The imaginary horns celebration came to define Darius Miles, or, at least, it became his most recognizable trait. The horns are the one aspect of Miles’ disappointing NBA career that will survive the longest in NBA lore, the first thing people will discuss whenever Miles’s name randomly pops up on an August weekday, whether the mention of his name comes after he gets arrested for carrying a loaded weapon into the airport or somehow, improbably, hypothetically, in the future, makes a return to professional basketball.

When Miles signed a non-guaranteed contract with the Boston Celtics on August 22, 2008, my 21st birthday, I offered the imaginary horns to my three brothers. I didn’t expect anything to come from the signing. Miles hadn’t been relevant since 2006; that was when he suffered a right knee injury so bad that the NBA deemed it career-ending and gave Portland salary cap relief for Miles’ contract. But this was Darius Miles who the Celtics signed — 6’9, third overall draft pick in 2000, arms longer than an airport runway, legs containing jet packs, once scored 47 points in an NBA game, had a cameo in “Van Wilder”, still only 26 years old — and so I gave the imaginary horns symbol to my brothers, the same symbol Miles and Quentin Richardson had presented to each other after every highlight play, or simply whenever they figured a situation merited pounding their heads.

That Miles never played a single regular season game for the Celtics came as no surprise. He had relied almost solely on his athleticism during his unsatisfying NBA stint, and his legs, deadened by the injury, resulting microfracture surgery, and two years of inactivity, no longer acted as trampolines. Adding to that, Miles was known as a problem child. Once, he shouted racial epithets at head coach Maurice Cheeks. Cheeks told Miles to leave the team’s film session, and Miles responded, “Make me.” When catching a fruit is no longer worth the juice, careers end and imaginary horns get put to sleep.

Miles did return for 34 games with the Memphis Grizzlies during the 08-09 season, but by then he was little more than a novelty act. Two years later, a couple days ago, he was arrested for carrying a loaded gun into the last place on earth anyone would carry a loaded gun, the airport. His basketball career is almost certainly over, another prodigious talent wasted to injury, drugs, crime, and/or a work ethic that couldn’t keep up with his outrageous physical talent.

So what makes a player become a bust? Why did Kwame Brown never become more than a serviceable NBA player, even though NBA scouts once salivated over him? Why did Micheal Olowakandi, drafted ahead of Paul Pierce, Dirk Nowitzki and Vince Carter, become the butt of jokes rather than an All-Star center? Why did Lenny Cooke go from being Lebron before Lebron to a second-round draft pick who never played a single NBA game?

Cooke haunts me. Not in the way that I lay awake thinking he’s hiding underneath my bed waiting to hurt me, but in the way that I think about him a lot more often than I should. I never saw Cooke play live. I never spoke a word to him and probably never will. I hold no ties to him whatsoever except that I read about him when I was younger, and his potential floored me. But whenever a young player fails to pan out, I think about Cooke. I wonder why he never became an NBA star. Did he turn to drugs? Gangs? Did he stop working out? Eat too much? Listen to bad advice? All of the above?

Search for Lenny Cooke highlights on YouTube. The only video you’ll find is a grainy one entitled, “Remember when we played with Lenny Cooke?” That’s all we have left of the Lebron before Lebron, one of the most-hyped high school athletes of all time, a player who was ranked No. 1 in the high school class of 2002 for years, who dropped to No. 4 during his senior year (behind players named Carmelo Anthony, Amare Stoudemire and, um, Raymond Felton), whose stock only dropped when he was ineligible to play high school ball as a senior, who flew with the eagles and was said to see the game three passes ahead, whose only professional basketball experience came with the Columbus Riverdragons, Brevard Blue Ducks, Brooklyn Kings, Purefoods TJ Hot Dogs, Shanghai Dongfang Sharks, and, most recently, the Minot Skyrockets. A player who possessed the talent to become a cultural icon has only one YouTube highlight reel. It’s as poorly-constructed as Cooke’s plans to maximize his potential, and it only serves as a reminder of Cooke’s steep and sudden downfall.

In the NBA, the differences between players can be minute. One of the largest differences between J.J. Redick and Adam Morrison is that Morrison smoked two packs (or so) per day. Redick worked hard, understood his basketball mortality, redefined his game, and carved a role for himself. Morrison could not, or would not, do the same. So his NBA career lasted many fewer years than Kevin Ollie’s, who had less than one-tenth of Morrison’s offensive repertoire but kept himself in world-class shape at all times.

Ollie couldn’t hold Lenny Cooke’s jock, yet he surpassed everything Cooke did in the NBA by 13 years, 2,496 points, 1,501 assists, 1,018 rebounds, and $20.1 million worth of salary. $20.1 million pales in comparison to the $51 million Kwame Brown has earned been paid during his career. A year before Brown became the No. 1 pick in the 2001 draft, he competed in the Adidas ABCD Camp. The MVP of that camp, which included Brown, Eddy Curry, Ben Gordon, Randy Foye, and Sebastian Telfair, among others, was a sophomore named Lenny Cooke.

I have now gone full circle with my six degrees of separation, NBA bust division, but what I’m trying to say is that talent alone is not enough. In the NBA, where every player is gifted beyond belief (err, almost every player — Scal comes to mind, among others), so many things can derail careers — drugs, a shabby work ethic, injuries, bad advice, bad eating habits, emotional illnesses, and whatever else I’m forgetting. We know Darius Miles suffered from injuries, we know he dabbled in drugs (or worse), we suspect he suffered from a poor work ethic, and we imagine that his basketball career is now over.

So if you drink a beer tonight, pour out a sip for Miles — NBA bust, marijuana dabbler, physical freak, criminal, and the creator of something far more memorable than his own NBA career: the imaginary horn celebration, a celebration that highlighted Miles’s youth and exuberance and perhaps, just perhaps, the first sign that he was too immature to succeed in the NBA, and maybe even outside it.

This picture perfectly sums up the entire night.

It must get pretty windy in the Time Warner Cable Arena.

That’s the only explanation for tonight’s first half, which — rumor has it — made Michael Jordan, sitting courtside, puke. The weather conditions improved slightly in the second half, but only on the Celtics’ side of the court. The Bobcats kept trying to shoot into the tooth of an invisible hurricane, and it didn’t work out well. As it ended, the Celtics had their worst shooting night of the season… and still won by 31 points, 93-62.

In the fourth quarter, Glen Davis took a three-pointer with plenty of time left on the shot clock. That’s really all you need to know about the game, but of course I’m ready to tell you more.

I can’t properly describe how excited I was while watching the fourth quarter. The Celtics had no reason to really try. They were already ahead by 20 or so points, and the garbage-time crew was in the game. They could have turned off the jets and coasted in with an easy victory. But rather than rest on their laurels, the C’s kept right on working.

It all started with Avery Bradley, who added Shaun Livinsgton to the list of players he’s put in a phone booth, but it continued with everybody else. Marquis Daniels was flying around the court deflecting passes. Semih Erden was flying high for alley oops. Von Wafer was dishing passes that would make Rajon Rondo envious. The effort had me standing up in my basement and cheering until the final buzzer, even in a 31-point blowout.

Defense was what won tonight’s game, but I’m still not sure if the C’s played terrific defense. The Bobcats were just THAT bad. I see a lot of basketball minds (including Stephen Jackson) opining that D.J. Augustin is the problem, and he certainly didn’t help matters tonight (0 points, 0-8 shooting). But the Bobcats have a four-person big man rotation that includes SuperFat Boris Diaw, Kwame Brown, Nazr Mohammed, and Eduardo Najera. How a team is supposed to win with a frontcourt like that, I could never tell you. Red Auerbach could come back to life, coach the Bobcats, and piece together his best coaching job ever… and I STILL doubt that team would win 35 games.

Back to the Celtics, you guys probably thought Paul Pierce was awful tonight. He shot 1-9! He only scored 8 points! He hasn’t made a three-pointer since December 1st! (He’s 0-16 in that span.) But Pierce didn’t play badly tonight; he showed just how much he has matured. If he ever played that poorly offensively in his youth, Pierce would have packed it in and played zero defense. His whole game would have been affected. But not tonight. Instead, he made his presence felt in other ways. He blocked three shots. He broke up two-on-one fast breaks like it was the easiest thing in the world. He harassed Gerald Wallace into 2-15 shooting. So you say Paul Pierce played poorly tonight. I’ll just say those shots will fall soon, and I’m happy he’s on my side.

Kevin Garnett had another ho-hum double double (and unretired his “talk shit and clap in a perimeter player’s face” routine while D’ing up Stephen Jackson); Rajon Rondo finally got some rest; Kwame Brown’s still as hopeless as ever; Glen Davis continues to do his part every single night; Nate Robinson has no conscience (as if we didn’t already know that),Luke Harangody actually played in the first half (two unexciting minutes); Nazr Mohammed is quite obviously in a contract year; and Semih Erden had the most promising night of his rookie season to date (as well as a monster alley-oop dunk).

The Celtics have now won ten straight games. Recently, they’re doing it without their top three centers, and their best off-the-bench guard. That’s probably part of the reason Michael Jordan could be seen sitting courtside, shaking his head.

His Airness: if you ever wanted to suit up, the Bobcats could use you. I KNOW you’d still be better than Matt Carroll.

I’ve got a confession to make: This story came out yesterday. And before you guys get pissed off because I was slow to react to a story, just realize that I’m on vacation in Maryland, at the beach, with my girlfriend. I don’t have to wake up early to write about news for you mutts, but I do it anyway. In a completely heterosexual way (I think), I enjoy talking hoops with you guys and love seeing the Celtics Town community grow. Before I get too mushy and need a box of tissues or anything, I just want to thank you readers for commenting and coming back to this site. You guys make all of this worth it and far more enjoyable.

Needless to say, this isn't the Shaq the Celtics would be getting.

Okay, now that I’m sufficiently all out of emotions, on to the latest rumor. The Celtics are still interested in Shaq and Kwame Brown.

Shaquille O’Neal and Kwame Brown.

Those two haven’t shown up in the same sentence too often over the years, but they’re linked on this occasion because they both remain on the radar of the Boston Celtics.

The East champs, even after the recent signing of Jermaine O’Neal, still want one more big man after inching to the brink of a full roster with Thursday’s signing of guard Von Wafer.

The problem? The Celtics only have minimum money left. Sources say they’re having trouble getting Brown to accept those wages, so you can imagine where Shaq stands on the idea.

Word persists that Shaq still hopes to be sign-and-traded somewhere by Cleveland that will allow him to secure a salary next season above the $5.8 million mid-level exception. Our old friend Howard Beck of the New York Times did a comprehensive piece last weekend spelling out just how unlikely landing that sort of contract would appear to be. [...]

I’ve heard that Shaq, earlier this summer, was telling friends that the Spurs were the only team he’d consider playing for on a low-dollar contract.

But San Antonio, as covered previously in this cyberspace, doesn’t have the available minutes — and really hasn’t shown the inclination — to try to wedge the former local high school star into a world that still revolves around Shaq’s old rival Tim Duncan.

Atlanta? Sensible as it sounds for the Hawks to be the one team out there aggressively pursuing the 38-year-old — given Shaq’s presumed ability to both stand up to Hawks killer Dwight Howard and sell tickets in Atlanta — they just signed Jason Collins to be their No. 3 center and signed Josh Powell before Collins.

Which brings us back to Boston. I struggle to envision Shaq signing for a mere $1.35 million for next season, but the idea can’t be completely dismissed if O’Neal is serious about only signing with a team that can contend for a championship, since the Celts are still on that short list. [...]

The safer move for the Celtics is clearly signing Kwame, but I don’t think we need to remind you that Ainge — who was willing to gamble on Stephon Marbury in the second half of the 2008-09 season when so many outsiders thought he wouldn’t dare — is not afraid to take risks.

First, I’ve got to ask myself, what exactly makes signing Kwame Brown “clearly a safer move” than signing Shaq? I mean, as long as Shaq is 7’0 tall, 360 pounds and still has a pulse he’ll be a better basketball player than Kwame Freaking Brown. Am I wrong? So please, lets not pretend Kwame is somehow the safer choice, just because he has sucked his entire career while Shaq used to be a super-duper-star.

Look, I have reservations about Shaq. He’s old, fat, can’t play any semblance of defense and somehow thinks he deserves more than the mid-level exception. But if the Celtics can somehow manage to pick him up for the minimum, Danny Ainge should be arrested for theft and tossed in jail. Because while Shaq undoubtedly has his flaws, if he’s making $1.35 million in a market that fetched four years, $5 million for Darko Milicic and five years, $32 million for Drew Gooden there is no other word for it than robbery.

As for Kwame, would I pay him the minimum? I’d rather light $1.35 million on fire and then flush the ashes down the toilet. It would make more sense. I would light Kwame on fire instead of all that money, but there’s no way he’d be able to catch on fire.

You've got a plan, Danny. Right?

“I’m looking at all the players signing and wish we would get on the ball a little bit. I trust in Danny to put a good team around us, but I’m sitting here watching all these good players fall to other teams.” – Paul Pierce

Amen, Pauly. Amen. I want to trust Ainge, but all these other teams are signing outside help while the Celtics sit with a bench full of holes.

Wait, wait, wait, wait, wait. That’s all we’ve been doing since the Jermaine O’Neal news, it seems. Doesn’t Danny Ainge know I’m pretty damn impatient? (Boston Globe)

“It’s a challenge, because if you have a bird in the hand, sometimes you need to take it because you’re waiting for something you see better but might not be there if you wait too long,’’ Ainge said. “There’s a lot of players still waiting for something. There’s an offer sheet for Portland and Utah. Two teams right there with a little uncertainty that’ll have some money to spend depending on which way that goes. There’s an offer sheet with Orlando and Chicago. There’s a couple more teams that are looking for wings depending on which way that goes. So yeah, there’s some waiting going on.’’

Waiting? Yes. Worrying? For me, at least. The C’s have a ton of holes to plug, so this waiting game is getting me anxious. Even if I realize Ainge is probably just waiting to see which teams go over the luxury tax and will want Rasheed’s retiring contract. Why am I still nervous, even if I know Ainge’s waiting game makes sense?Just look at the C’s depth chart right now. It needs a whole lotta work.

Point Guard – Rajon Rondo, Avery Bradley, Oliver Lafayette

Shooting Guard – Ray Allen

Small Forward – Paul Pierce, Tony Gaffney

Power Forward – Kevin Garnett, Glen Davis

Center – Kendrick Perkins (injured), Jermaine O’Neal

That’s it. Those are the only players the Celtics have. Matt Janning has a camp invite too, but — last I heard – isn’t sure if he’s going to use it). And even if he does, he’s probably unlikely to make the team. So if the offseason ended today, the Celtics would head into the 2010 season with no backup center, no backup shooting guard, and Tony Gaffney as the seventh man. Sweet. I like Gaffney’s hustle as much as the next guy, but I think we can all agree that Gaffney as Paul Pierce and Ray Allen’s lone backup is not exactly what one would call ”ideal.”

So this waiting game is killing me. I just want the Celtics to make a move and make it quickly, so I can sleep easy at night. Mostly because, well, they need some serious help just about everywhere on their bench. They definitely need another big man, absolutely need a wing or two and, even though they have a few short players on the bench, could use a backup point guard, too. Meanwhile, almost every name I hear the Celtics are interested in makes approximately zero sense. Josh Howard won’t accept the minimum and can’t get traded. Shaq clogs up the middle and is a worse defender than Regular Season Sheed. (As we all know, that’s bad. Really, really bad.) Matt Barnes? Is he really ready to sign for the minimum, even though he hasn’t had a big payday once in his entire career? Ronnie Brewer? Well, maybe. It’s possible. But Adam Morrison? Kwame Brown? Gag me with a spoon. The good players Ainge is after seem to be far-fetched dreams, while the bad players are nothing short of brutal nightmares.

There are so many questions left to answer this offseason and I have no idea what’s going on. I realize Ainge is normally a good GM and probably deserves a little faith, but the Celtics have a whole lot of work left to do and — for the life of me — I can’t figure out what moves they’re going to make.

At some point, I have to believe, they’ll make improvements to the roster. Until then, we wait.

And wait.

And wait.

(“THIS MAN IS A BONAFIDE SCRUB!”)

Phew. Kwame Brown’s agent is saying Brown is unlikely to sign with the Boston Celtics. (CSNNE)

“We’re probably going in another direction,” said his agent, Mark Bartelstein.

The reason?

Money, of course.

The Celtics have nothing more than the veteran’s minimum to offer Brown.

There are a number of teams that can not only offer more money, but like the Celtics, they too are built for a deep playoff run.

“Kwame has some very interesting options to weigh,” Bartelstein said. “Like I said, I think we’ll have something done within the next couple of days. You never say never, because things can change quickly. But I just don’t think it’s going to work out with Boston.”

Some poor NBA team out there is going to be paying Kwame Brown more than the veteran’s minimum. Suckers. But hey, if Johan Petro is worth three years and $10 million then somebody’s definitely going to show Brown the money. This free agent market is on drugs.

And yet somehow the Grizzlies are reportedly close to signing TA for only $3 million per year? It doesn’t add up.

Eddie House and the Celtics have had discussions about the free agent returning to Boston next season. (A. Sherrod Blakely)

You can add ex-Celtic Eddie House to the list of players the Celtics have had some discussions about signing this summer.

Intriguing. Eddie would have helped last season, and he’d help again next season. He’s 6’1,” slow, and can’t really dribble a basketball but Eddie can, and will always be able to, shoot the bejesus out of the basketball. Plus, I think I speak on behalf of Celtics fans everywhere when I say we love the guy.

Speaking of guys Celtics fans love, Ryan Gomes has signed with the Los Angeles Clippers. Sorry to ruin your wet dream of having Gomes return, C’s fans.

P.S. – Blakely also tweeted that Kwame Brown will probably be out of the C’s price range. Damn it! Kwame would have assured a championship!