The rumors on Rudy Gay won't stop

Although there are still live rumbles on the league's personnel grapevine that this will actually be the February that Celtics front-office chief Danny Ainge finally parts with Paul Pierce or Rajon Rondo, I'm still pretty skeptical. As one team monitoring the Celtics said this week: "[Boston] has floated the idea of moving Pierce or Rondo out there for the last three years ... but has never pulled the trigger."

So it's premature, to me, to throw Pierce's name up there with Rudy Gay and Pau Gasol on the list of high-profile names available this trade season, even though we've heard more than one rival team speculate -- given that the Celtics and Grizzlies, sources say, have indeed held some exploratory trade talks since Gay hit the market -- that a three-way deal where Pierce lands in Memphis, Gasol goes to Boston and Gay joins the Lakers makes "some sense."

Pierce's $15.3 million salary next season is guaranteed for only $5 million, so his contract is highly tradable, but instinct tells me that Ainge's fondness for him and Pierce's stature within the franchise and in the city make it a serious long shot that we'll see him dealt during the next 27 days. Rondo is a harder read because this season hasn't been nearly as smooth for him as his numbers look, but the suspicion here remains that Ainge will give his vets one more shot in the playoffs in an East where, approaching the 50-game marker, there's still no clear-cut No. 2 behind Miami.