There's No Place Like Home

Delonte West returns to the court Wednesday after
serving a 10-game-suspension to start the season.

The wait is officially over. For everyone keeping score, Delonte West is back. With a 116-110 win over the Grizzlies in Memphis Saturday night, the Celtics improved to 8-2 on the young season. The victory also marked the completion of West's ten-game-suspension to begin the year.

The suspension was a result of West pleading guilty to a 2009 weapons charge stemming from a traffic stop along the Capital Beltway in Washington, D.C.. Initially, West was pulled over for speeding in his three-wheeled motorcycle. Upon further inspection, officers found a loaded 9mm Beretta pistol, a .357 Magnum and a Remington 870 hidden in a guitar case strapped to his back, as well as a 8.5 inch bowie knife strapped to his leg. 

For all of us who might have forgotten, Delonte West is an enigma. He is a star shooting guard from St. Joseph's whom the Celtics picked 24th overall in the 2004 Draft. He is also a professional basketball player who suffers from mental illness. West is bi-polar. People with bi-polar disorder suffer from manic depression and are prone to psychotic episodes in which they are convinced someone is out to get them (hence the reason why West would travel with multiple automatic weapons strapped to his back). 

In addition to serious legal troubles, West was also recently blamed for causing a locker room rift that divided the Cleveland Cavaliers during their collapse against the Celtics in the playoffs last season. Multiple reports surfaced that West had been romantically involved with Gloria James, LeBron's mother. Maybe that's why LeBron really left Cleveland. Before even suiting up for the Celtics in a regular season  game, West made headlines again when he got into a scuffle with teammate Von Wafer while the two were playing one-on-one during practice. Questions immediately arose whether Danny Ainge should dump West before he became a distraction. 

There's no question that Delonte has his demons. But when you really think about it, West didn't seem to spiral out of control until after he left the Celtics the first time around. During his time in Boston, West was selected to play in the Freshmen vs. Sophomores All-Star Game, battled Rajon Rondo for playing time and averaged a career best 12.2 points in 2006-07. After all, we owe him an eternal debt for landing us Ray Allen and the 35th pick (Big Baby) in a 2007 trade that sent West, old friend Wally Szczerbiak and the #5 overall draft pick (Jeff Green) to Seattle. 

Now Delonte returns home to the team that drafted him. He has a pivotal role to fill on a championship caliber team full of accomplished veterans, one formerly held by Tony Allen and James Posey before him ( ie. good defender, slasher/shooter off the bench to lead the second unit). He is surrounded by familiar faces in Pierce, Rondo and Perkins, and a coach in Doc Rivers who understands him and helped him transition from college to the NBA. Toss in a couple Hall of Famers in Ray, KG and Shaq to lean on and Delonte appears to have a more than experienced support group to keep him in the right direction. If West can't overcome his troubles on this team he might never. Let's hope for his sake and ours that the old adage is true: there's no place like home. We'll find out Wednesday night when the Delonte Reunion Tour officially kicks off at 7:30pm against the Wizards.