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.”

Celtics big man initiation: Get in an altercation with Zaza Pachulia.

Playing with Jermaine O’Neal last season, at least offensively, was sometimes like playing four-on-five — or rather, it was like playing five-on-five, if one of the five players was a six-time NBA All-Star whose legs simply couldn’t afford him the lift to affect a game on one end of the court.

Due to his great timing, knowledge of angles and intelligent decision-making, O’Neal was still able to impact games when he didn’t have the basketball. But offensively, O’Neal posted by far the worst season of his career. His PER (9.2) was significantly less than it had ever been, barely more than half of what it had been the year before (17.9). His offensive game, simply put, abandoned him over the summer of 2010.

But O’Neal vows this season will be different.

“I know [coach] Doc [Rivers] was in a tough position last year and I was almost no help on the offensive end last year,’’ O’Neal said. “And that’s what I want to do. I want to be able to dominate on the defensive end and give Doc an opportunity to, when Kevin [Garnett] gets tired in that low post, give him the opportunity to give it to me and help this team out.’’

O’Neal decided to forego offseason surgery on his broken wrist because surgery would have meant the end of his career. Rather than spending his summer resting and healing all the injuries that hurt him last season, O’Neal didn’t take much time off at all. (Boston Herald)

“You know, when you go through such a tough year that I went through last year, you ponder whether you want to keep going, as far as spending more time with your family, business or continuing to play,” O’Neal said. “When I came back, I felt physically good outside of me getting the back spasms. But my knee felt pain-free. And I wanted to really challenge myself this summer to see just how much my body could take. And I felt like I did that. I wanted to get as strong as possible, as fit as possible, and I put in a lot of time. To be honest, I really didn’t take much time off at all.

“I knew the season probably wouldn’t start on time, so I had a little bit more time to really challenge the body. I just got back from Chicago (and renowned trainer Tim Grover). I had a very difficult training session down there, but I felt strong. I didn’t have any problems in anything. I really wanted to focus in on the legs — get the legs strong, get the quads really strong so I can control the knee. So we’ll see.

“I think right now at the end of the day, when I look in that mirror, I know that I did everything I can do. I didn’t really see my family. My family had to come back here to go back to school in September. I was all over the place.”

And the results?

“I believe that conditioning-wise, I can go a lot further,” he said. “You can’t control injuries and things like that, but physically, if it comes down to pure strength — quads, legs, core, upper body — I’m a hell of a lot stronger.”

With the Celtics struggling to find proper help inside, he’ll have to be.

“I’ve been challenged all my life,” said O’Neal. “This ain’t nothing new. If I was afraid of this challenge, I’d have left. It ain’t about no money. I’m not playing for money. This is all pride. This is all pride.”

O’Neal talked a good game yesterday. Only time will tell if his body can stick together and allow him to bounce back. From the sounds of it, he’s done his part to prepare for a productive season.

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.

Danny Ainge said Thursday during a press conference that the Boston Celtics will not take advantage of the league’s amnesty clause.

“”We are not amnestying anybody,” Ainge said, inventing a new word in the process.

An amnesty clause was included in the new collective bargaining agreement, designed to give teams a mulligan (of sorts) on a bad contract. The Celtics, whose money is mostly wrapped up among four All-Stars, all of whom are crucial to the team’s success, had no real candidates on which to use the clause. Jermaine O’Neal seemed like a remote possibility, but even though he made $600,000 per regular season start last season, he’s also the only center on Boston’s roster. Plus, cutting him via the amnnesty clause wouldn’t give the C’s much (if any) additional cap flexibility.

That the Celtics won’t use the amnesty clause is like a rainy day in Seattle, a Jeff Green missed box out, or a ridiculous pull-up jumper by Nate Robinson: nothing unexpected.

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.

(Sorry Jermaine. I know you had nightmares about this one.)

I think it’s safe to say Billy Hunter prepared NBA players for the worst. Amare Stoudemire is already discussing what he will do if the lockout last one or two years: He will band with other players and they’ll start their own league. (New York Post)

“If we don’t go to Europe, we’re going to start our own league, that’s how I see it,” the Knicks forward said. “It’s very serious. It’s a matter of us strategically coming up with a plan, a blueprint and putting it together. So we’ll see how this lockout goes. If it goes one or two years, we’ve got to start our own league.” …

“We want to play NBA basketball but if it doesn’t happen, what are we going to do?” Stoudemire said. “We can’t just sit around and not do anything. We’ve got to figure out ways now to play basketball at a high level against top competition and have fun doing it, so that’s the next step.”

If the players ever did start a league, which seems like Antoine Walker’s hypothetical four-pointer (an incredibly long shot), just like the lockout lasting one or two years seems like a long shot, they would have to do it right. The Impact Basketball League was supposed to be relatively competitive, featuring all NBA players and former NBA players. But, well, it devolved into this: Sebastian Telfair and WNBA player Cappie Pondexter effectively playing one-on-one while the four other competitors all picked their wedgies.

The new league would need coaches, training camps, and probably general managers. It would practices every day, refs (established ones), and it would need money to advertise. It would need stats to be kept, a national TV deal, and a number of owners (or one enormously rich owner) with the money to pay all the players, unless the players wanted to share all the ownership stake themselves and tie their salaries to the league’s profits.

Bill Simmons and Jay Caspian Kang wrote a fun column earlier this offseason about how they envisioned a players-led league would look. Of course, the whole thing’s probably as preposterous as the thought of Sasha Pavlovic winning MVP next year. But Amare brought up the idea, so I figured I would entertain it.