Archive for the ‘Notebook’ Category

Upon confirming the C’s will be signing Delonte West to a deal this afternoon, Celtics President of Basketball Operations Danny Ainge spoke with the media this afternoon about the signing and other concerns relating to the team. Our man over at ESPNBoston.com. Chris Forsberg has us covered with the latest the C’s top dog had to say on West, training camp, and the rest of the roster.

On Trading Delonte West in 2007:

“He was one of the toughest guys for me to trade, I’d do it again, of course, but we really liked Delonte when he was here. Even though we knew the issues and the challenges he needed to take care of, we also think Delonte is in a better place today than he was the day he left. He wasn’t perfect, but we still liked the player.”

On Team’s Familiarity with West:

“There’s a familiarity with the roster and a familiarity with the players, Paul [Pierce] and Rajon [Rondo], especially, were big fans having played with him. I’m a fan of Delonte.”

On  Training Camp Plans:

“When I played for the Celtics, we never went away… It’s a long season, guys can sleep in their own beds.”

On Prospects of Tony Gaffney and Oliver Lafayette of Making The Roster:

“We’ll keep the best players.”

A couple other key notes from Forsberg’s column include the admission that Ainge wouldn’t close the door on making any more moves before the start of the season. » More: Ainge Talks About West Signing

Julian Benbow has the scoop in his article in today’s Boston Globe, getting a interesting quote from Danny Ainge, regarding filling the team’s final hole at the wing:

With reports circling about interest in fiery if disgruntled Portland guard Rudy Fernandez, Ainge acknowledged that he was pursuing trade options, though he wasn’t sure a deal would fall in place.

The news comes from USABasketball.com, that Rondo is withdrawing from the team in order to deal with some family issues before next year’s NBA season: Here’s Jerry Colangelo on Rondo coming to the team with his decision:

“Rajon came to us and said he was going to withdraw from the team, that he had some family matters to attend to and some things to take care of before the NBA season. He did an outstanding job during our training, we appreciate the effort and commitment he made to our program and he completely has our support,” said Colangelo.

Obviously, we wish Rondo well here at CelticsHub and hope everything is fine with his family. The 12 man roster for Team USA has been finalized for Worlds with Rajon’s withdrawal.

With the international game not the best platform for his skills anyway, you wonder if Rondo just saw the writing on the wall here and decided to head home early, avoiding getting truly cut by the team. Adrian Wojnarowski even tweeted initially Rondo had been cut, before USA Basketball announced his withdrawal. Makes you wonder what the real story is.

Rondo’s delay in agreeing to participate in the training camp this summer shows you he had his doubts about whether playing would be a smart idea anyway. His heart may have not have been in it all along, especially once in Europe if there were some family issues that arose back home.

In the meantime, you just Rondo hope takes some time to recharge the batteries and take care of everything on the home front. The guy played far and away the most minutes out of anyone in the league last year. Eventually that will catch up with you. He’s banged up and likely needs some rest. He’s certainly earned it.

I’m sure more on the situation will come to light in the upcoming days, but for now it looks as if Rajon made a smart decision for himself, and headed home without burning any bridges with Jerry Colangelo and company. » More: Rondo Withdraws From Team USA