Day One Recap

Here's what you need to know from day one in Turkey for your Boston Celtics.

- Considering their flight lasted about twelve hours, head coach Doc Rivers put his team through a light one-hour workout. Rivers's thinking?" Because of the time change and all that, I thought if we went straight and did nothing they would fall asleep at 6 p.m. and sleep the rest of the night away." This makes sense in order to accumulate the players' bodies to the time difference, which is seven hours ahead of Boston.

- That being said...Rivers promised a harder, longer session in the gym tomorrow. “Tomorrow we’re going to go hard. I don’t anticipate it being a great practice, honestly, but that’s not going to stop us from going our three hours,” said Rivers. “We’re still going to do it. And then hopefully by the next day they’re a little bit better.”

- One of the hot topics at the start of training camp has been the evolution of Rajon Rondo into the team leader. Its a role he has embraced, as evident by him gathering the whole team for workouts and a flag football game in California. However, Rondo quickly shot down the notion that its his team, something Kobe Bryant did not do yesterday. Said Rondo, "I'm not the team leader. Everybody keeps saying that, Danny [Ainge] put that pressure on me [by calling Rondo the best player on the team]. There's 15 guys on this team. Paul [Pierce has] been here for 15 years and I’m still following in his footsteps. I might be a leader as far as point guard wise, and I’ll accept that role. But three or four guys are the leaders -- Kevin, Paul, and even [Jason Terry]. They are the veterans. I’m going to lead the young guys, and try to lead the older guys as well. But I’m still following."Also keep in mind that Pierce is still the team captain, and Garnett is the heart and soul of this team. But its also clear that the Celtics are in transition, and Rondo is the one who holds and will be holding the keys to this luxury car from now on.

- Some things never change with Kevin Garnett. The Celtics' center is notorious for teaching young big guys the in's and out's of playing in the NBA, that is, if he likes them. Such was the case after the first practice today overseas, as Garnett spent time after practice talking with rookie center Fab Melo. As Rivers put it, "When Kevin communicates, that means he actually likes you." There have been cases in past years where Garnett would simply not talk to certain guys after getting into feuds with them, one being fan-favorite (kidding of course) Patrick O'Bryant. If Melo does learn something, anything from Garnett over the duration of his contract, watch out for big guy from 'Cuse.

- Who says he's just a third-string center? It looks like Jason Collins still has something to prove. The soon to be thirty-four year old looks phenomenal. Here's what he looked like last season. Compare that to how he looks now.