The photographer should have zoomed in a little closer, no?

Doc Rivers says some NBA coaching staffs have proceeded “business like normal,” but the Celtics staff is not one of them. (Boston Herald)

“It’s been interesting,” he said. “We have, what, seven signed players. But as a staff, we’ve still watched film, we’ve prepped. We’re meeting in a week again as a staff. I know some staffs have gone on business like normal, where they’ve been in the office every day. I made a conscious choice not to do that, because you just don’t know. The tough part is not knowing the rest of your roster.

“But we pretty much know who we are. We’re not changing much as far as our identity defensively and stuff like that. But there are areas we want to improve on, on offense and defense, and we’re going to do that.”

There are only so many times you can look at tape and say, “Yup, Kevin Garnett is a great defender, Paul Pierce likes the stepback jumper, Rajon Rondo can really pass, and — ya know what? — why don’t we try to get Ray Allen open for jumpers next season?”

Doc Rivers is familiar enough with his team that watching tape every day just doesn’t make sense. So for now, he has been living the life — “golf, family and that’s about it,” he said. Living the retired life well before retirement, and getting paid for it. Sounds like a decent deal.

As Rivers noted, the Celtics currently have only seven players (eight if you include E’Twaun Moore, whose second-round draft selection does not come with a guaranteed contract). One name who might interest the Celtics while filling out their roster: Grant Hill.

The 38-year old small forward is reportedly interested in joining a contender next season, and the Celtics have shown interest in the past. Hill might not be a perfect fit — the Celtics bench was starved for three-point shooting last season, and Hill has never been known as a knockdown shooter — but he’s a solid veteran with a versatile skill set.  The Celtics will be limited by their salary, which figures to be over whatever salary cap is determined in the new Collective Bargaining Agreement. But Hill could come cheap.

If he does, he could very well be on the Celtics’ free agent wish list, a list that Danny Ainge has spent more time making this offseason than ever before.

“We’ve done that,” he said, “but we’ve done that every summer, every draft and every trade deadline. It’s the same as usual. We’ve just had a lot more time to go over things.

“We don’t know what’s going to happen, but we’ll be prepared. We’ve just gotten organized in our scouting. We’re just more organized now.”

Organization will help, but Ainge will also need to be creative whenever the free agency period begins. Decisions will need to be made on Glen Davis and Jeff Green. Delonte West will need to be wooed. Centers will need to be convinced to sign. Ainge will have to fill eight roster spots despite a severe lack of spending money, and he will have to juggle the success of next year and the desire to leave salary open for a 2012 spending spree.

Godspeed, Danny. Godspeed.

At some point last season — maybe it was when he returned from injury, or when he started protecting the basket like it was his only daughter, or when I learned he swatted shots and grabbed rebounds all with a broken wrist — Jermaine O’Neal won his way into my heart. His body wasn’t built for this anymore, it wasn’t built for 82 game schedules and back-to-back games and bumping and grinding in the low post, but O’Neal proved himself to be tough, a winner, a player who would give until his body wouldn’t let him give anymore.

The body is still the issue, and  it could keep him from playing further than this next season. In an interview with CSNNE, O’Neal admitted he will likely retire after the 2011-’12 season. (CSNNE)

Jermaine O’Neal told CSNNE.com that, barring an unexpected change of heart, which he says is unlikely, this will be his last season. …

“I’m going into my 16th year, so I know my time is near,” O’Neal said. “I know someday the ball is going to go flat; you have to plan for life after basketball and that’s what I have been doing.” …

“I have a 5-year-old son and a 12-year-old girl,” he said. “They want to spend a lot of time with Daddy. At this point in my career, it doesn’t make sense to go overseas and play for half-a-season. I want to be able to be ready and be fully prepared mentally and physically for what may be my last season.” …

“You never say never, but like I said earlier, my kids are getting older,” he said. “The only thing left that I want to do in this league is win a championship. That’s why I came to Boston last year, because I felt this was the best place for me to do that: Win a championship.”

O’Neal is not the first Celtic to be linked to possible retirement — Kevin Garnett said he can see the end of his career approaching, Ray Allen, 36 years old though aging quite slowly, likely won’t be around for too much longer, and Paul Pierce, though younger than Garnett and Allen, is already on the down slope of his Hall of Fame career. There will be an exodus of retirements within the next handful of years, and the Celtics will transform into the unrecognizable, a team devoid of the Big Three and reliant on Rajon Rondo — and hopefully another All-Star or two — to light the path into the future.

After admitting his plan to retire, O’Neal noted that only one goal remains unaccomplished on his career checklist: winning an NBA championship.

“For me now, it’s not about scoring or statistics,” O’Neal said. “I’ve proven that I can score in this league, do a lot of good things. For me now, it’s all about winning, being part of a winner. That’s my motivation.”

Perhaps he’s delusional to consider the Celtics championship contenders. They were smacked around by the Heat last season, they have just seven players on a roster that’s already over the salary cap, eight if you count E’Twaun Moore, whose contract is not guaranteed, and most significantly, the core that led Boston back to relevance, the core that won one championship and came minutes from another, is one year older. The NBA landscape is passing the Big Three Boston Celtics by; if they did not pass the Eastern Conference torch to the Miami Heat last season, Lebron James ripped it from their wrinkly fingers and battered them over the head with it.

But there’s always hope. What if Kevin Garnett returns just as mobile as he was last season? What if Ray Allen continues to stiff-arm the aging process? What if Paul Pierce holds his slow decline to a crawl? What if the Celtics re-sign Delonte West, fill out the rest of their bench with shooters, rebounders and knowledgeable defenders, and somehow, improbably, miraculously, arrive at the playoffs without a list of injuries longer than this column?

If everything goes right, if Danny Ainge makes the right moves, if the Big Three remain near the top of their games, if Jermaine O’Neal and the rest of his teammates somehow coax health out of bodies that aren’t necessarily built for this anymore, this 82 games of grinding and bumping and bruising and running and jumping, then the Celtics have a shot at winning a championship. Then O’Neal could retire on top, and the slew of retirements to follow in the coming years would be less painful.

If only everything goes right.

Jeff Green was characteristically non-committal recently when asked about his impending free agency. (Washington Post via @MrTrpleDouble10)

After averaging 15.1 points with the Thunder, Green averaged 9.8 points and 3.3 rebounds in 26 regular season games and 7.3 points and 2.7 rebounds in playoff games for Boston. Boston is expected to pursue him in free agency, but when asked if the Celtics were his first option, Green said, “I just want to play basketball, wherever it’s at. I love Boston and the city of Boston welcomed me with open arms when the trade happened. Boston is a great city.” …

Green won’t stress over where he winds up, whenever the next season begins. “Not at all. I have one of the best agents in the game, David Falk,” Green said. “He’s going to make sure I’m in a good position. He does his job and I do mine. I leave it up to him to try to make sure everything is intact when that time comes.”

When Green said, “The city of Boston welcomed me with open arms when the trade happened,” he forgot to add, “It wasn’t until a month or two later that most of the city turned on me.”

The Celtics picked up Green’s $5.9 million qualifying offer, meaning they can match any contract offer he receives. Should Danny Ainge choose to keep Green, he would likely do so with a shorter, less expensive contract. If Green proved anything last year in Boston, it’s that he still has a lot to prove. And if Green hasn’t improved substantially since May, giving him a long-term deal this summer could be like the annual end of Daylight Savings Time — it could set the Celtics back substantially.

The Jeff Green decision could make or break the Celtics future, one way or the other. Ainge needs to choose wisely.

Hint: Danny, unless he comes dirt cheap, let him walk. Or better yet, sign-and-trade him for a veteran with one year left on his contract. Sacrificing any substantial amount of Boston’s 2012 cap space on Jeff Green would be sabotage.

On the day the Celtics traded Kendrick Perkins, they were the NBA favorites, or at least damn close, and they could not lose to the Miami Heat. Three months later, they fell to the Heat when it counted most, four games to one, and Kevin Garnett later conceded the Heat were a better team.

Adding Jeff Green didn’t solve any of Boston’s bench problems, picking up Nenad Krstic only made Boston more susceptible to wide open layups, Shaq and Jermaine O’Neal remained injured and broken down for most of the season, and meanwhile, even with Perk playing poorly in Oklahoma City, the Thunder blossomed with their new big man. The Perkins trade, from whatever view you might take, did not pay any dividends last season.

Somehow, Shaq managed to make the trade look even worse yesterday. (NOLA)

“I truly believe that if I didn’t get injured,” Shaq said, “we (Celtics) would have beaten Miami, and we could have beaten Dallas. Usually when it’s really a bad injury, you get one (cortisone) shot, and then you feel better and play. But I got shot after shot, and I was scared to get an MRI. I knew my Achilles’ tendon was ripped the whole time. I did everything from acupuncture, cortisone and therapy. It felt good when I initially came back, but I ripped it some more.

“My mind was on winning the whole thing, and we had a chance to get the second spot (in the Eastern Conference), and we ended up getting the fourth spot. I even told (Boston General Manager) Danny Ainge not to do the Kendrick Perkins deal with Oklahoma City. I told them I might not be ready, and I’m definitely not coming back. Those guys did what they’ve got to do. I wasn’t surprised; I’ve seen it before. They say all that blah, blah, but you know it’s always going to be something different.”

Look, I’m the biggest Perkins Trade basher in the world. Jeff Green’s a broke man’s Lamar Odom and Perkins was an obviously important piece. The Celtics went from Ubuntu to Ubunt-who? overnight, adding a slew of players midseason and struggling to find their identity for the playoffs. Having all those new additions even forced Doc Rivers to cut his playbook in half for the postseason. That’s never ideal.

But Shaq telling Danny Ainge not to pull the trigger on the deal? That doesn’t change my opinion of the trade at all. Why not? Because Ainge should have known what a risk it was to roll the dice on Shaq’s health, even without Shaq telling him. It didn’t take inside information to know that Shaq was a walking (or sometimes not walking) hospital patient. The Big Diesel’s body was just as reliable as his free throw stroke, maybe even less so — Shaq played in 45.1% of Boston’s game last year, but shot 55.7% from the charity stripe.

Even if Shaq WAS on pace to return healthy well before the playoffs, his next injury was always around the corner. That’s what happens when you’re 39 years old, weigh 360 pounds, never stay in great shape and have played thousands of miles worth of NBA basketball. Ainge didn’t need Shaq to tell him any of that. That Shaq did, well, you can blame Danny for not listening, but Shaq’s body was telling Danny the same message long before Shaq verbalized it.

Ainge thought the Celtics needed to trade Kendrick Perkins for Jeff Green. The trade was never about believing Shaq would return in perfect shape. Ainge wasn’t that dumb; not even the most gullible, optimistic fan thought that would happen. In the middle of February, with the Celtics the NBA favorites or very close to it, Danny Ainge simply thought the Celtics needed a serious change. Obviously, if last season is any indication, he miscalculated. But the move was never about Ainge trusting Shaq.

After promoting Mike Longabardi and Jamie Young from within the organization, the Boston Celtics will not make any more additions to their coaching staff.

I once had a girlfriend (we’ll call her Beth) who mispronounced my friend Dan Potito’s last name every time she said it. At first, I corrected Beth whenever she made the mistake.

“Pah-tee-toe,” I would say before muttering, “Damn it, what a moron” under my breath.

A day later, a week later, or sometimes even just a couple hours later, she would make the mistake again. This time I would slow my speech down, like I was trying to teach a pre-schooler how to read.

“Pah. Tee. Toe,” I would correct her. “Pah. Tee. Toe.”

Depending on how frustrated I was with her shortcomings, I might even add a four-letter word rhyming with tuck.

Inevitably, my lessons failed. Beth had some type of road block prohibiting her from saying Potito. No matter how many times she screwed up, no matter how many times I corrected her, she kept inserting an ‘N’ into his name. Where the ‘N’ came from, I will never know. But she kept saying Pontito, and I kept rolling my eyes, and finally I decided to ignore her mispronunciations altogether. I could think of better ways to spend my time than correcting somebody who could not possibly be corrected.

During the past two seasons, I reached that point with Boston’s rebounding. I could either rip the poor rebounding during almost every game recap and offer advice to correct it (Pah-tee-toe, damn it!), or I could blissfully ignore it, pretend it didn’t happen, and continue as if the recurring problem did not exist. Just to clarify: by rebounding problem, I almost solely mean offensive rebounding. The Celtics rated 9th in the NBA in defensive rebound rate (the percentage Boston grabbed of all defensive rebounds available), but dead last in offensive rebound rate (the percentage Boston grabbed of all offensive rebounds available). Overall, they were the 19th-best rebounding team in the NBA last season according to rebounding rate, tied with the Toronto Raptors and only one spot ahead of the New Jersey Nets. Of all the serious contenders, the Celtics were the only team to haul in less than 50% of available rebounds. But I rarely addressed it because, well, what was the point? The Celtics were a below-average rebounding team, they were consistently that way, and if I complained about rebounding night in and night out, I would have sounded like an MP3 player on loop.

Still, the problem persisted.  Looking at Boston’s roster, there’s no easy fix for the offensive rebounding issues in regards to next season. But there is hope, if just a glimmer. The Celtics will enter this summer knowing full well that their offensive rebounding needs a serious boost, and there are a few options to address the issue.

One way they could address rebounding is through roster changes. As of now, the Celtics currently have three big men under contract. Two are creaky veterans (Kevin Garnett and Jermaine O’Neal), and one is a pinky-finger thin rookie not known for his rebounding prowess (JaJuan Johson). Danny Ainge will undoubtedly address Boston’s lack of size via free agency, whether by re-signing Glen Davis or by adding free agent big men from other teams. But with the Celtics already committed to a boatload of salary and the NBA potentially looking at a hard cap (no mid-level exceptions), adding quality size will prove difficult, if not impossible. WEEI’s Ben Rohrbach examined the crop of free agent big men yesterday, concluding that Boston’s best outcome this summer would be to luck into Greg Oden on the cheap and add a role player like Nazr Mohammed in addition. Needless to say, when the best-case scenario includes adding Nazr Mohammed and Greg Oden’s body bag, options are limited.

Oden, at least if he could stay on his feet, would address Boston’s rebounding problem. But even after playing only 82 games through four professional seasons, he might still be out of Boston’s price range. In fact, price issues could become a pattern this summer. Samuel Dalembert’s rebounding percentage would have led the Celtics this season, but even Dalembert should be out of Boston’s price range. Tyson Chandler would help Boston immensely, but he’ll probably be too expensive. DeAndre Jordan should find more money elsewhere, too (although, in retrospect, the Celtics probably should have drafted him rather than J.R. Giddens—and by probably, I mean Danny Ainge should fall asleep each night with regrets).

Rather than sign a franchise-altering center this summer, the Celtics will likely have to target the Kurt Thomases and Nazr Mohammeds of the world; in other words, players who are closer to getting their AARP cards than they are to being in college. Those players would provide a rebounding upgrade, yes, but they would also play smaller roles that would limit their minutes and thus hinder their effect. With monetary limitations and limited options, the Celtics will find adding rebounding through free agency difficult. Even if they decide to re-sign Glen Davis or Jeff Green, neither rebounds the ball well.

Another option would be a trade. But there are problems with that. The Celtics have limited assets and the best assets they do have will be difficult to trade for fair value. Their most valuable trade pieces still include Kevin Garnett, Paul Pierce and Ray Allen, two of whom (Allen and Garnett) aren’t just All-Stars but also possess expiring contracts. Trading one or two of the Big Three for Dwight Howard would be magnificent, but trading them for a merely serviceable center might cause a riot in Faneuil Hall. Ainge could also choose to move Rajon Rondo, which might not be intelligent because Rondo’s a young, All-Star point guard who makes Brendan Haywood money—those are difficult to find.

If Ainge decides not to move any of the Fab Four, his trade bait would likely consist of Green (whose value eroded toward the end of last season), Davis (ditto) and some combination of recent draft picks (something tells me very few teams want Avery Bradley) and future draft picks (the Clippers’ pick is a nice trade chip, but it’s top-10 protected).  Or, a pu-pu platter. When you add that Boston has built plenty of cap space for 2012 and Ainge has already stated his intentions to use it only on the right players, the Celtics are handcuffed not only by their limited assets but also by who they can and cannot trade for due to future cap implications.

All of which means the Celtics will struggle to add any significant rebounding through roster additions. Any improvement they make could have to come internally, or by addition through subtraction. Strategically speaking, Doc Rivers should change his team’s philosophy on offensive rebounding. In the past, he has intentionally foregone offensive rebounding in order to set up a stiff transition defense. But Boston’s defense has been at or near the top of the NBA for the past four seasons. Lately, it’s the offense that has slipped, and a crucial part of the slippage has been Boston’s lack of offensive rebounds.

Believe it or not, the Celtics were only the 17th most efficient offensive team last season. They managed to accomplish offensive mediocrity even while leading the NBA in field goal percentage. How? Four main reasons: the Celtics were 22nd in fewest turnovers, 25th in three-pointers made, 24th in free throws made, and dead last in offensive rebounding. Improving in any of those four categories would increase Boston’s offensive efficiency. But the improvements could prove difficult. Outside of Paul Pierce and Ray Allen, the Celtics have very few shooters. The lack of free throws was an effect of aging players who can’t get to the hoop like they used to, a problem that seems unlikely to change. And the offensive rebounds? The Celtics game plan deserves partial blame, but the aging, perimeter-oriented roster also contributed to the rebounding dearth.

In an October 8, 2009 study, Basketball Prospectus’s Kevin Pelton examined the correlation between age and offensive rebounding. He found that a player’s offensive rebound rate (ORR) normally drops very early in his career and remains lower later in his career. This could be entirely a function of age. Or it could be something else. “My presumption,” wrote Pelton, “is that as [players] expand their game and add range, they are pulled away from the basket and spend less time securing second chances.”

Whether decreasing offensive rebound totals are a function of age or perimeter-oriented big men, last year’s Celtics were damned. Their big men were old, raggedy and perimeter-oriented. The old: Kevin Garnett posted the second-worst ORR of his career. Shaq posted the worst of his. Jermaine O’Neal wasn’t much better. Glen Davis’s ORR decreased by more than 50% in one season. All the rebounding offenders were old (except for Davis, who is big-boned). All were perimeter-oriented (except for Shaq, who missed more than half the season due to injury). When including Nenad Krstic and Semih Erden (whose youth did not make him more than an average offensive rebounder), the Celtics entire frontcourt was saddled with poor-to-mediocre offensive rebounders. And the two worst—Garnett and Davis—received the majority of playing time.

Next year (assuming there is a next year), Garnett will presumably still start and play the majority of minutes at power forward. Because he has not been a good offensive rebounder since relocating to Boston, we can comfortably assume he will still rebound a small percentage of his teammates’ misses. But Davis is likely a goner, meaning his minutes (and his putrid 5.7% ORR) will be gone.  Jermaine O’Neal will likely get some of those minutes (if his body can handle it), and he should be an upgrade from Big Baby in terms of crashing the glass. But he’s not Zach Randolph or Kevin Love—he won’t manufacture four or five extra shots for Boston on a nightly basis. The rest of those minutes should go to offseason pickups (again, the Celtics don’t have much of an opportunity to add serious talent) and JaJuan Johnson (who did not rebound particularly well even in college). Chances are, no spectacular offensive rebounders there.

Cutting Glen Davis loose would help the Celtics make improvements on the offensive glass. But those improvements will be meager unless Rivers decides to change his coaching philosophy. Considering that the team’s offense was last season’s problem, Rivers should seriously consider changing his ways.