The Celtics guard appeared on E!’s Fashion Police to talk attire with Rivers, Kelly Osbourne, Giuliana Rancic and George Kostiopoulos. Rondo brought his famous “zebra podium jacket” with him to get a final verdict on whether to “stash it or trash it” from the Fashion Police crew.

Rivers compared the jacket to the Lakers saying, ”It’s a little too old, it’s mostly black and not accomplishing anything. I’m surprised it doesn’t play for the Lakers.” Rivers also asked Rondo if he provoked his fight with Kris Humphries by humming a Kanye West song.

Check out Rondo’s full appearance in the video below.

Rondo also wound up sitting on the 79-year-old comedian’s lap.

Photo via Twitter/@Joan_Rivers

Danny Ainge

Rivers has yet to confirm this, though, and a Boston Herald report indicates that the coach may still be weighing his options.

The Herald’s Steve Bulpett cites a source close to the situation claiming that there is still a possibility that Rivers will choose not to return to Boston for a tenth season. This is reportedly a very slim chance, with the source giving “90-10″ odds of Rivers staying put.

Rivers — currently the highest-paid coach in the NBA — still has three years and $21 million left on his contract, meaning that he would only be able to coach another team if the Celtics fired him or granted him his release. But Bulpett reports that if Rivers does leave, he would not have the desire to coach elsewhere.

The speculation continued to grow after a report Thursday night that Ainge had shut down a request by the Nets to speak to Rivers about their head coaching vacancy, and it is unlikely to die down until Doc publicly addresses the matter. He has not spoken to the media since his postgame news conference after the Celtics were eliminated from the playoffs on May 3, during which he did not give any indication of his plans for the fall.

“I don’t know, I mean, I don’t know that right now,” Rivers said after Boston’s 88-80 loss to the Knicks. “I can’t make that decision now. I’m under contract. And we’ll see — honestly, I can’t even think about that right now. So I don’t know.”

Doc Rivers

President of basketball operations Danny Ainge has turned down a request from the Brooklyn Nets to speak to Rivers about their head coaching job, Jackie MacMullan of ESPN reports. The Nets are without a coach after firing interim coach P.J. Carlesimo.

Rivers is entering the third year of a five-year contract he signed with Boston, with $21 million remaining on the deal. Ainge confirmed earlier this month that Rivers would return despite speculation that the Celtics’ underwhelming performance in the postseason and the possible departure of both or either Paul Pierce or Kevin Garnett would make Rivers reconsider.

“Doc has told me he’s coming back,” Ainge told MacMullan on Thursday. “I talk to him almost every day about our team and what we are going to do moving forward.”

Some have also speculated that Rivers could be drawn back to broadcasting.

Click here to see other questions the Celtics need to answer >>

Phil Jackson

In an interview with Time, Jackson touched on a new angle to the debate that was a little surprising.

With Jackson possibly angling to get back into the NBA in a personnel position, he was asked which player from history he would take first if he was starting a team. The answer was not Jordan, the superstar who helped Jackson win six titles, but another guy with an ample collection of championship jewelry.

“In my estimation, the guy that has to be there would be Bill Russell,” Jackson told Time, according to SI.com. “He has won 11 championships as a player. That’s really the idea of what excellence is, when you win championships.”

So there you have it. Jackson would take Russell first, counting on that pick working out a lot more like Hakeem Olajuwon did for the Rockets and less like Sam Bowie did for the Trail Blazers. We’re guessing Jackson’s hypothetical team would be in “win now” mode, since the 79-year-old Russell probably doesn’t have the patience for a long, drawn-out rebuilding process.

Check out Jackson’s conversation in the video below.

Celtics minority owner James Pallotta presented Pope Francis with the team’s jersey on Wednesday at the Vatican. Pallotta was at the Vatican prior to the Copa Italia final (Italian Cup) as part of a visit by the two soccer clubs, AS Roma and Lazio, ahead of the championship game. Pallotta is the president of AS Roma.

The clubs were in St. Peter’s Square as part of a peace initiative ahead of Saturday’s game, and each presented His Holiness with their team jersey. The Celtics jersey was a bonus.

Check out the Pontiff with his mean, green jersey in the photo below.

Photo via Instagram/@celtics

Bill Belichick

Despite being suspended for the entirety of the 2012 season in the wake of the “Bountygate” scandal, Payton signed a five-year contract extension in December that will pay him $8 million per year — the highest yearly salary of any coach in the four major sports.

Belichick, who makes an estimated $7.5 million per year coaching the Patriots, had topped Forbes’ list of the highest-paid coaches in America in each of the last two years, but he dropped into a tie for second in the 2013 edition released Wednesday. Matching Belichick is new Chiefs boss Andy Reid, whose five-year deal in Kansas City is also worth a reported $7.5 million annually.

As expected, the vast majority of Forbes’ list is populated by NFL coaches, who occupy eight of the top 10 spots.

One of the two outliers also operates in Massachusetts, though, as Celtics head coach Doc Rivers comes in at No. 7. That Rivers, who pulls in $7 million a year, would return to the Boston bench this fall was somewhat of an uncertainty entering the offseason, but Celtics president of basketball operations Danny Ainge indicated last week that the 2008 championship-winning coach will indeed return for the 2013-14 season.

Hopes were high, though, because the Celtics had the inside track for the first overall pick. (The Grizzlies, in just their second year of existence, were ineligible for the No. 1 pick due to expansion rules.) The prize of that draft class was Tim Duncan, a center out of Wake Forest who was widely considered a can’t-miss commodity. The Celtics had the best odds of landing the top pick and grabbing Duncan — so, of course, they ended up with pick No. 6 while the Spurs got the top choice.

Nevertheless, Josh Cohen at OrlandoMagic.com has imagined what Duncan, and several other top picks, might have looked like if the NBA draft lottery did not exist. If the worst team simply got the first pick and things moved on from there, Shaquille O’Neal would have started his career in Minnesota, LeBron James may have begun his career in Denver and Duncan would have been a Celtic.

Ignoring for a moment that Duncan could not have worn jersey No. 21, which is retired in honor of Bill Sharman, take a look at Cohen’s work in the photo below. Honestly, it doesn’t look that weird.

Photo via Facebook/Orlando Magic

But the Hamilton, Mass., native might not necessarily jump at the chance to play for his home-state team. After performing at the NBA draft combine in Chicago, the sophomore out of Syracuse sounded lukewarm to the idea of playing for the Celtics.

“That would be nice, but I kind of want to get away and play somewhere else,” Carter-Williams told the Boston Herald. “If the opportunity presents itself, that would be great. If I get chosen by the Celtics, that’s not something I’d get upset about. I’ll be happy about it. I’d just enjoy my time and work hard.”

Carter-Williams might be disappointed if he were drafted by the Celtics, but it has nothing to do with the team. A recent CBS Sports mock draft has him going sixth overall, while the latest DraftExpress mock draft has him going 12th. The Celtics are slotted to pick 16th, so Carter-Williams would have to suffer a Jared Sullinger-type drop for Boston to draft him.

Williams was picking up his 10-year-old son from the boy’s mother’s house when an argument ensued in the parking lot, according to the Kent Reporter. The victim reported that during the argument, Williams made threats with a gun.

The 25-year-old Celtic left the area before police arrived but was later found and taken into custody. Williams was still in custody on Sunday night and will be booked into the King County Jail, according to Chris Daniels of KING TV.

Williams originally signed a 10-day contract with the Celtics in February but stayed on for the remainder of the season. He is under contract for the 2013-14 season, but that is not guaranteed if he is waived before July 1.

Williams averaged 4.6 points, 1.6 assists and 1.8 rebounds per game during 24 games with the Celtics.

The Heat have been the championship favorite ever since they raised the Larry O’Brien Trophy last June, and it will be a tall task for either New York or Indiana to prevent LeBron James & Co. from reaching the Finals for the third consecutive year. But although they have been dominant, the Heat are not a mortal lock to win the Eastern Conference, and NESN.com NBA editor Ben Watanabe stopped by the New Hampshire Sports Night radio show to talk about why.

He also touched on what the future looks like for the recently eliminated Warriors and what Doc Rivers‘ return means for the Celtics. Click below to hear the full interview.

Now that the Grizzlies are heading to the Western Conference finals for the first time in franchise history and the Celtics have been eliminated from the playoffs, Boston can get behind Allen again. The Celtics showed their support for the Griz, whose motto is “grit and grind,” by sharing a classic video of Allen touring a Whole Foods grocery store during his time in Boston.

Check out Allen’s trek through the supermarket in the video below. Just don’t ask him what flaxseed is.

Mike Zarren, who has been believed to be a serious candidate for the general manager’s job in Philadelphia since last summer, reportedly turned down that job this offseason. Two league sources told Steve Bulpett of the Boston Herald that Zarren declined an offer from the Sixers.

Philadelphia eventually hired Sam Hinkie, formerly the executive vice president of basketball operations in Houston.

Zarren declined comment to the Herald, but this is not the first (or last) job the Celtics assistant G.M. and team counsel has been linked to. Zarren began his career in the NBA as an unpaid intern with the Celtics, and he is described in the team’s media guide as being a lifelong Celtics fan.

Ryan McDonough, the team’s other assistant G.M., was named last week as general manager of the Phoenix Suns.

Photo via Facebook/Philadelphia 76ers

Danny Ainge

The future of another key member of the team is still up in the air. Ainge told The Boston Globe that he has not spoken with Kevin Garnett, admitting that he does not have the necessary information to answer the questions the 36-year-old is sure to ask.

“I don’t think I have the answers that Kevin will want,” Ainge said. “So I gotta figure there’s a lot to do [before we talk] and I think there’s a lot of questions in Kevin’s mind, as there is every year, to determine whether he’s coming back. I’m not ready to answer everything that he will want to know.”

One of those questions — whether Rivers will return — was cleared up Thursday. Some of the other key questions Garnett might have pertain to Paul Pierce, who has a $5 million buyout in his contract, as well as what other players Ainge will try to bring in. Following the Celtics’ loss to the Knicks in Game 6 of their first-round series that knocked them out of the playoffs, Garnett declared that the Celtics “need some additions” to contend for a championship in 2014.

Doc Rivers

Any Celtics fan looking for a deeper silver lining to this news, however, will be disappointed. Rivers will remain, giving the Celtics a decided tactical advantage on a solid three-quarters of their opponents in the league, but any definitive movement on Paul Pierce or Garnett’s situations is still mostly independent of Rivers’ decision.

Rivers’ return is promising news, so far as it goes, for those hoping for at least one more year with Pierce and Garnett. The coach’s departure probably would have meant Garnett, who makes no secret of his preference to play for Rivers and nobody else, had played his last game as a Celtic. In that, at least, they can take solace. Garnett is not definitely gone, so that is something.

Still, there is a massive difference between Garnett not being gone for certain, and Garnett unequivocally being back. Keep in mind that Garnett also had some strong things to say about Pierce after the Celtics’ Game 6 loss to the Knicks. If Pierce’s presence is not quite the deal breaker Rivers’ was, it clearly looms large in Garnett’s choice.

From the perspective of Danny Ainge, the Celtics’ president of basketball operations, retaining Rivers is a no-brainer. Rivers is one of the top five coaches in the NBA, without question, and unlike Pierce, his contract does not count against the salary cap or the luxury tax. Even if Rivers’ coaching acumen falls off slightly, he is still more than worth the roughly $7 million in average salary he is reportedly making over the life of his deal. Whether the Celtics trot out for the opening tip next season with a familiar lineup or one that features new faces and more youth, that team will be better off with Rivers leading it than it would be with just about anybody else.

Pierce and Garnett’s situations are trickier. Unlike their coach, their salaries do impact what types of other things the team can do personnel-wise, and Pierce’s performance in the playoffs is not sufficient for a player due to earn more than $15 million. Ainge and the other members of the Celtics’ front office have far more difficult decisions awaiting them there.

Looking at this logically, there should not have been any real doubt whether Rivers was coming back. The argument that he might not want to keep coaching a team that does not include Pierce, Garnett or Ray Allen seemed to have a faulty premise. After all, Rivers signed his current extension following year four of what was supposed to be a three-year project with the “Big Three” — if he was afraid to coach without those three Hall of Famers, he probably would not have committed to five more years when said Hall of Famers were 35 (Allen), 34 (Garnett) and 33 years old (Pierce).

Allen is gone, of course, but the remnants of that championship era live on as long as Pierce and Garnett are still in green. Whereas Rivers’ exit would have shut the door on that era completely, his return leaves the door the slightest bit ajar. Whether Garnett and Pierce will be walking through that door remains as open-ended as it was before.

Have a question for Ben Watanabe? Send it to him via Twitter at @BenjeeBallgame or send it here.

Doc Rivers will return for a 10th season as the Celtics’ head coach, team president of basketball operations Danny Ainge confirmed to Gary Washburn of The Boston Globe on Thursday. Rivers, 51, has three years remaining on the five-year contract extension he signed in 2011.

“We’ve got a coach everybody would love to have,” Ainge told the Globe.

Doubt about Rivers’ return was raised shortly after the Celtics were knocked out in the first round of the playoffs by the Knicks. Rivers said he had given “zero thought” to remaining the Celtics’ coach, although he did admit, “If I told you right now, I’m coming back.”

You should still put some long, serious thought into trading for Pierce. And it has nothing to do with his abilities as a player.

As the Celtics weigh whether to bring back Pierce next season, the decision has largely been presented as pair of two-choice scenarios. First, the Celtics have to determine whether to bring back the 35-year-old forward or to part ways. Then, the Celtics either will buy out Pierce’s $15.3 million contract for $5 million, or they will trade him to a team in need of one last, expensive, veteran player to put it in the championship conversation. (Many people, with the notable exception of CelticsHub’s Brian Robb, have overlooked the fact that the Celtics could waive Pierce before June 30, however unrealistic and unpractical that may be.)

Near-contenders are not the only teams that could find some use for Pierce, however, thanks to another option that expands the possibilities and should make Pierce an intriguing trade target to just about everyone in the league.

The new collective bargaining agreement kept a lot of the provisions that allowed a traded player to carry virtually all of the rights and stipulations from his contract with the previous team onto his new team. So any team that trades for Pierce also acquires his “Bird rights,” which allow greater flexibility in signing him to an extension, as well as — ready for this? — the right to buy him out for $5 million. Given the CBA’s rules regarding salary-matching on trades, this could be a valuable tool for some team trying to dump some salaries.

Think about it. As a taxpaying team, the Celtics could trade away Pierce’s $15.3 million and get back an amount equal to 125 percent of his outgoing salary, plus $100,000, under the CBA. (They would not be able to actually add the full $19.2 million, based on my math, because that would put them over the $74.3 million luxury tax “apron” at which they are hard-capped as a result of using the mid-level exception on Jason Terry.) The Celtics have 10 players under contract for next season, not counting Pierce or draft picks, which means they can acquire up to five players for roughly Pierce’s $15 million. The team that acquires Pierce, provided it does so before June 30, can turn around and buy him out for $5 million.

Just like that, the other team has rid itself of about 30 percent of the current salary cap for a third of the cost.

Suddenly, the market for Pierce does not look so limited. Even if another team loves Pierce’s game, convincing it to take him for $15.3 million is a hard sell, especially when that team can just wait for the Celtics to buy out or waive Pierce and then sign him to a smaller deal. If they never intend for Pierce to play for them, though, the ability to take on that salary with the express purpose of dumping might be worth the call to Danny Ainge, the Celtics’ president of basketball operations.

As for potential trade partners and what assemblage of talent exists for this deal to make sense for the Celtics, that is a more speculative topic for another story. The financial details of each potential trade change, of course, depending on the other team’s status above or below the cap or the luxury tax line. The pertinent detail is that Pierce’s contract would allow a team that trades for him to eliminate at least $15 million in salary for just $5 million. That is a swap most NBA executives would have to give some thought.

Have a question for Ben Watanabe? Send it to him via Twitter at @BenjeeBallgame or send it here.

*Editor’s note: An earlier version of this story misapplied the rules for how much money the Celtics could take back in a trade as a tax-paying team. The figures have been corrected. Thank you, as usual, to Larry Coon’s NBA CBA FAQ for providing many of the CBA details used in this story.

Paul Pierce

Going off a hunch, a longtime Celtics observer does not think Pierce will be back.

“I don’t think they will [bring Pierce back],” Celtics sideline reporter Greg Dickerson said on CSNNE. “And I know that the company that Paul Pierce hangs around in, they do not believe — and I don’t think Paul Pierce believes — that he is going to be brought back next year at $15 million. I know for a fact that people around Paul Pierce have pretty much resigned themselves to the fact that he’s played his final game in a Boston Celtics uniform.

“Again, Paul wants to stay — obviously, for $15 million, but he wants to finish his career in a Celtics uniform.”

If Pierce is bought out, waived or traded, Dickerson does not expect Kevin Garnett to be back, either. At least two teams could be interested in trading for Garnett, Dickerson said, but those would probably be limited to the Clippers and Lakers.

But as Green’s play looked worthy of the now-defunct Comeback Player of the Year award, Wilcox’ production dropped. His minutes fell to 13.6 per game and he averaged 4.2 points and 3.0 rebounds, his lowest averages since his rookie year.

Highly accountable as always, Wilcox blamed only himself, although he says he believes his sub-par performance might have been due to coming back from his surgery too quickly.

“I wasn’t me, you know what I mean?” Wilcox told the Boston Herald. “So I want to come back healthy. I want to come back and be healthy right from the start of training camp and get a preseason in and find my way from the beginning. I think me being hurt and just rushing everything kind of put a toll on me and had me sitting when I could have been playing. I mean, I’ve just got to go back to the drawing board, get healthy and get ready.”

Wilcox, who exercised his limited no-trade clause to avoid getting sent to Washington in the Jordan Crawford deal, told the Herald he did not feel that decision hurt his relationship with Celtics coach Doc Rivers or affected his playing time. Wilcox has said he wants to re-sign with the Celtics this summer, when he officially becomes a free agent.

Danny Ainge

Ainge, speaking with Michael Holley and Mike Salk on WEEI, dispelled the belief that there will be major changes to the Celtics this offseason. Ainge said he expects Kevin Garnett and Doc Rivers both to be back next season, and that he believes Paul Pierce has a lot of basketball left to play. However, Ainge also admitted that the Celtics are “more than one player away” from contending for another championship.

“We’re more than one player away, unless it’s a great player,” Ainge said. “It’ll be tough to become a championship team from where we are.”

While Ainge reiterated that he expects Rajon Rondo to be ready for the start of training camp, he had no updates on Garnett other than his hunch. Ainge will give Garnett about a week to “chill” before touching base with the 36-year-old big man about his future. Garnett is signed through 2015.

As for Rivers, Ainge insisted he feels the Celtics have the best coach in the NBA and scoffed at rumors about a rift between the two. In addition, he called anything Stephen A. Smith has said in recent days “silly,” but we already knew that.

Kevin Garnett

In a clearing-the-air column in the Boston Herald on Thursday, Celtics beat writer Steve Bulpett straightened out a number of myths from this season. One of those myths is the assumption about Garnett’s trade-deadline power play, which Bulpett writes was never close to happening.

“The truth of the matter is that it never got to the point where KG was asked to vote, or even declare his party affiliation,” Bulpett writes. “There was, as reported here, some measure of discord within the Clippers organization on the issue. According to multiple sources, coach Vinny Del Negro was in favor of the trade, believing it would give the club the best chance to win this season.”

While Del Negro wanted to see the deal get done, the rest of the organization reportedly was so strongly against it that the trade was never brought to the point that Garnett would have needed to nix it. The Celtics’ failure to make a major move at the deadline can be blamed on a few factors, but Garnett’s refusal to budge on his no-trade clause is not one of them.