BOSTON (AP) - The Shrek and Donkey show is returning to Boston for another performance.
The Celtics have agreed in principle with guard Nate Robinson on a new contract, a team official told The Associated Press on Friday. The deal reunites the 5-foot-9 guard with Glen "Big Baby" Davis on a Boston bench that provided an important contribution during last year's run to the NBA finals.
A Celtics spokesman declined to comment, but the official confirmed the agreement to the AP on the condition of anonymity because the contract was not yet signed. The Boston Herald reported that Robinson will get $4 million a year for two seasons.
Robinson wrote on his Twitter page Friday that he was going back to the Celtics.
Robinson was acquired at the trade deadline but had fallen out of the rotation by the end of the regular season. He re-emerged in the playoffs to help Boston clinch the Eastern Conference finals and then, with Davis, led the second unit that helped the Celtics pull away from the Los Angeles Lakers in Game 4 of the finals.
"We're like Shrek and Donkey," Robinson said afterward. "You can't separate us."
The nicknames stuck, and now Robinson has, too.
The only three-time winner of the NBA's slam dunk contest, the diminutive Robinson fell out of favor with the New York Knicks during their ill-fated efforts to purge salary and land LeBron James as a free agent. He was traded to the Celtics in February, but couldn't seem to find much of a role in Boston, either.
Celtics coach Doc Rivers insisted that Robinson, who had never appeared in the postseason in his career, would find a niche, saying, "He's going to win us a playoff game."
That proved prophetic when Robinson came off the bench to score 13 second-quarter points in the sixth and final game of the conference finals against Orlando. In Game 4 of the finals, Robinson pitched in with 12 points in 17 minutes as the bench turned a two-point deficit into an 11-point lead.