Five teams are still involved in free agency discussions with Chuck Hayes, his agent said on Thursday. The Boston Celtics are not one of those five teams. (Fox Houston)

Free agent forward Chuck Hayes has five teams expressing strong interest in him and his agent told FOX 26 Sports Hayes could be ready to make a decision by the weekend.

“The teams that are involved with Chuck Hayes are the Portland Trailblazers, the Toronto Raptors, the Houston Rockets, the Sacramento Kings and the Minnesota Timberwolves,” Calvin Andrews said.

Sayonara, Chuck. It would have been nice to know ya.

(h/t Red’s Army)

When I was eight years old, I came down with the worst stomach virus I’ve ever had. For 24 straight hours, I couldn’t roll out of bed. I puked, and I puked, and I puked some more. Out came my cheerios, my toast, and my mac and cheese. Hell, I was so sick I couldn’t even make it to the bathroom. I just laid there, with a nasty bucket by my bedside, rolling over and aiming into the bucket so I wouldn’t toss my cookies onto my sheets or the rug.

There’s only one difference between my bout with a stomach virus back then and tonight’s Celtics performance — I could actually find the bucket.

At least the Bulls lost, too. Because otherwise, I wish I had one of those Men In Black memory erasers to wipe this entire night away. The Celtics shot like they had blindfolds on. They rebounded like they had a miserable case of Mark Blountitis. The Boston starters scored a combined 38 points, or seven less than Kevin Martin and Kyle Lowry alone (or, since I mentioned the Bulls, four less than Derrick Rose). That included Paul Pierce, who shot 2-10, and Rajon Rondo, whose poor play might have stooped to new lows; while Rondo shot 2-11 and mustered only six assists, his counterpart Lowry controlled the entire game. Chuck Hayes outplayed Kevin Garnett (no, seriously), Patrick Patterson rendered Nenad Krstic and Troy Murphy entirely useless, and Martin (despite possessing shooting form I wouldn’t wish on my worst enemy) outscored Rondo, Paul Pierce and Ray Allen combined. On a scale of one to ugly, this loss was Freakshow from Harold and Kumar Go to White Castle.

I’m not hitting the panic button, not at all, but the Boston Celtics simply aren’t playing quality basketball at the moment. Four losses in their last six games, and tonight’s was against a Houston team that isn’t even slotted for a playoff spot, and was also missing Luis Scola. With the Bulls ahead of Boston by half a game, I expected a sense of urgency. I expected a team that would run through brick walls for a win. I expected, at the very least, the Celtics would not be completely outclassed by Kyle Lowry, Kevin Martin and Patrick Patterson. Instead, I watched The Stomach Virus Game.

In all fairness, the Celtics should struggle right now. Even with four starters remaining intact, Boston is working five new players into the lineup (six, if you count Delonte West). As much as we’d like them to, these things don’t happen overnight. That doesn’t mean the NBA stops while Boston tries to gain some chemistry — whether or not the troublesome adjustment period is natural, home-court advantage continues to slip away and Rose, Thibodeau and company continue to loom large.

Doc Rivers called a timeout with nine minutes left, and his Celtics trailing by 18 points. After the timeout, play resumed and Greg Dickerson discussed what Rivers had told his team. Just as Dickerson shared what Doc said: something to the effect of “If we get stops, we can score and come back,” Patrick Patterson freed himself for a wide open layup. If there was a better anecdote to summarize the entire night, it evaded my grasp. We heard about Rivers telling his players to get stops, as they simultaneously allowed a point-blank look.

In the movie Tin Cup, golf pro Roy “Tin Cup” McAvoy got the shanks at the U.S. Open. He took swing after swing, and nothing got better. He kept hitting the ball like I would, and I’m about a 35-handicap on a good day (I also spend more time in the sand than David Hasselhoff).

“My God, my swing feels like an unfolded lawn chair,” Tin Cup told his caddy, Romeo. After hearing that, Romeo offered a piece of odd advice which cured Tin Cup’s swing: “Take all your change and put it in your left-hand pocket.”

If only NBA uniforms had pockets, too.

Tracy McGrady could have used his career more effectively, as Malcolm Gladwell, Daryl Morey and Jeff Van Gundy pointed out, and I’m not here to argue that.

When looking at McGrady — six feet eight inches tall, with a guard’s skills and basketball IQ galore — it’s easy to understand how his critics wondered why he wasn’t better. Not that McGrady was never good; during certain years, he was one of the NBA’s very best players. He was an All-Star, a scoring champion, and a playmaker whose talents have rarely been seen throughout the NBA’s history. But, reasonably, he squandered at least some of his vast potential, never advanced past the first round of the playoffs, and left his coaches (or at least one coach — Van Gundy) wondering what would have become of McGrady’s career had he worked like, for example, Michael Jordan.

What I am here to argue is one of Gladwell’s reasons for McGrady’s somewhat disappointing (although still wonderful) career. While discussing his 10,000 hours theory (that someone must practice 10,000 hours at something before becoming an expert), Gladwell asserted that  unbelievable natural talent — or, the very reason McGrady pieced together a still-quite-impressive career — can actually become the biggest detriment to a person’s development. Morey agreed with Gladwell’s notion, saying McGrady’s ability to dominate during his youth made everything come too easy. (Yahoo!) (And please, read the link. Some great stuff there.)

After praising McGrady’s talents, Morey said, “I do think [that ability] got in the way of Tracy’s development.”

“Much of the game was so easy — you see this in the AAU level, where they have freakishly talented players,” he continued. “When it’s that easy to dominate at that young age because of your physical tools — his wingspan was freakish, his size was enormous, his IQ — my sense was, all that did get in the way of Tracy reaching his highest heights.”

But does being so great at something, or having everything in life come so easily, really hinder personal development? Or is that just a crutch for saying, “Well, Tracy McGrady did not reach his full potential”?

I point you first to Kevin Garnett, who also spent his youth using natural talent to dominate overmatched opponents. Garnett, according to everything I’ve read, possesses a maniacal work ethic and incredible will to win. Unlike McGrady, Garnett did not coast on his supreme gifts. He nurtured those gifts to become an NBA MVP, an NBA champion, and someone who — at the age of 34 — still impacts a game on both ends of the court like few others in basketball.

My next example also grew up with a “small amount” of basketball talent, and some desirable physical skills. This player’s name is Kobe Bryant, and he grew into the NBA’s most feared scorer, and he did it with a work ethic that’s second to none. If being born with talent were really such an impediment to progress, would Bryant have become the face of this NBA generation? Would he have developed perfect footwork, which I assume took hours upon hours upon hours of work, and which allow him to create shots when normal humans couldn’t? Would he have added aspects to his game every offseason, from three-point shooting to a post-up game? Would he have played more than 1,000 games and still remain so goddamn good? Would he?

Garnett and Bryant — two childhood prodigies; two of the NBA’s most obsessive winners and workers; two examples that being phenomenal at a young age does not keep you from working, nor does being less talented make you work harder.

Sure, Tracy McGrady could have been better. But Scott Pollard could have been better, too, and he wasn’t anything special. Okay, Vince Carter wasted some of his precious talents. But so has Sasha Pavlovic, who continues to be one of the NBA’s worst players despite possessing some decent skill. Yeah, I sometimes wonder whether Eddy Curry, who earned a reputation as one of the country’s finest (and most physically talented) players during high school, has a pulse. But I wonder the same thing about Adam Morrison, who was completely unheralded in high school, did not become a star until his final year in college, and would never be confused for an “athletic freak.”

Gladwell, Morey and Van Gundy saw McGrady piss away some amount of his potential, and they suggested that his gifts kept him from working harder. But that forgets all the gifted players who do work, just as it forgets the considerably less gifted players who squander just as much potential. Somewhere out there, there’s a decent high school basketball player who drinks his face off, hardly ever works to improve his skills, and coasts through drills during each and every practice. We would never claim that his gifts kept him from reaching his potential, mostly because he was never that gifted in the first place. But he’ll never reach his potential. Like Tracy McGrady, he just didn’t work hard enough.

Many players throughout basketball’s history have failed to progress to their potential’s ceiling. Some failed in ways that were much fiercer than McGrady’s failure. I’ll use Lenny Cooke as an example. For those of you who don’t recognize Cooke’s name, and I’m sure there are at least some of you, he was (as a junior, at least) the country’s best high school basketball player in the class of 2002. Better than Carmelo Anthony and Amare Stoudemire, that means. By most accounts, Cooke was Lebron before Lebron, capable of physically dominating almost every opponent. Yet Cooke never even played a single NBA game. Was that because his gifts kept him from working? Or was it something else? Lebron’s done okay for himself, despite being so legendary in high school. But Cooke, for whatever reason, just didn’t.

For every Tracy McGrady, there’s a Kevin Garnett. For every Vince Carter, there’s a Kobe Bryant. For every Lenny Cooke, there’s a Lebron James. We see McGrady’s squandered potential, and it stands out because, well, he’s Tracy McGrady — haven’t you ever seen him play? He could do it all, when he was at his best, and his career fell short of our expectations. But there’s also that average high school player who never worked his hardest, and there’s Stanley Robinson who could be so much better, and there’s the mediocre Jiri Welsch, who never quite panned out.

To allow some amount of potential to go unrealized, one does not have to begin as a fantastic talent. We just recognize it far more easily when one does.

'Quisy can hold his head high. His teammates? Eh.

A few days ago, my JV basketball team threw a stinker. We instantly trailed by 25 points, to a team that wasn’t even very good. We threw the ball away, refused to attack the basket, failed to play any defense, and honestly didn’t do a single thing right. At halftime, all our players huddled and hyped each other up. “We’re gonna kick their asses this half! We’re way better than these scrubs! Let’s fucking bring it, guys! It’s fucking time!”

After that, the most fired-up halftime speech I’ve ever seen, the second half started. And the other team ran off a quick 15-0 run. So much for the great speech.

Before the next game my varsity coach texted me, “We’re wearing shirts and ties today. And hopefully the JV team will actually get off the bus.”

Hopefully, next game, the Celtics will actually get off the bus. Or, since they’re playing at home, I guess that doesn’t work. Let’s hope they actually show up to the stadium.

When you allow an opponent to shoot 52.7% from the field and 50.0% from the arc, it’s difficult to win a game. When you also lose the rebounding battle 38-31, against a team starting two undersized points guards and playing many undersized big men, it’s almost impossible. So it was that the Boston Celtics allowed the Houston Rockets, who missed Kevin Martin due to injury and entered the game losers of their last five games, to waltz out of the TD Garden with a 108-102 win.

This team needs Kevin Garnett back, and quickly. I would say more, but the football national championship beckons.

At least Marquis showed up.

Buckets galore. Coachability? Not so much.

The Boston Celtics have shown interest in Von Wafer, according to Hoopsworld’s Alex Kennedy.

The Boston Celtics have shown interest in Jarvis Hayes and Von Wafer, source confirms. @SherrodbCSN first reported team’s interest in Hayes.

I don’t know what to think about Wafer. On the one hand, he can score buckets during his sleep. On the other, he couldn’t pass a physicalfor two separate NBA teams last season after he bought himself out of the contract he signed with Olympiakos. On the one hand, he averaged 10 points in only 19 minutes during his final season in Houston. On the other, he verbally battled with Rick Adelman, who seems like a dream to play for. On the one hand, he’s not Adam Morrison, Jarvis Hayes, or Larry Hughes. On the other, he’s only had one good year in the NBA.

Damn, that’s a lot of muh-fucking hands. If you put a gun to my head, I think I’d like Wafer on the team. He’s kind of like a poor man’s J.R. Smith. He can fill it up in a hurry or he can take a few stupid shots and make you want to give him the Stone Cold Stunner. But he can score. Oh, he can most definitely score.

P.S. – I pride myself on knowing everything that happens in the NBA. Every trade, every signing, everything. If Shaq sneezes I know about it. But I never knew Wafer got signed and then subsequently released by the Mavericks last season. I don’t know how they got that one by me. Sly bastards.

We are all in love with the idea of Shane Battier wearing shamrocks. How could we not be? He’s the perfect fit in just about every possible way. On the court, all Battier does is help a team win games. Off it, all he does is go to church and take charges on unsuspecting pedestrians. The man’s a pure winner and a class act, but he makes a lot of money and the Rockets will likely be in the luxury and have a lot of wings. It seemed pretty reasonable that Battier could possibly be available.

Until you read this comment, unearthed by Chris Forsberg.

“With a lot of key guys like Yao Ming and Shane Battier [at the end of contracts] and the lockout [looming] next year, we’re trying to make this is a special year and go as far in the playoffs as we can,” said Morey.

Battier DID seem too good to be true. But I won’t lose hope. He’d be absolutely perfect for the Celts.