Danny was wrong about Red

[Redz]

He thinks Red should have traded Bird and Mchale toward the end of their careers.  I'd argue that by not trading your legends you establish your franchise as a family with loyalty.  If the Celtics traded away Russell and Havlicek and Heinsohn I don't think they have the same reputation today.  These guys come back year after year and add to the mystique of the C's.  We are built on our legends.  And I think Red new that.
   

Red didn't expect that Bird would have the physical problems he did at the end.  Red valued loyalty, however he had not problem making trades of Celtics legends or not!
Cowens, Russell, White, Maxwell Ainge, all finished their careers in other teams uniforms.  Red simply believed that had Bird been healthy he could have played until he was 40.  McHale simply couldn't carry the Celtics at the end.
Bias and Lewis had more to do with the Celtics demise, that and the Spurs lottery pick.
I don't know if Danny should make a trade, I think he will wait to see how things play out.

But Red would give Danny the go ahead and then light a cigar.

Your point remains unchanged but detail wise:

Russell played his whole career with the Celtics.  Cowena retired as a Celtic then made a brief comeback with the Bucks a few years later.

[Roy H.]

He traded Ed McCauley who was an allstar for Russell. So he would ditch his guys for the right trade folks.

While true, Macauley had requested a trade to St. Louis, so he could be closer to his son.

http://www.celticstown.com/2011/09/20/an-anecdote-to-celebrate-red-auerbachs-birthday/

If Macauley hadn't wanted to go home, who knows what would have happened.

[Celtics4ever]

Still he traded Cliff Hagan's rights though, Roy.  He traded Gerald Henderson for the rights of Len Bias.  He traded Rick Robey who was Larry's best friend too.  Both these guys won championships with us.  Gerald was a big factor in the one he won with that steal.  Red would deal for that right deal.  He sent Danny packing and Ainge still probably recalls that everyday and it don't bode well if the right deal comes along.  The Chief played for the Bulls after he left here.  Not all guys retired C's that is simply a myth that we embellish here. 

Jan Volk was the GM who let us get old though most agree Red was probably still calling the shots.  Personally, I would have found it distasteful for Bird or McHale to not have retired here.   I felt bad about Chief too.   I feel the same way about Pierce but not so much about KG and Ray.  While I love them as players fact is they played for a long time under other team's names.

[DavorCroatiaFan]

McHale for Perkins and Schpempf would be a great trade for C's.
But Bird to Pacers? Only for Reggie and Smits and not scrubs like Person, Stipanović and Williams...

[2dark]

While I somewhat agree with both points of trade and with retire in green sides, I have to say that amount of people blaming Red for not pulling the trigger cause it costed us 20 yrs of irrelevance is astonishing.

Same people that are calling for blowing out the team now expect another 20 years of mediocre team if we don't pull it right nowdays.

Its a really really long time span, and I doubt whole 20 years we suffered until the 17th was fault of clinging to our guys for too long.

Think of it this way, even if you are the worse possible GM pulling worst possible deals you can only make your team suck for a period you're GM+ 4 yrs after, to clean all the bad moves/contracts.

My point is that we should let our major pieces to retire for our sake, not for  the way other view us.
WE are the ones who are proud to have those people, WE are the ones feeling bad when losing/ feeling fuzzy inside when winning, and in the end people that do come to play for us, stay with us because they can recognise something different in this franchise, that runs so deep that even most of the scrubs comming here for year-two can feel it.

So when we know celtics are one big family, losing year or two of playing bad for the sake of having PP retire as celtic is worthy imho.


(*no2 celtics fan in Croatia obviously)

[GreenFaith1819]

I think loyalty does count, and I'm glad that Red didn't trade Bird or McHale back then.

San Antonio won't trade Tim Duncan, and didn't trade David Robinson, either. I never saw such a rumor about that organization.

[Dante]

We spent from 1987 thru 2008 in total irrelevancy, but we were "family" and that is all that matters. I just cant figure out to which Celtic players I was family related to during those 21 years. 

[ThaPreacher]

He thinks Red should have traded Bird and Mchale toward the end of their careers.  I'd argue that by not trading your legends you establish your franchise as a family with loyalty.  If the Celtics traded away Russell and Havlicek and Heinsohn I don't think they have the same reputation today.  These guys come back year after year and add to the mystique of the C's.  We are built on our legends.  And I think Red new that.
   

Red didn't expect that Bird would have the physical problems he did at the end.  Red valued loyalty, however he had not problem making trades of Celtics legends or not!
Cowens, Russell, White, Maxwell Ainge, all finished their careers in other teams uniforms.  Red simply believed that had Bird been healthy he could have played until he was 40.  McHale simply couldn't carry the Celtics at the end.
Bias and Lewis had more to do with the Celtics demise, that and the Spurs lottery pick.
I don't know if Danny should make a trade, I think he will wait to see how things play out.

But Red would give Danny the go ahead and then light a cigar.

Your point remains unchanged but detail wise:

Russell played his whole career with the Celtics.  Cowena retired as a Celtic then made a brief comeback with the Bucks a few years later.

I stand corrected on Russell.  I knew he retired '69 on his own terms as player coach.  However, I thought he had a few games later as a player coach for Seattle.  I knew he coached there from '73-77.  Cowens did play for the Bucks and Auerbach gave the nod.  i think Red valued loyalty and family.  However, he also valued making deals that improved the team. Trading a legend is difficult because the people you get in return don't always measure up so its as much a gamble as retaining an older player.

Success changes perspective.  Many people on this forum were wearing paper bags and calling for Doc's job prior to the Garnett trade.  And when Danny picked up Ray Allen via trade, people were scratching their heads and saying "@#!!@.