Pierce and the rebuilding

This from today's Sunday Globe:

He plans to continue his preparation this week in workouts with Antoine Walker in Chicago and hopes to be back in the Boston area soon after Labor Day to work out with his less-familiar teammates.

Then Antoine's post-Boston talk:

''When you win the division, you try to move up and keep battling and try to get to that next level," said Walker. ''But they chose to go the other route and go young and start from the ground up again. It's an odd situation. I don't really understand it. Maybe, in a couple years from now, we'll understand the madness to it."

Walker predicts that Pierce will have just as much trouble figuring out the situation. ''I feel for Paul for the situation he's in," said Walker. ''He's in the prime of his career. And it's very difficult to go back to that situation. Nobody wants to do that, to go to the playoffs then go back to possibly not making them. But you never know what can happen. Now, he has to go back to a situation where he has to be a complete leader. He has to lead on and off the court. It becomes very difficult at times."

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So Pierce is working out with Antoine and Antoine is talking about how the Celtics plans are misguided and probably wasting Pierce's talents at the prime of his career. Clearly Pierce still respects Antoine a lot and has a good friendship with him if they're working out together in Chitown so imagine what Pierce is thinking with Antoine talking in his ear about how the Celtics plans make no sense. I can see Pierce listening a lot more to Antoine than Celtics Management and Coaches. If the C's lose a lot it could be a tough year with Pierce. I've advocated for a trade before, and I still feel that's probably in Pierce's and the teams best interest given the direction the team has taken.