and take over Hollywood. Or he could move to wherever Chris Paul lands and immediately field a better roster than Boston’s, even if the supporting cast couldn’t throw the basketball into an ocean.

Let’s say Kevin Garnett and Ray Allen decide to return to Boston for significantly smaller contracts. Even then, joining the Celtics would not guarantee competing for a title. Garnett will be 36 years old by then and Allen will be 37. If they’re still good players, they certainly won’t be All-Stars.

Don’t misunderstand me—Boston has its draws. Any superstar would love to play for Rivers. The franchise (mostly) knows what it’s doing, and is committed to winning. Rondo can make basketball easy for his teammates. The owners are willing to spend cash. The franchise is the greatest in NBA history. The city loves sports. But there are reasons free agents have never picked Boston, and those reasons will not evade Dwight Howard.

The Celtics would be idiotic not to try adding Howard. Hell, I assume all thirty teams will submit trade proposals for Howard if he ever hits the trade market. But I wouldn’t count on Howard signing in Boston, even if the Celtics preserve all their cap space, even if this season ends with a lockout and Howard chooses to become a free agent. Call me a pessimist or call me a realist. I would vote the latter.

Nonetheless, I’m keeping my fingers crossed, holding my rosary beads and saying all my prayers. And I’m not even moderately religious.