Celtics Monitoring Greg Oden

Earlier Thursday, Ken Berger of CBSSports.com reported that several teams, including the Celtics, are interested in signing center Greg Oden, the former top overall draft pick who last played in the NBA in 2009. Celtics president Danny Ainge told Greg Payne of ESPNBoston.com that the Celtics are keeping tabs on Oden's progress.

"Yeah, so we're monitoring Greg, like all the NBA teams are, but we have not attempted to sign him," Ainge said Thursday. "But we are monitoring him and having (conversations) with his people just to see where he's at."

Given that Oden will likely not be ready to play this season, Ainge said the Celtics would look at him as a future investment.

"I don't think (he'd be ready to play this year)," Ainge said. "I don't know any of that for sure, but I would suspect that anybody that would sign him would have their eyes looking more towards his contribution in the future than now."

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