On Sunday, the Celtics director of basketball operations flew to New York to watch  Spaniard Fran Vazquez work out.

In that Vazquez is widely projected to be a lottery pick, it would seem to indicate Ainge could quite possibly move up from the Celtics' No. 18 slot on Tuesday. But he said yesterday nothing is in the works.

``Nothing happens on the weekend anyway,'' he said.

Ainge will be back in Waltham at the club's facility on Monday to see others go through their paces. Among those set to audition (or on the Celtics wish list for another look) are Arizona State power forward Ike Diogu, Providence swingman Ryan Gomes, UConn forward Charlie Villanueva, Oklahoma State forward Joey Graham and South Kent Prep forward Andray Blatche.
   
In the absence of a trade to a higher position, the idea for Ainge is to get another read on as many of the top players as he can in the likely event a few of them slide the Celtics' way.
   
He added that he's seen more than 100 players, ``and some players I have watched as much as 20 games, which is two-thirds of an entire season on players I think are a real possibility for us.''

``What I have to do is rank the players, and if they go off the board, they're gone, and I have to take the next best guy,'' he said. ``I can't let all of the rumors and different theories get in the way and distract us from what we're doing.''