This was going to be a column about Kendrick Perkins' return to Boston, his first game in TD Garden since Feb. 16, 2011, when he was wearing the home whites. It looked like the obvious story, the role-playing center on a championship-level team returning to the place where it all began.

But given the state of his former team, that would be what one calls burying the lead.

Kendrick Perkins' production with the Thunder is about what it was with the Celtics, but his fouls are at a career low. AP Photo/Sue Ogrocki

Perkins is doing just fine, thank you, as is his team, the Oklahoma City Thunder, who defeated the New York Knicks on Saturday night to improve to 11-2. Perk is putting up pretty much the same kind of numbers he did when he was starting for the Celtics. In 13 games, all starts, he's averaging 5.7 points and 6 rebounds. One change: He's averaging 2.6 fouls per game, the fewest since he became a de facto starter in 2005.

His former team? Not doing so well, so we'll cut to the chase. After getting rolled by the Pacers on Saturday night, the second loss to Indy in eight days, the Celtics are 4-7 and have matched the longest losing streak in the new Big Three era by dropping four in a row. (They also lost four straight in 2008-09.) And with the athletic, dynamic Thunder on tap for Monday night, no one will be shocked if the streak reaches five.

Pretty much nothing has gone right for the Celtics since Danny Ainge pulled the trigger and made the controversial Perkins trade last February. At the time, it didn't look to be nearly as bad as it has turned out to be. The Celtics got the best player in the deal in Jeff Green. The Celtics got a first-round draft pick that belonged to perennially underachieving Los Angeles Clippers. And they had played well over the first two months of the season without Perkins, who was recovering from knee surgery.

Since then, well, look at what has happened.

Shaquille O'Neal, aka The Big Tease, never returned to any kind of active or productive role for the Celtics. Ainge made the trade thinking (hoping?) that Shaq would be there, at least for the playoffs. Instead, O'Neal took a couple of months off, returned and hurt his Achilles and was never a factor.

The Celtics had four centers on their roster before the trade: Perkins, Shaq, Jermaine O'Neal and Semih Erden. They ended up with two available for the playoffs: Jermaine O'Neal, who had been hurt all year, and Nenad Krstic, who was part of the trade and was basically ignored by Doc Rivers. Only O'Neal remains.

Green was supposed to be the swingman the Celtics lacked -- and he was that on paper. He just wasn't nearly as good as the Celtics hoped he could be, as he struggled to find his role and comfort level while coming off the bench for the first time in his NBA (or college) career.

Then, of course, came the devastating news in training camp this season after Green had reported early, eager to begin what he and everyone else thought would be his first full season with the Celtics. But an aortic aneurism detected during his routine physical exam in December led to heart surgery earlier this month and a season of idleness. The Celtics don't even hold his rights any more.