Nine notes on the Celtics...

So here we go again.

Another year of the Celtics on the road to the future.

The question is, where are they on the road?

It's an interesting question.

One theory is that Danny Ainge has stocked the roster with a plethora of young, talented players, ones who will pay huge dividends in the future.

Another theory is Danny Ainge has stocked the roster with a lot of young players, the kind of NBA recipe that usually translates into too few wins and watching the playoffs take place in other cities.

Take your pick.

But this is a big year for Ainge. You can only sell promises for so long. It's now nearly four years after Ainge took over the basketball operations of this franchise, and the team is not as successful as it was when he got the job. That's not an opinion. That's a fact. You can look it up.

This is his team -- only Paul Pierce remains from the roster that he inherited -- and there's no question it's younger and more athletic. Whether that translates into more wins is the issue. For this is a team that won only 33 games last season, and that was with Pierce having the best year of his career. A team that better make the playoffs, or else there will be heat. Cheerleaders and free T-shirts only go so far.

The word is Ainge would like to make a deal for an accomplished frontcourt player. Last summer, the name being thrown around was Drew Gooden. This time it's Utah forward Carlos Boozer. The cost probably would be Al Jefferson, whom the Celtics seem to have soured on, considering that a year ago he was on the cover of the media guide billed as a future star and now is a name that seems to surface whenever a trade is mentioned.

In a better basketball world, Jefferson would be only a junior in college. This is not a better basketball world. Jefferson might, indeed, one day be the kind of player he was being projected to be as a rookie.

But when?

Better yet, will it be before the heat starts coming down on Ainge and his staff?

Rookie guard Rajon Rondo looks like a steal, a Dee Brown-type athlete with legitimate point guard skills. It's real early, certainly, but he's got a chance to be special.

I love Ryan Gomes, but here's the question: Should the 50th pick in the draft, in only his second year, no less, be the best frontcourt player on the team? The most skilled. The most versatile. Maybe even the most productive. And if he is, what does that say about the rest of them?

The Celtics want to run, but in order to run you have to rebound, and right now they don't do that very well.

The ultimate tease is Gerald Green, only a year out of high school, full of potential. When will he be ready? Good question. In short, a microcosm of the Celtics.

Well, we know Bassy's already a star -- courtesy of a book, a documentary, a big fat sneaker contract and a $50,000 necklace that supposedly disappeared from his neck Monday Night in a New York club. Now we're going to find out if Sebastian Telfair actually can play.

The Celtics once played very good defense for Jim O'Brien, one of the reasons why they got to the Eastern Conference finals. They do not play good defense for Doc Rivers. And, yes, it's different players. But until this team starts playing better defense, it will look good one minute and not so good the next.

Can't tell the players without a scorecard?

Welcome to the Celtics.

There are young players galore. Go right down the list: Jefferson. Kendrick Perkins. Delonte West. Tony Allen. Gerald Green. Gomes. Telfair. Rondo. Luke Jackson. All are young players. Potential? Sure. Yet none of them has proved anything in the NBA. Not really.

In fact, Pierce, Wally Szczerbiak and Theo Ratliff are the only three players on the entire roster who have ever done anything significant in the NBA. All the rest are either flotsam and jetsam -- Michael Olowokandi and Brian Scalabrine -- or NBA versions of blank slates.

This is a team?

Not yet.

And that's the problem.

Teams take time to develop. Roles take time to develop. Right now, the Celtics are a work in progress, on the road to the future.

But just where are they on that road?

This year should tell us.