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.

No matter what you think of Barack Obama’s political philosophies, he is a powerful man. So powerful, writes Shaquille O’Neal in his new book, that a single Obama diss talked Rajon Rondo off his game last season. (SB Nation)

In early March some of the guys went to the museum of Fine Arts for a fund-raiser and got to hang with President Barack Obama. Everyone was a little bit in awe. The President turns to Ray, points at Rondo, and says, “Hey, Ray, why don’t you teach this kid how to shoot?” Everyone starts laughing.

KG told me he saw the look on Rondo’s face and the kid was devastated, embarrassed. Dissed by the President, even though I’m sure Obama didn’t mean any harm. Rondo smiled and went along with all of it, but KG told me he could see it in his eyes.

[...]

The next day Rondo shot the ball horribly. He stopped taking shots after that. He’s so sensitive. I think it was a real jolt to hear the outside perception of a basketball fan who happens to be the President of the United States. It messed with his mind. I’m sure of it.

It should be “a real jolt” for Rondo to hear that people think he has a suspect jumper in the same way it was “a real jolt” for me to hear that Brian Scalabrine has never won the NBA MVP. Obama’s opinion wasn’t exactly shocking.

It’s difficult to believe Rondo, who returned from a Willis McGahee elbow in eight minutes, would allow Obama far enough into his head that he lost confidence in his shooting (assuming, you know, Rondo ever had any confidence in the first place). Rondo hears about his bad shooting every day. Reporters ask him questions about his shooting all the time, I’m sure Doc Rivers mentions it quite often, and I bet Rondo’s teammates give him crap about it too.

Maybe it’s different to hear it from the President. Maybe Shaq’s right. Or maybe Shaq’s stretching the truth in hopes of selling more copies of his new book.

The Celtics were not scheduled for a full-speed practice session today, but Shaq got some shots up anyway. He also watched film with the team and was expected to participate in the team’s walkthrough. If I’m not mistaken, it was Shaq’s first practice since early February.

His real test, though, will come tomorrow and Saturday, when the Celtics go full speed.

“I do [think Shaq will play in Game 1], I can’t guarantee that,” Doc Rivers told ESPN Boston. “He’s going to do a little bit today. We’re not going to do enough — we’re going to walk through stuff so I could do today — but [Friday] and [Saturday] are the big days for Shaq. He’s going to try to get through practice and see what we can do.”

Surprise, surprise: the Boston Celtics don’t know when Shaq will return to action. (WEEI)

Rivers said Shaq will not play Thursday in Chicago. As for Friday vs. the Wizards: “I doubt it.” Sunday vs. the Heat? “Maybe.”

Said Rivers: “We’re going to be very cautious with him. I would like to play him a couple of games, but only if he’s feeling great. If not, we’ll just wait.”

As I wrote yesterday, the Celtics can afford to take their time with Shaq. He proved (albeit quite briefly) he can come back to the court after a long layoff and still make an immediate impact.

The problem? Staying on the court once he returns. Shaq’s body isn’t like a normal body. It’s more like my mom’s old car, which we called Bessie. The fabric on the ceiling of the car was falling apart, and we had to use a dozen or so thumb tacks to hold it up. As long as all the thumb tacks stayed in, the car was a perfectly nice ride. Smooth, comfortable, fast, all that. The problem was, getting through a ride with all the thumb tacks intact almost never happened.

Once one thumb tack came undone—all it took was one—the fabric came swinging off the ceiling and started to smack us in the face like a Dwight Howard elbow. My cousins and I would attempt to hold it up with our hands, but debris still fell everywhere. My mom would then try to keep driving through the windstorm of broken car, but she would alternately A) have her vision clouded by chunks of the ceiling, falling like balls of hail, B) take a swinging car ceiling straight to the face, and C) hear one of my cousins in the back, screaming like he just got shot because a small, furry piece of the ceiling had softly struck him on top of his head. Inevitably, my mom would have to pull over the car to avoid an accident and re-thumb tack the ceiling, a process that could take far too long if we needed to get somewhere.

My point? If one of Shaq’s thumb tacks comes falling out, it’s all coming down. And because he’s 39 years old, because he weighs four metric tons, one of those thumb tacks could very well come undone during the playoffs. In fact, I’d be shocked if Shaq played the entire playoffs without an injury. The Celtics will have to pull over, re-thumb tack him together, and hope he stays in one piece the rest of the ride.

On a brighter note, at least Jermaine O’Neal’s playing good ball. And for the one of the first times this season, my Jermaine O’Neal compliment was not dripping with sarcasm.

The Celtics might have dodged a couple bullets. Everything about those two injuries initially screamed “season-ending.” That said, any Shaq diagnosis should be ingested with a metric ton of salt.