In case you needed a reason to root for Tony Gaffney, here it is. The man’s been working hard. His dream — playing in the NBA, for the Boston Celtics — is within reach, and he doesn’t want to let it go. And if he really did get a jump shot, with his already-legitimate defensive skills, he might have a shot to beat out Von Wafer or Semih Erden for the final roster spot. But I don’t think I’d hold my breath.

P.S. – Summer has come and gone. I went on vacation, but only once. I didn’t get a tan. I didn’t work out. I blogged. I played golf. I got fatter. I lost every basketball skill I ever had. What’d you do?

After the Delonte West signing, the Boston Celtics now have 17 players under contract. It doesn’t take Will Hunting to realize that two players will have to be released in order to reach the 15-player limit allotted by the NBA.

Oddly enough, Von Wafer’s contract is reportedly fully guaranteed. So is Semih Erden’s. The three players without fully guaranteed contracts (if I’m not mistaken) are Tony Gaffney, Oliver Lafayette and now Delonte West (according to the Boston Herald). Since West figures to make the team, even though he’ll be suspended for the first ten games, one would have to believe both Gaffney and Lafayette will be released.

Danny Ainge told reporters, “They’ll have the chance to compete. We’ll keep the best players.” But Gaffney and Lafayette aren’t just two of the three Celtics with non-guaranteed contracts; they’re also the two least-established players.

For Lafayette, news that he will probably be cut shouldn’t come as a shock. The writing has been on the wall since Avery Bradley was drafted and Nate Robinson re-signed.

But for Gaffney, the life-long Celtics fan who realized his dream when the Celtics offered him a contract, the West signing likely ended some legitimate, if thin, hopes of being the C’s 15th man. Now, Gaffney will almost definitely be cut and his Celtics career, the fulfillment of a long-shot dream, will probably end before he was able to dress for even a single game.

It sucks sometimes that the NBA is a business, huh?

Gaffney has a fighting chance to make the roster.

The latest question in the ESPN Boston Celtics Summer Forecast asked us who we thought would be the Celtics’ 15th man. Here was my answer:

In a perfect world, the Celtics would pick up another wing to add insurance in case 1) anyone gets injured, 2) Marquis Daniels spends another year earning a spot in Doc Rivers’ doghouse, or 3) Von Wafer snaps on Doc and goes all Latrell Sprewell. If the C’s don’t make an acquisition, though, I wouldn’t be surprised to see Tony Gaffney occupy the final spot. The wing is where the Celtics are most thin, and while Gaffney isn’t ideal (or anywhere close?), he at least fits a need.

As I said, Gaffney is far from ideal. He’s young and athletic, but he’s as raw as they come. His jumper’s broke, he’s got no handle, and basically the only thing he can do on offense is dunk the basketball. He would be my last-case resort. For those wondering what that makes Larry Hughes, he is slightly below last-case, occupying the “please don’t even think about it under any circumstances” slot. The Celtics would be better off signing me, and I was a Division Three bench-warmer in my prime and I’ve recently started to grow a nice set of love handles.

I’m begging Danny not to start the season with Gaffney as the third wing off the bench. Marquis Daniels is too fragile and Von Wafer is too big a question mark for the Celtics not to have a reliable guy behind them. But it’s going to be tough to add anyone. The veteran minimum guys all stink (except for Delonte, who’s got other issues) and the Celtics don’t have very many assets to trade.

I would probably enjoy this Heat bashing SO MUCH, if Gaffney had more than a 2% chance of making the opening night roster. I would probably love this SO MUCH, if Gaffney had played more NBA minutes than I have. But you’ve gotta earn your stripes before you start talking junk, even if you’re a Celtic, even if it’s only on Facebook. Ya dig.

(Is it just me, or is this song the best song ever?)

I can't be the only one who thinks this picture is pure gold.

Brian Scalabrine (the man, the myth, the legend) is weighing offers from overseas but waiting on an offer from an NBA squad. (Boston Globe)

“I don’t know what my plans are,” he said outside of Holland Community Center in Dorchester. “I’m just keeping it wide open. I’ve got good offers overseas, but my goal is to play in the States for one more year and see what comes from it.”

“Based on this year, I knew I would have to be patient. If I had to go to Europe and play I will go do Europe and play. My kids are going to go to great schools in Europe and they are going to learn the culture over there and take it as a learning experience and 10 years from now, I am going to call back and say, ‘remember when we lived in Barcelona for three years?’”

But he wants to remain in Boston.

“Is (playing in Europe) what I want to do? No. I want to play for the Celtics,” he said. “I want to keep grinding out. I want to win another championship. I really want to see what Shaq’s like.”

I love Scal. He had a great attitude, loved the team, and always brought a self-depricating sense of humor to a sport that so often lacks any type of humility. And say what you want about how Scal’s attitude had to be great with the contract he had, but there are a whole lot of NBA players who have similarly generous contracts and become problem children. 

Still, and it’s weird that I’m sorry to say this, there is no place on the Celtics for Scal. Not unless some miracle happens or the C’s decide to keep Scal on board rather than signing Harangody. Boston already has 14 players on the roster and Harangody still doesn’t have a contract. If he signs, that’s 15. And that number doesn’t even include Tony Gaffney and Oliver Lafayette. The Celtics are probably going to trade Sheed’s contract, but they’ll be getting a player in return. Which leaves approximately zero room for Scal.

I say let him take a coaching position a la Tyronn Lue. Scal was an easy target for jokes and never exactly a threat to make the All-Star team, but through it all he somehow managed to become my dude. If he does end up leaving, which seems inevitable, I will miss him. Seriously.

(Sheed’s nickname for Kwame Brown? “Coffee with no cream.” Your guess is as good as mine.)

The more I hear about Rasheed Wallace, the more I realize that he is a misunderstood individual. This isn’t a sudden realization, mind you. For years, teammates and coaches have told us not to trust the media’s image of Sheed, not to trust the Sheed we see with our own two. So I’ve always been open-minded about Sheed. I’ve always known there was a side we fans don’t get to see. But the existence of that additional dimension Sheed owns, the one we only see brief glimpses of, has never been more clear than it was this season. The Celtics quickly grew to love him, even as Sheed drew the ire of New England fans everywhere. You can call Rasheed Wallace a whole lot of things, but never say he isn’t a good teammate.

You see, I would never want to play basketball with the Rasheed Wallace Boston experienced last season. Not Regular Season Sheed, at least. That’s not even me being an asshole, either. Think about playing basketball — what are the qualities you loathe in teammates? Laziness? Sheed gets a check in that department, for sure. Takes bad shots? Yup. Doesn’t seem to pass the three-point arc on either end of the floor? No doubt. Liable to get a technical foul at any point in the game? Obviously. Regular Season Sheed makes a nice pass or flashes a small bit of his post repertoire every once in a while just to make you realize he still has a pulse, but other than that he is one of the most frustrating players in the world to watch and, I assume, play with. Yet all his teammates and coaches seem to love him.

They want to go to war with him. They seek him out for advice. They call him friend. They get his back when he spouts off and earns a technical, even when it comes at the very worst time. They stand by Sheed’s talents and trust him to be there when the points count a little more and — in Sheed’s words — a lot of players’ butt-holes start to get tight. And those same players, the ones who came to call Rasheed friend? They cried when he told them about his retirement.

Us fans, all we see is the Sheed on TV and in the newspaper. The loud, sometimes-obnoxious and usually-lazy player who inspires venom in referees and fans alike. The Sheed who practices in sweatpants with the pockets hanging out, who pays about as much attention to his hair as Antoine Walker does to his money. The Sheed who blows up at referees, occasionally barks at his coach and resembles a loose cannon every step of the way. But we don’t see what happens behind the scenes. Which is why we’re always somewhat surprised to hear about how much Sheed’s teammates love him, no matter how many times we’ve already heard it.

Just listen to Nate Robinson sing Sheed’s praises. You’d think Sheed was Gandhi or Mother Teresa, not some seemingly crazy bastard who has never met a comb he liked and piles up technical fouls like Russ gathered rings.

“Sheed is one of my all-time favorites, regardless of the techs,” Robinson told Slam Magazine. “He speaks his mind and that is what I love about him. I have so much respect for him because if something isn’t right, he will let you know. He’s like that all the time. That was the one person who I would look to for advice and he always gave me his honest opinion whether I liked it or not. As a player he worked everyday. He came in and shot early, leave late.

“The main thing about him is he wanted to win. He has a ring but wanted to go out with a bang. We tried to go out with a championship but unfortunately we didn’t. The speech that he gave, saying stuff like he wouldn’t have had it any other way besides going to war with the guys that were in that locker room with us. It touched everybody. We were heartbroken that we didn’t win it for him. Of course I wanted to win my first championship but I wanted to win because I have looked up to Sheed since college. I played against his AAU team in Philly. My mom used to do his wife’s hair—my mom is a hair stylist. So I’ve known Sheed for a while, since I was real young.

“Playing alongside him was awesome. It was a dream come true. I just wish the tables were turned and we would have won that championship because I honestly believe if we would have won, Sheed would have played another year. One more year with Sheed.”

One more year with Sheed. That’s a big reason why Nate wanted to win a championship, despite all the signs I’ve pointed to that show Sheed isn’t the ideal guy to play with. And Nate isn’t alone. Kevin Garnett teared up when talking about Sheed’s retirement, acknowledging that he sees a lot of himself in Sheed. Tony Gaffney wrote on Facebook that, in just a few quick months, Sheed had become one of his favorite people ever. Whether we understand it or not, Sheed is loved. There is undoubtedly another layer to him, one we can’t see. A layer that endears people to him. A layer that makes him a good friend, someone from whom to seek advice, and one hell of a teammate.

One more year with Sheed. Before last offseason, that would have seemed like a nightmare.

One more year with Sheed. Probably not, but I’m no longer against it.