Thirty-seven years after Boston last hosted an NBA All-Star game, Mayor Thomas Menino stated his desire to bring the NBA’s most worthless exhibition back to Bean Town. (Boston Globe)

The city has not hosted an All-Star game since 1964, when Bill Russell, Sam Jones and Tommy Heinsohn represented the Celtics for the Eastern Conference. The East prevailed by a 111-107 score and the MVP honors went to Oscar Robertson, who, not very surprisingly, posted a near-triple double. The Western Conference All-Stars featured Jerry West, Wilt Chamberlain, Elgin Baylor, and a lesser-known player named Don Ohl who was nicknamed Waxie due to his crew cut. In case you were wondering.

The Celtics will need to complete a formal proposal to bring the game back to Boston. The large financial commitment has been a barrier keeping many teams from hosting the event. The NBA also tends to host All-Star Games in warm climates, and Boston in February doesn’t exactly have beach weather. But according to the Boston Globe, Wyc Grousbeck said the Celtics are interested in joining the rotation.

Even the most diehard Celtics fans have probably never heard the name John Doherty.

He never played a game for the Boston Celtics. He never scored a single NBA point. His jump shot might have been ten times worse than Rajon Rondo’s, his handle might have been twenty times worse than Eddie House’s, and his defense might have been thirty times worse than Gerald Green’s, if Green was drunk, high and just as basketball illiterate as ever. He never owned the Celtics and he never coached alongside Red Auerbach or anybody else. Yet he’s woven into Celtics lore, and his story is certainly worth retelling. (Boston Globe)

While he was a surgeon at Glover Memorial Hospital (now Beth Israel Deaconess Hospital), Dr. Doherty, known as Jack, performed emergency surgery on a fellow Needham resident named Walter Brown, saving his life.

What Dr. Doherty did not know was that Brown was the founder and owner of the Boston Celtics.

Doherty became friends with a number of the players, including Bill Russell and Tom Heinsohn, and performed a surgery that helped prolong Jim Luscotoff’s career. But Doherty’s sons might have been the biggest beneficiaries of their father’s gig. Chris Doherty remembers visiting the Boston Garden, where the Doherty children were allowed to sit courtside, meet the players in the locker room and bug their father to get them autographs.

“I used to sit behind the Celtics bench with my brothers, and my dad brought us to a lot the championship games,’’ said his son Chris. “And after the championship games he would even take us into the Celtics locker room to meet the players. Young kids in giant land, it was just phenomenal, just the best memories I’ve had. I used to bug my dad about getting the signed autographs of the Celtics to bring home and I’d wake up one morning and there on my closet door would be a signed picture of John Havlicek and Bill Russell, who rarely gave autographs.’’

While we’re obsessed with sweating wins and losses, cherishing dunks and no-look passes and fretting about midseason additions, we often miss out on stories like these: the Celtics owner with a heart of gold and the doctor who was lucky enough to save his life.

“This can happen all night long if he’s able to do it. Because Calderon has a little velcro on him when he runs into a pick.” — Tommy Heinsohn

Last night, Rondo didn’t look like exactly like the All-Star point guard we know and love. Rondo blamed his conditioning, saying his wind is his only worry. As Rondo told the Boston Globe, “I’ve just got to be a little more mature on certain plays. I can’t make the plays I usually make right now.”

While we wait for Rondo to unveil his full arsenal, let’s just marvel in what his mere presence provides. The Celtics shot 54% last night, and — even more impressively — compiled 30 assists on 38 buckets. And just think what those numbers would have been like if Glen Davis could have hit an open jumper or two in the first half. While some of the offensive precision no doubt has to do with the opponent (my JV team might score 85 points against the Raptors), Rondo deserves a large share of the credit.

Just ask Paul Pierce about the Rondo effect. (Boston Globe)

“With Rondo out there it really lessens my responsibility as far as being the guy that has to run a lot of the offense and get guys involved,’’ Pierce said. “I can really concentrate on a lot of the things I do, slash to the basket, scoring, rebounding, and doing the things I’m good at. It was great having the Rondo effect out there.

“With him you really don’t have to work as hard. I think without him I have to create a lot of my offense, whereas he really sets things up easy for me because he we have a great chemistry together. He knows where I’m going to be and he knows where I like to get the ball.’’

Pierce isn’t the only Celtic who’s the recipient of Rondo’s unselfish play, of course. The whole team just runs more smoothly when Rondo’s out there. I want to say that Rondo’s like the conductor of a musical group, but, well, Shaq proved that conductors don’t mean too much. So the conductor comparison doesn’t perfectly work, which means I’ll settle for the cliche “Rondo’s the straw that stirs the drink.”

More importantly than Rondo’s play (or perhaps not more importantly — his play’s pretty damn important), he’s evolved as a leader. It’s odd, because Rondo was once looked upon as a malcontent, but he’s grown up now. He doesn’t just play alongside three co-stars, he leads them. Doc Rivers called Rondo “another coach on the floor,” and it’s easy to see his role as on-court skipper. Comcast’s broadcast last night showed a few clips of Rondo on the bench when he was injured. He was giving teammates advice, helping teammates out, and trying to  help his team win even if he couldn’t suit up.

This clearly isn’t the same Rondo whose stubborn nature led to trade talks a couple summers ago. Last night, Glen Davis even gave Rondo credit for instilling confidence in his game. Davis started the night like a drunken sailor posing as a 6’9″ power forward. He ended it with 15 points, 11 rebounds and 8 assists.

“No matter if I mess up a play, no matter if I fumble the ball, no matter if I take a bad shot, he’s always telling me, ‘Hey, keep your head. We need you in this game,’ ’’ Davis said. “And that means so much other than fussing and getting mad at me.’’

Rondo told the Boston Herald he’d never want to coach when his playing days are done. Which is too bad. With his leadership and knowledge of the game, I imagine Rondo would make a damn good teacher.

As most of you know, Larry Siegfried passed away due to heart failure on Thursday, at the age of 71.

Because I didn’t know much about Siegfried besides the fact that he was “the other Larry,” I didn’t want to offer my thoughts. I never saw him play, couldn’t have told you whether he was righty or lefty, and couldn’t possibly do him or his career justice. So I decided not to write a tribute.

But that didn’t work for me either. How could I not write a tribute of a man who won five championships for my beloved Celtics? Who was “hugely competitive,” according to Satch Sanders, and by all accounts exhibited Celtic Pride at all times? Who sounds just like a player I would have fallen in love with?

“He was one of the best pure basketball minds that I have come across,’” close friend and former Celtic Rick Weitzman told the Boston Globe. “He really understood the game, knew the game. It was great for me to play behind him because he wasn’t gifted with tremendous athleticism but he got the most out of his ability.”

Despite being the Cincinatti Royals’s first pick in the 1961 NBA Draft (and third overall), a long story left Siegried out of the game and teaching high school when John Havlicek convinced Red Auerbach to offer Siegfried a tryout. Likely down to his last chance at making an NBA roster, Siegfried was in real danger of being cut by Auerbach when Tom Heinsohn spoke on Siegfried’s behalf. Heinsohn told Auerbach that Siegfried was the only player on the Celtics’ roster who could beat Heinsohn one-on-one. It would be a mistake to cut such a talent, Heinsohn felt.

Auerbach agreed to secretly watch Heinsohn and Siegfried play a one-on-one game, and was impressed enough to keep Siegfried around. The rest is history. In seven years of being what the New York Times described as “a key element in a relentless and indomitable Celtic machine”, Siegfried won five championships and a spot in Celtics lore.

I couldn’t not write a tribute about a player like that, right? A player who had it all, lost it all, and scraped and clawed his way to earning some of it back? I had to, even if I know little about his game and can’t possibly do him justice.

I never got to see Larry Siegfried play, but after hearing about his career and the traits that make his passing such a big deal, I can tell you one thing: I would have loved to.

“As time goes on, the championship does not mean as much to me,” Siegfried said at Ohio State this spring while celebrating the 50th anniversary of his NCAA championship team. “The thing that matters to me is what coach Taylor taught us and the relationships, those intangible things. The core values that made me who I am today, that’s what’s important to me.”

As much as I love basketball, as much as I value wins and championships, Siegfried’s words couldn’t ring more true. We love basketball because it brings us closer to our father, because we’re still friends with our high school teammates thirty years later. We love basketball for the jokes we can tell to random strangers in a barber shop, and for the way we’ll one day teach our sons how to dribble. We love basketball for the stories we’ll undoubtedly share with our grandchildren, and we love basketball because you can tell a lot about a man just by seeing him box out.

As time goes on, the championships didn’t mean as much to Siegfried. But the Boston Celtics? I imagine they always had a firm place in his heart.

I’m pretty sure Heinshon was *this close* to a heart attack last night. If the NBA needs to change the new technical foul rule for one reason, it’s this: If Garnett ever gets ejected for such bogus technical fouls during a regular season game, or a playoff game, Tommy’s going to croak. Seriously. He can’t take such brutal officiating anymore. It’s not good for his heart.

We love you, Tommy. You may be the worst (best?) homer in the history of western civilization, but you’ve got this one right. “NBA, it’s stupid!”

Tommy points to whichever refs can ignore a little chatter.

As a player, coach and broadcaster, Tommy Heinsohn has dedicated approximately half a century to the Boston Celtics organization. He slapped 37 points and 23 rebounds in a double-overtime Game 7 victory during the NBA Finals of his rookie year. He was a six-time All-Star. He won eight titles as a player, and then two more as a coach. Because of his blatant bias, Heinsohn became a commentator who was loathed or teased by opposing fans but beloved by the Celtics brethren.

As an announcer, he originated the terms “Tommy Point” and “I LOOOVVVEEE WALLLTTAAAHHH”, and refuses to hide the fact that he bleeds Green. He’s known for screaming at refs while he’s supposed to be commentating the game, and there are times he seems close to a heart attack. Few people, if any, have had as lasting and positive an effect on a single organization as Heinsohn has. So happy birthday, Tommy. You’ve received more Tommy points in your life than you or I could even count.