Blount Must Win Back C's

<div class="quote_poster">Quote:</div><div class="quote_post">Mark Blount has nowhere to go but up this summer.

``It's up to Mark to prove to Doc (Rivers) that he can't win without him,'' Celtics director of basketball operations Danny Ainge said yesterday of Blount, who signed a lucrative mid-level contract last summer only to fall off the map last season. ``The onus is on the player to prove himself to the coach. I expect him to play as well as he's capable of playing.''

Theories abound over the 7-foot center's decline, which culminated in benchings in the C's final three playoff games. The 29-year-old veteran had lost his passion. He had grown apart from his teammates. He never took to his new coach, Rivers. He crumbled under the pressure of the six-year, $38 million deal.

And then there was the most cynical notion - that Blount, new deal comfortably in hand, simply stopped working.

His agent, Mark Bartlestein, yesterday scoffed at the view that Blount stopped caring. He acknowledged, however, that the big guy has some fences to mend - most notably with Rivers.

``We have to work on things this summer,'' Bartlestein said. ``Mark and Doc are going to spend some time together.''

Though Rivers intends to visit all of his players this summer, Bartle-stein attached some significance to Blount's rendezvous with the coach.

Blount, according to his agent, was simply discouraged by his decreasing playing time. </div>

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I love the attitude of these players. They land a juicy guaranteed contract and then stop caring and working hard at their craft. Then the coach benches them and they complain about playing time. Unbelievable.