Via ESPN Boston:

Both starting center Jermaine O’Neal and backup guard Keyon Dooling did not participate in Thursday’s 90-minute practice session due to knee ailments. Rivers said it was more of a rest day for O’Neal (who appeared to be hobbled by a bothersome hamstring or knee in Wednesday’s game), but deemed Dooling questionable for Friday’s visit from the Bulls. “They’re all questionable,” Rivers quipped of his veteran team. “But, yes, I think Dooling is [questionable]. I think J.O. will go.”

I’m not sure when Dolling injured himself, but I know I’m petrified of the phrase “Avery Bradley, primary backup point guard.”

Gary Washburn, Boston Globe:

“Up and down, he’s getting beat up,’’ Rivers said when asked about Johnson’s progress in practice. “He’s excited when he actually gets the [scrimmage] refs to come on the floor, I’ll tell you that. But he did a couple of good things today. He’s starting to learn who he is. He knows he’s a jump shooter and he’s starting to become comfortable enough to take that shot.’’

“Today was the first day when he picked-and-popped, he caught it and shot it,’’ Rivers said. “The other two days he tried to make another play and got bumped off the spot, so I think he’s starting to simplify his game.’’

When asked if he expected Johnson to generate an interior game, Rivers said, “Nah. I mean, he’ll dunk because he’s athletic as heck, so we’re going to run stuff to get him rolling to the basket and throw it up in the air and he’ll go get it. But as far as post presence? Not really, but that’s fine. We don’t need that. We’ll try to get that somewhere else.’’ Read more »

Avery Bradley did not earn Doc Rivers’ trust last season. But before the NBA lockout kept teams from speaking with their coaches, Bradley visited Orlando to spend time with Rivers and try to create a bond. (ESPN)

“It was cool, I was just trying to build a relationship with him,” the just-turned 21-year-old Bradley said Friday of time he spent with coach Doc Rivers. “It was a good experience. I got to work out with both of his sons and play pick-up with a few NBA players down there. It was a good experience. But like I said, for the most part, I was just trying to go down there and start a relationship with Doc, which I felt like I did.” …

“I feel like if someone has trust in you off the court, they’ll be able to trust you on the court,” said Bradley. “That was the main thing for me, to just build that relationship with Doc, let him know how much I want to play. I feel like he’s seen that, now I just have to prove it on the court. When I come in here, from Day 1, I have to go hard and show him that I improved over the summer and, not only that, but I’m looking to improve throughout the year.”

Bradley desperately wants to succeed. He went to play in Israel. He spent time in the Impact Basketball League. He traveled to Orlando to sit in the front of the class and give Doc an apple to earn Doc’s trust and show him how badly he wanted to succeed. I’m rooting for the kid, not just because his evolution would make Boston a stronger team, but because he’s the type of person willing to work out with Doc Rivers’ sons just to prove how badly he wants to earn a spot in Boston’s rotation.

But the key words in his quote were these: “now I just have to prove it on the court.” Doc didn’t keep Bradley on the bench because he didn’t like him. He kept Bradley on the bench because Bradley’s a point guard who doesn’t know how to play point guard. Because Bradley’s handle is shaky, his jumper’s suspect and his rugged defense wasn’t enough to outweigh his shortcomings running an offense. No matter how much time Bradley spent in Orlando — don’t misunderstand me: I LOVE the commitment Bradley’s visit showed, and I LOVE that Doc Rivers is willing to host his players during the offseason — his playing time will be determined by how much he improved during the offseason.

P.S. — I’m half joking, but how badly do you think Bradley got eaten alive by Austin Rivers?

Rajon Rondo can be stubborn, aloof and moody. He can rub teammates and coaches the wrong way. He’s steadfast in his beliefs and willing to share them with any member of the Boston Celtics. But even when he struggled during the second half of last season, there was a belief he had turned the corner personally and become a player the Celtics admired and (mostly) got along with, on and off the court.

Or maybe not.

Donny Marshall told NBC SportsTalk that Rondo still causes trouble in Boston’s locker room.

“My sources tell me he’s started to wear his welcome out a little bit,” Marshall said.

In his book (I haven’t read it yet, so my knowledge is second-hand), Shaq noted that Rondo occasionally ticked off his older teammates. Shaq called Rondo stubborn and said he wouldn’t change. But that’s nothing new. We’ve known Rondo to be stubborn and set in his ways, ever since he was a rookie coming out of the University of Kentucky. Calling Rondo stubborn is like calling Kevin Garnett crazy — yeah, no kidding, but his team needs to learn to deal with it, because like it or not, that’s just part of his personality. Good luck potty training a 25-year old dog.

Sporting News reporter Sean Deveney wrote a column this week saying the Boston Celtics are just using these trade rumors to motivate Rondo.

Fast forward to this bizarre offseason, and you can’t help but get the sense that the Celtics are leaning on the “trade Rondo” tactic yet again—not because they are actually looking to trade Rondo, but because they want to snap him out of the funk he seemed to fall into after the team traded his good friend Kendrick Perkins in a surprise move last February. Before the trade, Rondo averaged 10.8 points on 50.9 percent shooting, with 12.3 assists. After, he was down to 9.8 points on 41.6 percent shooting, with 9.2 assists. The Celtics were 41-14 before the deal, and 15-12 after. Rondo played hurt against the Heat in the second round of the playoffs, where the Celtics lost in five games. …

What it all comes down to is the Celtics looking to give Rondo a kick in the trousers at a time when they know they need their point guard to be at his best. Rondo might not want to admit it, but Pierce, Allen and Garnett are getting older and the championship window is closing. If the Celtics do have another run in them, they need their point man to be well-adjusted and ready to produce the way he had done before Perkins was traded.

These trade rumors will likely prove to be little more than a way to assure Rondo comes in with sharpened focus.

But if that’s the case, why didn’t they try motivating him during the regular season? If what Rondo needs to play well is a kick in the rump, why didn’t Doc Rivers just come out and say, “Look, guys, our point guard’s playing like a drunken Jose Calderon. We know he’s capable of better. Hell, he spent the first half of the season threatening to break NBA assist records and generally playing like a top-three point guard in the NBA. But right now, we’re not getting much of anything from him.”

Here’s what Rivers said instead:

“I don’t know if he’s slumping. He’s not playing great right now, but I don’t think he’s slumping or anything,” said Rivers, who told reporters in New Jersey that Rondo’s ankle was fine. “He’s just going through a stretch. It’s a long season. He’s human the last time I checked, and he’s going to go through stretches just like Paul [Pierce] and Ray [Allen] and Kevin [Garnett]. They’ve all gone through stretches.”

Rivers always publicly backed Rondo, no matter how poorly or disinterested the All-Star played at times last season. Maybe that’s because Rondo’s moody — maybe one negative word from Rivers could send him into a tailspin. But that never stopped Rivers with other players. Glen Davis is as moody as an eight-months pregnant woman, yet Rivers took (admittedly subdued) public shots at him fairly frequently. They didn’t work out — Davis just kept spiraling deeper and deeper into the world of bricked jumpers and shaky decisions. But Rivers didn’t hold his tongue with Davis, even though Davis clearly is the type to be adversely affected by being called out in the press.

Kevin Garnett backed Rondo, too, even during the depths of last season’s slump. After Rondo went scoreless and rebound-less against the Indiana Pacers, Garnett had this to say:

“Rondo’s playing hurt,” said Garnett. “He’s hurting. He’s giving us everything he has. He’s grinding. He’s playing countless minutes for us, and he’s not playing like a washed-up guy.”

That doesn’t sound like someone fed up with his teammate. Nor does the following comment from Jermaine O’Neal, taken after Rondo returned to the Miami Heat game with one arm (pretty much) tied behind his back.

“He’s one of the tougher point guards in this league and he wants to win. And that’s the first thing I asked him when he came back, I asked him, ‘Are you sure that you want to be back out here?’ And he said, ‘Look, we don’t have any games to give,’ and that’s Rondo.”

Rondo can obviously be a nuisance sometimes. He’s prideful, and not always in a good way. He’s stubborn. Nobody would argue with that. But his teammates and coaches speak about him with respect and sometimes even awe. At one of the games I covered last season, I forget which one, Rivers noted that Rondo occasionally disagreed with sets Rivers called. But Rivers wasn’t upset. He was just impressed, because Rondo saw (and understood) things on the court that even Rivers didn’t.

Would I be surprised to hear that Rondo can still be an asshole sometimes? No, not at all. In fact, given his personality, I’m sure he occasionally causes problems in the locker room, at least minor ones. But would I be surprised to hear the Celtics are shopping him around because they’re fed up with his act? Yes. They’re not trying to trade him for 75 cents on the dollar, after all. They’re trying to trade him for Chris Effing Paul, the best damn point guard in the league. If Danny Ainge isn’t simply looking to improve his basketball team, I’d be surprised.

Then again, Rondo’s play during the second half of the season can best be described as “the walking dead.” But here was Garnett’s explanation of that:

“I’ve seen him play through some (injuries). I’m not going to go through the list of injuries that you all are unaware of. I’m not going to put him out there like that but I’ve seen him play through some horrific injuries. [When he returned after the elbow injury] all of us sort of look at each other like, ‘What is he doing out here? Is he being smart right now?’ When he came in, it was just typical Rondo. Shorty is a really tough, young individual and I don’t know what he’s going to be like when he’s 35 but right now he’s playing through a lot. He’s showing a lot of heart (and) a lot of grit. We see it. That doesn’t go unspoken or unseen. We see he’s out there giving his full effort. We’re following that lead.”

I’m not completely discarding Donny Marshall’s report. But if the Celtics are really fed up with Rondo’s act, they had a funny way of talking about it last season.

After certain recent seasons ended, Doc Rivers would return to his family and discuss whether he wanted to return to the Boston Celtics. He was burnt out.

It wasn’t his fault. You try coaching Rasheed Wallace. You try dealing with Kevin Garnett’s insanity, Rajon Rondo’s stubbornness and Glen Davis’ immaturity on a daily basis. You try teaching Mikki Moore how to make a defensive rotation, or coaxing Nate Robinson into actually running an offense.

But Rivers isn’t burnt out anymore. He just misses coaching. (Boston Herald)

“It’s like I was telling (Celtics president) Danny (Ainge),” he said. “The blessing of this is that I’m nowhere near ready to not do this. I miss it. So there’s some good things to this, too.”

Rivers has had time during the NBA lockout to relax with his family. He’s attended Duke games to watch his son Austin. But when you’re used to coaching basketball, when you’re used to competing, and all that gets taken away (by all the greedy bastards involved in the NBA negotiations), teaching Jeff Green the fundamentals of boxing out starts to seem a little more attractive.

I’m busy today with other, work-related, things — yes, a couple people have actually been dumb enough to employ me — but I still need to address Paul Pierce’s birthday. Jermaine O’Neal and Doc Rivers (not to mention Cowboys owner Jerry Jones, whose team hopefully loses this Sunday) were also born on October 13, but Pierce holds a place in my heart above even Doc.

So on the 34th anniversary of Pierce’s birth, I’d like to remind everyone how far Pierce has come. Back when Pierce butted heads with coaches, spatted with teammates, lost his cool at the worst times and occasionally went to press conferences with a bandage over his head — back when Bob Ryan called Pierce’s flagrant foul against Jamaal Tinsley in a 2005 playoff game against Indiana “the single most unforgivable, untimely, stupid, and flat-out selfish on-court act in the history of the Celtics” – who ever would have expected Pierce to grow into a selfless teammate, a true leader, and one of the few NBA superstars who cared enough to represent the players union at labor negotiations?

Sure, Pierce still settles for occasional ill-advised stepback jumpers at the end of close games. He sometimes takes a few plays off, I wish he would rebound more consistently, and his ability to grow facial hair leaves a lot to be desired. But he’s come 180 degrees from that day against Indiana, from the time when it was semi-reasonable for Celtics fans to hope Pierce would be traded. He was immature, a little bit of a gunner, a loose cannon. And now he’s matured into Paul Pierce, The Captain, the star who reshaped his game for the good of his team, the Celtic who grew in Boston perhaps more than any other.

I’ve written about my favorite Pierce moment before, but let me do it once more. It isn’t a game-winning shot. It isn’t him holding up a trophy. It isn’t him scoring 38 points and out-dueling Kobe Bryant in the ’08 Finals.

Against the Cleveland Cavaliers in Game Seven of the Eastern Conference Semifinals that same year, Pierce toed the foul line with 7.9 seconds left. The Celtics led 95-92 and realistically would seal the win if Pierce made one of two foul shots. Pierce had already scored 39 points and held his own in a mano-a-mano matchup against Lebron James. Just one make, and his Celtics would head to the Eastern Conference Finals to play the Detroit Pistons. The TD Garden crowd waited anxiously.

The first shot wasn’t one of Pierce’s best. Maybe a little overeager, he put more power behind the shot than he would have liked. It hit the back rim hard, and had no chance to fall through the hoop. But it bounced straight up, then fell straight down. Later, Pierce would say the ghost of Red Auerbach guided it through the rim.

The free throw was good, the Celtics were moving on, and Paul Pierce stood at the foul line, his face adorned with a smile so big, so wide, so genuine, that it could only come from someone who treaded water in defeat for so long, someone who cherished every second of his team’s revival because he knew how badly it beat where he came from, because he knew how difficult championship opportunities can be to come by.

Happy birthday, Truth. We love you, my man, even if you’re locked out.