Danny's great summer; why it sucked; why that proves he has been so good

[EDWARDO]

I'm finding it hard to find a fault with the what we've done this summer. Getting back KG and Bass. Jet/Lee kungfu backup backcourt. I think even letting Allen go won't be the end of the world for us. I think Sullinger will be a very solid contributor for us for years to come. Getting Wilcox back. They've maxed out their cap room, kept their 1st round picks, and created the deepest team in the league. They are also younger and they've added the Fab Melo wild card as a guy to develop in the future. They've gotten younger and more athletic, better built for the present AND the future. Bravo and its a credit to DA and the whole organization. Simply a very well done few months overall.

And yet, the summer is a disaster. We can draft all of the Sullingers, sign all of the Jet/Lees and unearth a mllion Christmii (I'm going with that as the plural of "Christmas") and it doesn't equal one "Dwight Howard to the Lakers" moment. The NBA is a league you win with a great player. Not great players... a great player. The title wins by Dallas, Detroit a few years ago and our own are the exceptions that prove the rule. A huge percentage of titles over the past 30yrs can be accounted for by Shaq, Bird, Magic, Kobe, Duncan, Hakeem... guys who are dominant forces. At any given time there are only a few of these guys around... Lebron and Durant are the most obvious guys, but Howard is the clear #3 guy on that list right now, and the Lakers look like they will get him.

So the summer was great for us, but a disaster since the Lakers can so easily trump our great small moves with one giant one, giftwrapped because DH would prefer to live in LA than just about anywhere else... certainly not Boston.

Which brings me back to why this proves that Danny has been a great GM. Which GMs have done the best job? Presti, Buford? I think they've been good, maybe great, but it all begins with drafting a top 10 player of all time and building from there. The Spurs never win a title without Duncan... same with the Thunder and Durant. Forget Riley... he's clearly a gifted guy, but convincing Lebron to go to Miami is hardly the mark of a great GM.

What DA did without the benefit of a Duncan/Durant pick or a Lebron/Shaq free agent signing is incredibly rare. We were a couple of key injuries away from winning MULTIPLE titles... 2009 was a done deal... we were the best team by a mile that year before KG got hurt.... I can never figure out the JRGIDDENS!!! crowd... only seeing the few minor blemishes on what has otherwise been a masterpiece of GMing... its near impossible to build a long term title contender without that one great player... you can be the best of the best of NBA front offices and it doesn't make a single difference of Lebron and Dwight want to work on their tans rather than eat chowder...

[BudweiserCeltic]

Why are you re-posting a thread you made earlier??

http://forums.celticsblog.com/index.php?topic=59027.0

[bfrombleacher]

I get it. I tried posting a thread once to get 2k to make Association more realistic...give half a crap about Association. But no dice. People hate reading and when they don't have to, they'll ignore it. I typed too much. I almost always type too much.

Shorter paragraphs help too...and getting straight to the point. I've found that writing on the internet is another genre all together on its own.




As for the actual post Danny's already made the big move. Getting the big three together. And he hit the jackpot with Rondo.

The Lakers aren't getting Dwight Howard for free. They're upgrading Bynum essentially.

Life is not fair but you do with what you have. Poop happens. It's not all bad for the C's.

[hpantazo]

I give Ainge a lot of credit, but many of these moves were possible because of Doc and the reputation he has with players. Jeff Green, KG, Bass, and Wilcox all made the celtics their clear #1 choice because of Doc. Courtney Lee stated a few times that he wanted to come here because of his relationship with Doc. I posted about the impact Doc made the last couple of years, especially in last year's playoff run, and how having him here can attract players to come, and people said players still won't come to boston. Well, they are not Dwight Howard, but that's a great list of players who came here or stayed here because of Doc.