UPDATE: Doc & Danny presser delayed until Monday, Clippers deal now unlikely

The Celtics have announced that Ainge and Rivers will be meeting with the press in about two hours. My gut tells me that Doc is either staying with the remote chance that he's taking a sabbatical. I doubt they gather the media to announce a trade.

As the Globe's Baxter Holmes suggests this morning, the deal with the Los Angeles Chris Pauls is "fading fast." In fact, it may have never been on the table in the first place. After Commissioner Stern made several public statements about the illegality of the trades, nothing was proposed yesterday and there doesn't seem to be any movement on that front this morning. One league source suggests that this may have been an elaborate ruse to appease Paul who has yet to re-sign with the Clippers:

Celtics-Clippers talks take a bizarre turn

But the Clippers' stance raises questions about why they would include an asset in an earlier form of a proposed deal - one that turned out to be against league rules - and not include it in a deal that could work.

"The Clippers want to make an effort without really having any chance of getting it done," a league source said.

"Chris Paul's camp wanted Doc and KG, and [owner] Donald Sterling and the Clippers did not. But they can't come out and tell [Paul's camp] that they don't want to win, so they're trying to dance around it and play both sides."

With Bulpett's insight last night of the machinations of the Celtics' front office coupled now with this news, this could signal a return to the Boston bench for Doc Rivers. A poll here on CelticsBlog has us pretty split on the idea. What really hasn't been noted in all this mess is KG's willingness to come back next season. A week ago, we weren't sure if #5 was even going to suit up ever again. There's also Paul Pierce. Many speculated that if KG and Doc were going to be in Los Angeles next season, The Truth would join them via a buyout of his Celtics contract. Now, if the deal is truly dead and Doc does decide to return, he could implore Danny to get the band back together and run it back for one more year.

Stay tuned.

UPDATE:

Danny-Doc press conference has now been postponed until Monday.

— Steve Bulpett (@SteveBHoop) June 21, 2013

The threat of announcing something--ANYTHING--might be the final power play by Ainge to get something down with the Clips...