I applaud Danny for effort, but acquiring Kyrie then Kemba have been significant parts of the demise of all the promise this era once had.
It’s hard to recover from major mistakes in the NBA. The other major mistake was GH - mistake meaning big expenditure diidn’t work for whatever reason. Lakers are the only franchise where mistakes don’t really matter - they can always retool with top tier players within a few years.
What mistake did DA make with Hayward?
Kemba is debatable. Kyrie...also debatable - getting a top 10 or 20 or whatever talent-level player for such little cost.
Bottom line, the Hayward injury cost us at least one title. That’s not Ainge’s fault.
His worst decision, tho it was understandable, was trading for Kyrie. I wish Cleveland had bailed him out by refusing to set a reasonable price and effectively blowing up the deal. Almost anything else Ainge could’ve done would have come out better. Look at who was available with that 8th pick - SGA, Miles Bridges. Or maybe we trade it for a vet with less upside talent but a stable, team-building personality. It all ends a lot better.
Did it? Even if Boston made it out of the east, was Boston going to beat the Warriors? That seems highly unlikely to me.
Tough to say, but the trajectory would have changed.
If Hayword and Kyrie were healthy.
What if we get by Cleveland, and take the Warriors to 6, with Durant.
The next year we are coming off the #1 defense and a finals loss the previous year.
Al, Kyrie, and maybe Gordon were all-stars.
We have 2 young recent draft picks that are two-way wings and shoot close to 40% from 3.
Maybe the Jay's development is less steep and they are quality depth instead of budding stars for 1 more year.
Instead we got,
Hayward working his way back, being force fed.
Rozier, Brown, and Tatum fresh off a game 7 ECF collapse wondering if they need the "stars" and Mook.
Kyrie disillusioned with the "youth, and handling it "not so well"