The Celts already let one of the contributors to their 2007-08 Championship season get away - I'm referring, of course, to James Posey, who just signed an inflated 4-year, $25 million deal with the Hornets - and they seem determined not to let that happen again as reports have the team coming to terms with free agents Eddie House and Tony Allen. Apparently, both players will be coming back on 2-year deals, with the second year of House's contract being a player option. Rotoworld expects to see Eddie House backing up both guard positions and Tony Allen focusing primarily on backup shooting guard duties.

Losing Posey to the Hornets and not having the money to land bigger name FAs like Corey Maggette and Josh Childress (who apparently is considering a 3-year, $20 million offer to play in Greece) made these two re-signings pretty essential for the C's, whose incredibly deep 2007-08 bench was beginning to look a bit shallow. House and Allen are not huge-impact players, but both of them have the ability to be game-changing (all Eddie's gotta do is knock down a couple threes in a row, and all Tony's gotta do is not blow out his knee trying to show-boat on a gimme slam), minute-eating reserves for what looks to be a championship-contending team.

The Celtics had to commit a substantial amount of their mid-level exception to House ($2.7 million this season, $2.9 million the following season if he chooses to return), but expect the team to try to sign another forward to backup Pierce as both House and Allen are primarily guards.