Shaw, Celtics Close to Deal, Paper Reports

Guard Brian Shaw, who signed a contract with the Boston Celtics in January and then told the team he wanted to play a second year in Italy, reportedly is close to completing a deal that would return him to the Celtics this season.

The Boston Globe today said it learned from sources that the deal could be completed by the end of this week or early next week.

According to sources, the Globe said, Shaw wants the Celtics to drop lawsuits pending against him and Il Messaggero, his Italian team, refrain from any future litigation against his agent, Jerome Stanley, and not ask him to issue a statement of regret or apology for his actions.

“The basketball part, I think, is comfortable to Brian,” one source told the newspaper. “It’s the non-basketball part that still needs some work. There still is a lot of debris out there.”

Shaw played for the Celtics in the 1988-89 season, then played in Italy last season after becoming a free agent. In January, he signed a contract with the Celtics that runs through 1994, gives him a $450,000 signing bonus and a salary of $1.1 million for this season.

But this summer he informed the Celtics that he would not honor the contract. The Celtics immediately went to arbitration and won. When Shaw failed to notify Il Messaggero by June 20 that he would not be returning for a second season, as the arbitrator ordered, the Celtics went to U.S. District Judge A. David Mazzone, who found Shaw in contempt.