(Quick aside: Is it just me or is the NBA offseason easily the most fun of any sport?) Anyway, it appears, based on Woj's sources, that this rumor is likely to gain very little steam, primarily because Danny Ainge is dealing with "Bring in Rasheed Wallace to win a championship" Joe Dumars, as opposed to "Draft Darko, Trade Chauncey for Iverson" Joe Dumars.
My colleague Matt Steinmetz made a compelling case over the weekend that the Lakers are at a crossroads. If this team falls short of reaching the NBA Finals, should Mitch Kupchak do everything in his power to bring back the current core? Will retaining free agents like Lamar Odom, Trevor Ariza and Shannon Brown result in a roster with a championship ceiling? It's too early to say, especially after the Lakers averted disaster with a Game 7 win over the Rockets.
But after watching the Celtics fall to the Magic in Game 7 at home, I can't help but think Boston's GM Danny Ainge now faces the same dilemma. Did the Celtics lose because they were unlucky victims of the injury bug, or did they lose because the roster is inherently flawed?
Bloggers knee-jerking on the phone + roundtable style = RoundCast.
We had two Game 7s on Sunday, and you just knew we'd have to RoundCast about 'em. Matt Watson, Matt Moore, and Gary Washburn joined me to break down all the action, as the Lakers moved on, and the Celtics went home.
The talk turned to what things might have been like had Kevin Garnett been able to go in these playoffs, and we also wondered what the Rockets' run against the Lakers means in the grand scheme of things, if anything at all. All that, plus predictions (without explanation) of what we expect in the Conference Finals. Game 7 playoff talk is what you want, and it's what we deliver. So give it a listen, won't you?
There's too much going on in the NBA playoffs right not to try to touch on every series. Let's take a look ahead to Monday's games, as well as a look back at Sunday's games ...
-- It's really too bad that Game 3 of the Dallas-Denver series had to be decided the way it did, with the officials missing an intentional foul and allowing Carmelo Anthony to hit a game-winning 3-pointer.
But now on Monday we're really going to find out about the Mavericks, and it could go a long way toward whether they're completely dismantled this offseason. Do the Mavericks have a little Houston in them?
It took longer than we thought it would, but here we are. The upstart, high powered, trigger-happy Magic versus the battle-tested, battle-weary, battle-loving Celtics. And the winner takes on the King for a chance at the crown (assuming Atlanta aren't actually members of C.O.B.R.A.). The Celtics just got through a brutal seven-game series with Chicago (you may have heard about it on the news programs), and the Magic just shook off the cobwebs and downed Philly without Dwight Howard. All signs point to a changing of the guard. But as we've come to expect with this Celtics team, it doesn't take lightly to plans being made without their say so. Comes with that whole "defending champs" things.
That was a great series. Boston-Chicago had everything you wanted and then some.
The full seven games ... overtimes and close finishes ... star player stepping up ... role players emerging. You name it. Yes, it was truly a great series. But the best first-round series of all time? Let's not go that far.
I'll still take the Warriors' "We Believe" upset over the Dallas Mavericks two years ago and even the Denver Nuggets knocking off the Seattle SuperSonics back in 1994 over this one.
CHICAGO -- In a tough, snarling, watch-your-back kind of city, someone decided to get too cute Thursday evening. Throughout the United Center, trails of rose petals were spread to celebrate Derrick Rose's arrival as the NBA's premier rookie. They were placed on seats, in the aisles, atop the sideline tables, pretty much everywhere but on the Jordan statue.
What was this, a social gala? And didn't the marketing mopes realize that the Boston Celtics, whose demise as NBA champions was being roundly forecast, are a proud team that wouldn't take well to gimmicks and might want to make the Chicago lads slip on their own stems?
Celtics 107, Bulls 86: Read Live Blog | Recap | Box Score Celtics Lead 2-1 | Next Game: Sunday, 1 PM ET @ Chicago
I love their passion for the game, love how competitive they are and don't mind that they're emotional and can lose it a little bit here and there with their tempers.
It always rubs me the wrong way when the NBA-haters out there say that the players don't care or are just in it for the money or just go through the motions.
You could forgive Ray Allen for being a little timid coming into Monday night's game against the Bulls. He did, after all, shoot an embarrassing 1-for-12 in Saturday's playoff opener.
But after an equally miserable first half, Allen made up for the absence of Kevin Garnett and overcame an outstanding performance by Chicago's Ben Gordon. The Celtics guard scored 30 points and hit a series of big shots down the stretch, including the game-winner with two seconds remaining as Boston tied up its series with the Bulls 1-1.
The performance of Derrick Rose during the Bulls' Game 1 upset of the Celtics was the talk of the first weekend of the playoffs, and with good reason. It's not every year that someone ties Kareem Abdul-Jabbar for most points by a rookie in a playoff debut, but Rose's 36 did exactly that, against a Boston team that's built around defense.
Obviously with Kevin Garnett out, the team is not the same defensively. But Kendrick Perkins still doesn't believe in Rose, and even went as far as to say that the young star from Game 1 would "never" have another game like that against the Celtics.
There's a little NBA trading spice coming out of Woj's internet-making machine recently, in the form of (another?) rumor involving Ray Allen and Rajon Rondo. This time, they were reportedly offered to Detroit in a deal that would have sent Richard Hamilton, Tayshaun Prince and Rodney Stuckey to Beantown.
Cherry Picking
Bloggers knee-jerking on the phone + roundtable style = 
There's too much going on in the NBA playoffs right not to try to touch on every series. Let's take a look ahead to Monday's games, as well as a look back at Sunday's games ...
That was a great series. Boston-Chicago had everything you wanted and then some.
CHICAGO -- In a tough, snarling, watch-your-back kind of city, someone decided to get too cute Thursday evening. Throughout the United Center, trails of rose petals were spread to celebrate 
I love 
You could forgive 
The performance of 
