The Celtics appeared to be in still in the Josh Smith derby as of 48 hours ago, when Adrian Wojnarowski of Yahoo! Sports reported that the C’s were one of several teams still interested in the veteran power forward. Fast forward to two days later, and the whispers continue to come in that Boston is extremely interested in Smith, according to some of the top NBA reporters on the beat in Marc Stein of ESPN.com and Wojnarowski. Here’s the latest.

Boston’s active on several fronts, including discussions on Josh Smith. Brooklyn is solely focused on making a Smith deal. — Adrian Wojnarowski (@WojYahooNBA) February 19, 2013

Latest deadline rumble: Boston exploring its Josh Smith options. The prob: Can’t do it w/out Pierce. Justcan’t see Ainge sending PP to ATL — Marc Stein (@ESPNSteinLine) February 19, 2013

More newsworthy tidbits from Stein, after the jump

KG ain’t waiving no-trade clause to go to ATL. So Celts would have to part with iconic PP to get J-Smoove. So can’t happen w/out more teams — Marc Stein (@ESPNSteinLine) February 19, 2013

Hawks have convinced numerous teams that Josh Smith will be moved between now and Thursday 3 PM deadline. Question remains where exactly — Marc Stein (@ESPNSteinLine) February 19, 2013

CH’s Take: There appears to be a lot of smoke here involving the C’s, but I’m not so sure there is a fire involving Boston. As Stein mentioned, neither KG or Pierce will be content being sent to Atlanta at this point in their career, so unless a third team (a contender in California) is involved that Pierce would be flipped to by Atlanta, I don’t see anything happening on this front. There’s also the possibility Ainge could be trying to find a multi-team deal that could land Smith in Boston, but I don’t see Danny being able to accomplish that without using Pierce/Bradley/KG or first round picks, all things I don’t see being moved for various reasons.

As always, Ainge is exploring his options and is “active” but having enough to pull the trigger on a move like this and being active are two very different animals. Stay tuned.