Stevens is Already better than Ainge

[86MaxwellSmart]

 I'm talking old man Ainge. Danny was stealing money from the celtics owners ever since the heart attack.

 Brad is trying hard to beef up this roster, with limited assets. If Brad had been the GM the last three years this team would be in much Better shape.

 I'm thrilled with what I'm seeing so far. I have confidence the celtics are moving in the right direction for the first time in a Long time.

 Well done Brad. Keep going.

Tree Rollins and his finger have less hate for Danny than you do. 

Brad's got a long way to go to top what Danny has accomplished.

Tree bit Danny, not the other way around, haha.

[Walker Wiggle]

Too much dumping on Ainge in these forums of late.

There is a ton of youth on the roster because of Ainge, including two late lottery picks. Right now the front office is parting with some of that youth for veterans and constructing a more experienced team, so it feels good. But if and when some of those young players develop, I guarantee the narrative around “late stage Ainge” will change.

Also… we tend to think player decisions are driven by one person. In reality this is way more of a team effort — even for a relatively small staff like that of the Celtics — and I think we are understating the level of continuity between the two regimes.

[Celtics4ever]

Ainge was a great GM, until about 2017 when he signed Kyrie but went downhill ever since.  Austin his son should go due to the 2019 draft.

[gift]

Just me or are there a lot more “little” rumors under Stevens than there were with Ainge? Will be interesting if a Stevens front office leaks more.

[CBS_Take a Report]

I don’t get the sense of fear or disappointment with the recent team development activities.

With Brad as President, we have:

1. Gotten rid of a max player who was a defensive (and frankly offensive) liability with degenerative knees and 3+ years remaining.
2. In exchange for the above, we got a previous expiring max contract locker room guy in Al Horford. I think a lot of people underestimate what he meant to our offensive sets with the high pick and roll. And his impact in the locker room is immeasurable.
3. We’ve added two defensive specialists in Kriss Dunn and Josh Richardson also on expiring contracts.

And free agency hasn’t even started. It was always how could we build around Jaylen Brown and Jayson Tatum. We now have a quicker path to doing so by being cap flexible.

The previous mentality of having to win every trade needs to go with Ainge going. Sometimes in chess, you have to sacrifice a piece to set the table up for check mate.

Love where we are…for the first time in a while.

[obnoxiousmime]

I don't think you can judge until we have the whole picture, and that takes time. So far he's made moves that appear to be more important for bookkeeping and flexibility than actual basketball fit. On the negative side, you might look at the Richardson acquisition and think, "we added a guy that doesn't fit our two biggest obvious needs and based on what team you talk to, has negative value right now." So it could be they're just acquiring a contract on the books before the Hayward deadline expired so they have more deals on the books for future trades. The follow-up question then becomes, well yeah, but couldn't they have acquired somebody else more useful and still accomplished that purpose (e.g. Satoransky)? Sure, but perhaps the price was too high or the other teams didn't want to take on any of our expendable guaranteed deals for 2021-2022 (Moses Brown, Grant Williams, Carsen Edwards?).

The other potential foreshadowing of these moves is they know they're not going to re-sign Fournier. Regardless of whether you think Fournier is worth that money or the tax payment, the fact is the team on the court would be better with him on the roster as opposed to off, especially if they decide not to use the full mid-level.

There are still moves to make obviously, so I'll give him an incomplete right now. I think it's pretty clear they're preparing for next year's free agency. Kemba and Tristan's deals are still haunting us in the form of Horford and other assorted guaranteed deals, but at least they made those burdens slightly less onerous.

[kraidstar]

A lot of the people bashing ainge wanted to keep KG and Pierce.

Then they wanted to trade the Brooklyn picks for Greg Monroe or Jahlil Okafor.

Then they wanted to draft Fultz and Bender.

It took a lot of careful moves to get us in the position we're in. Despite the incredible misfortune we've suffered the team is still set up well.

[Ogaju]

But but but..how can this be…isn’t Stevens = Ainge?

[GreenlyGreeny]

But but but..how can this be…isn’t Stevens = Ainge?

Oh, any great trades will have started under Ainge (🤣 at Danny ever in a million years trading Kemba and a pick for Horford) and if any of these trades do not pan out, well, they were Stevens’ trades. This probably even goes for trades in 2022. If we somehow pull off a series of moves that results in us getting Beal alongside Tatum/Brown, you bet the whole series started under Ainge.

[gouki88]

Ainge was a great GM, until about 2017 when he signed Kyrie but went downhill ever since.  Austin his son should go due to the 2019 draft.

Given he traded Markelle Fultz for Jayson Tatum and Romeo Langford after 2017, made some good finds from atypical avenues (Theis), bought low on guys like Morris, I don't think this is accurate. Feel like you just want to pile on Grant in yet another thread

[RJ87]

The feeling here reminds me of the saying:

All progress is change but not all change is progress.

I feel like we are rushing to praise change instead of seeing if progress has been made / or even discussing why these changes should lead to progress.

TP.

Brad's been busy, but busy work doesn't equal improvement.

[jc3celticsphan]

Honestly the whole heart attack thing is the reason he has to be leaving both Brad and ainge looked very overwhelmed this season and were not prepared. The Fournier deal worked but Brad can screw this up by letting him walk they need to be more aware of these players intentions before singing him but I also think Brad could really be in management because he's good with the players and really good at player management you can hear it in his interviews.... so maybe he can bring us some quality free agents/players that wanna play here since he's fairly new to the nba and he's familiar with the young guys

P.s Pritchard was Danny's guy no questions about it

[Kiorrik]

Honestly the whole heart attack thing is the reason he has to be leaving both Brad and ainge looked very overwhelmed this season and were not prepared. The Fournier deal worked but Brad can screw this up by letting him walk they need to be more aware of these players intentions before singing him but I also think Brad could really be in management because he's good with the players and really good at player management you can hear it in his interviews.... so maybe he can bring us some quality free agents/players that wanna play here since he's fairly new to the nba and he's familiar with the young guys

P.s Pritchard was Danny's guy no questions about it

Come again?

As if anyone could've predicted Evan/France beating the USA and taking their lunch money.

[jc3celticsphan]

Honestly the whole heart attack thing is the reason he has to be leaving both Brad and ainge looked very overwhelmed this season and were not prepared. The Fournier deal worked but Brad can screw this up by letting him walk they need to be more aware of these players intentions before singing him but I also think Brad could really be in management because he's good with the players and really good at player management you can hear it in his interviews.... so maybe he can bring us some quality free agents/players that wanna play here since he's fairly new to the nba and he's familiar with the young guys

P.s Pritchard was Danny's guy no questions about it

Come again?

As if anyone could've predicted Evan/France beating the USA and taking their lunch money.

now thats funny but Fournier did prove him self in the playoffs I just think he adds that depth we need and we forsure certainly competed against the nets with no jaylen and kemba at full strength so the Fournier deal was good just need to add another piece to this roster. The bucks struggled worse then we did in those first 2 games against the Nets so they aren't unbeatable and same as the Nets not unbeatable either ... we just gotta stay healthy and add a PG and stretch 4 to this roster

[ozgod]

I don’t get the sense of fear or disappointment with the recent team development activities.

With Brad as President, we have:

1. Gotten rid of a max player who was a defensive (and frankly offensive) liability with degenerative knees and 3+ years remaining.
2. In exchange for the above, we got a previous expiring max contract locker room guy in Al Horford. I think a lot of people underestimate what he meant to our offensive sets with the high pick and roll. And his impact in the locker room is immeasurable.
3. We’ve added two defensive specialists in Kriss Dunn and Josh Richardson also on expiring contracts.

And free agency hasn’t even started. It was always how could we build around Jaylen Brown and Jayson Tatum. We now have a quicker path to doing so by being cap flexible.

The previous mentality of having to win every trade needs to go with Ainge going. Sometimes in chess, you have to sacrifice a piece to set the table up for check mate.

Love where we are…for the first time in a while.

TP, I agree with you. I think Brad's made the most of the hand he's been dealt. Though in defense of the pessimists, they're probably thinking "new GM, same old 'plan for tomorrow but tomorrow never comes because it's always today'". People want to win, it probably feels like we've been in our own Process since 2013 with no championship to show for it, in a city that considers no championship each year a failure from all of their sports teams.

Watch the knives come out for Brad if this team doesn't make it to the ECF this season.