Danny Ainge's job performance since the 2007 off season

[nickagneta]

Up to and including the 2007 Boston Celtics off season, Danny Ainge in my opinion had done one hell of a job as president of the Boston Celtics. His drafts were very good to great and he got excellent value for where he was drafting. His trades usually brought in another useful asset, which when looked at in their totality of build up, culminated in the acquisition of Ray Allen, Kevin Garnett and Glen Davis. Overall his performance up until that time was excellent, IMHO.

But can the same really be said about his performance since then? Let's first take a look at his list of transactions since that off season which also included the signings of James Posey and Eddie House:

Feb 27 2008 - Signed PJ Brown
Mar 03 2008 - Signed Sam Cassell
Jun 27 2008 - Drafted JR Giddens
Jun 27 2008 - Acquired Bill Walker for cash
Jul 16 2008 - Signed Patrick O'Bryant
Jul 21 2008 - Re-signed Eddie House and Tony Allen
Sep 30 2008 - Re-signed Sam Cassell
Feb 17 2009 - Traded Sam Cassell to Kings for 2015 2nd round draft pick
Feb 17 2009 - Traded Patrick O'Bryant to Raptors for 2014 2nd round draft pick
Feb 25 2009 - Signed Mikki Moore
Feb 27 2009 - Signed Stephon Marbury
Jun 25 2009 - Drafted Lester Hudson
Jul 09 2009 - Signed Rasheed Wallace
Aug 03 2009 - Signed Shelden Williams
Aug 11 2009 - Re-signed Glen Davis
Sep 01 2009 - Signed Marquis Daniels
Nov 03 2009 - Extended contract of Rajon Rondo
Jan 06 2010 - Waived Lester Hudson
Feb 18 2010 - Traded Eddie House, JR Giddens and Bill Walker for Nate Robinson and Marcus Landry
Mar 06 2010 - Signed Michael Finley
Apr 09 2010 - Waived Marcus Landry
Apr 14 2010 - Signed Tony Gafney and Oliver Lafayette

Looked at as an entirety of work its not very awe inspiring, is it? I would even venture to say that it might be a pretty bad overall body of work.

Yes he built a great team up to about the time of the Brown and Cassell signings but from that point on, can it really be said that Danny Ainge has done much in his position as President of the Boston Celtics to acquire players that has made the job of the players and the coaches easier to do their jobs in winning basketball games?

Granted there have been injuries but since winning it all in June 2008 this team has relied heavily on their starting players to win games as their bench has been seriously lacking and Danny Ainge has been unable to add anyone of consequence.

Since making the KG trade Danny Ainge has added 16 players to this team. 9 of those players are no longer with the team and 1 has never played in a single game for this team and may not ever play for them and another played in 1 game as a late season sign on. Also Leon Powe, James Posey, Eddie House, Scot Pollard and Gabe Pruitt have also been sent packing off that team he assembled in the 2007 off season.

I gotta say as much grief as the players and coaches get on this team for their performance and/or lack there of, Danny Ainge I think needs to start being looked for his overall job performance as well. He has a big, no, I stand corrected, amazingly huge off season coming up that could determine this team's long term direction in transitioning away from the Big Three era and into the next era of Celtic basketball. I hope Danny can fare better with this off season than he has in handling the player personnel on this team since that 2007 off season because if he doesn't, we could be seeing another long championship drought once again.

[Fafnir]

You list a lot of transactions, most of those guys are veteran's minimum or buyout guys. I look at how he's used the MLE.

2007-2008 offseason:
Passes on Posey and resigns Eddie House with it. Resigns Tony Allen to be our primary backup wing

Good move overall as overpaying Posey would make our current issues worse. Furthermore he wouldn't have made a difference with KG's injury and the Big 3's decline. I wish he'd gotten a better wing than Tony, but he had limited options.

I'd say a C, he avoided the bad move but didn't make a good one.

2008-2009 offseason:
Signs Rasheed Wallace to full MLE, Marquis Daniels to LLE

Rasheed was a bad move in hindsight, but at the time he was the best big man out there. Daniels was a great value move for most of the season. Danny didn't get him for more years like he wanted, but he was never going to pay him huge money. Looks like that worked out for the better anyways.

I'd give it a B, it didn't work out but it was the right move. I mean the other option was McDyess, and he's been no better.

Rearanging the 6th and 7th best players on your team isn't where a GM makes his mark. Its in the top 5, what he does this offseason is the true test.

[Cman]

TP for a nice job of putting together a thought provoking piece, as always.

IMHO the big issue here is that since bringing KG and Ray Allen aboard, Danny has been working under two big constraints:

(1) Cs have been in luxury tax land since then, and owners were unwilling to spend extra money in offseason 2008.
(2) Cs have had no real tradeable assets since then (draft picks and young players were traded away for KG and RA).

So I feel like any analysis needs to take that into account.  

[thirstyboots18]

Looks to me like Danny has done a brilliant job of not falling for the "trade before it it too late" hoopla.  When you have a first team of KG, PP, RA, RR and KP I really don't see any immediate need for panic reactions.  The retention of Tony and Glen are good moves (I would have made the wrong choice on those) and of course, you are going to let some go that you shouldn't and not pick up some that you should, but for "team" thinking, I think Danny deserves very high marks.  It is very hard to build a team using draft picks and young players...KP and RR are exceptional...but Danny has done well in that regard overall, in using young talent for trade purposes.  I am keeping my opinions on Sheed open.  I hope he has enough fire to bring it to the playoffs.  I saw he played some good D in the last Miami game...arms up to make the shots nigh on to impossible, but they were falling anyway.  Nothing you can do about a superhot superstar,    .

[Fafnir]

(2) Cs have had no real tradeable assets since then (draft picks and young players were traded away for KG and RA).  

He did, Rondo and Perkins are very tradeable. But I don't think he ever managed a deal where he'd get value for them.

[Roy Hobbs]

I hated the 2008 off-season, and thought that it made very little sense.  I thought the "dumpster diving" was a terrible strategy, and Danny got burned for it.

This off-season, I supported Danny's decisions.  Each move he made this year made sense, and is defensible.  Unfortunately, these moves didn't haven't necessarily worked out, but I know that both myself and the vast majority of Celtics fans were very happy with Danny.  I guess if you only go by a "results matter" test, then Danny has done pretty poorly this year, but I can't fault him for any of his individual moves.

[Fafnir]

I hated the 2008 off-season, and thought that it made very little sense.  I thought the "dumpster diving" was a terrible strategy, and Danny got burned for it.

Did he? I agree not getting a suitable backup wing was a bad move.

But if we go by only results matter, avoiding spending money worked out because with KG's knee injury we weren't winning anyways.

I think either way of evaluating Danny you have to give him a C+ or a B-. One year he did well, the other he didn't depending on which criteria you use.

[nickagneta]

You list a lot of transactions, most of those guys are veteran's minimum or buyout guys. I look at how he's used the MLE.

2007-2008 offseason:
Passes on Posey and resigns Eddie House with it. Resigns Tony Allen to be our primary backup wing

Good move overall as overpaying Posey would make our current issues worse. Furthermore he wouldn't have made a difference with KG's injury and the Big 3's decline. I wish he'd gotten a better wing than Tony, but he had limited options.

I'd say a C, he avoided the bad move but didn't make a good one.

2008-2009 offseason:
Signs Rasheed Wallace to full MLE, Marquis Daniels to LLE

Rasheed was a bad move in hindsight, but at the time he was the best big man out there. Daniels was a great value move for most of the season. Danny didn't get him for more years like he wanted, but he was never going to pay him huge money. Looks like that worked out for the better anyways.

Rearanging the 6th and 7th best players on your team isn't where a GM makes his mark. Its in the top 5, what he does this offseason is the true test.

I think you are completely wrong.

First, James Posey wasn't the only other move or possibility of use for that 2008 MLE other than re-signing Eddie House and Patrick O'Bryant(Tony Allen was signed using Bird rights). There were a great other possible players that could have been signed that might have made this team better long term.

Second, the LLE could have been used in 2008 rather than 2007 and gotten a player for a two year period that would have been better than the injury plagued and currently sitting at the end of the bench contributing noting, Marquis Daniels. I don't look at his contributions this year as much of a positive. I think both he and Wallace have been horribly underwhelming, regardless of what they have been paid.

Third, Wallace is a bust. He was supposed to be the difference making sixth man that gave this team off the bench everything it has never had since the Big Three were assembled and hasn't. Could he sometime in the future? We will see. Has he up until now? No he hasn't.

Fourth, I agree with the assessment that where GM's make their mark is in assembling a starting five. But where they win championships is in complimenting those top 5 players with the right players 6-10 that allow the coaches to maximize the efficacy of players 1-5. Danny has failed there since the Cassell and Brown signings, in my opinion.

[moiso]

Posey was a great signing.  Patrick OBryant instead of Chris Andersen two years ago was ridiculous.  I loved the Daniels signing and I'm shocked at how bad it worked out- I really thought he would be a big contributor.
And I don't buy that Rasheed was best big man available.  He wasn't.  He was washed up before we signed him.  Plus the 3 years is horrific.

[Roy Hobbs]

I hated the 2008 off-season, and thought that it made very little sense.  I thought the "dumpster diving" was a terrible strategy, and Danny got burned for it.

Did he? I agree not getting a suitable backup wing was a bad move.

But if we go by only results matter, avoiding spending money worked out because with KG's knee injury we weren't winning anyways.

Eh...  If nothing else, signing some legit players could have gotten the Celts past Orlando (earning the owners a ton more in playoff revenue), or could have set the team up better for this past off-season.

The 2008 off-season was an abject disaster.  Just because KG got injured doesn't absolve Danny for basically wasting an entire off-season on garbage players.

[nickagneta]

 Nothing you can do about a superhot superstar,    .

TB this is not a thread that is reacting to one game's results. I have been thinking about this for a while. Fortunately for me, I've been on vacation and haven't had the time to write about this to the extent I wanted to since the regular season ended. Doc, and the players have gotten a lot of grief regarding their performance for this regular season. I just think Danny should bare his brunt of the blame as well.

[Fafnir]

First, James Posey wasn't the only other move or possibility of use for that 2008 MLE other than re-signing Eddie House and Patrick O'Bryant(Tony Allen was signed using Bird rights). There were a great other possible players that could have been signed that might have made this team better long term.

Who else was out there?

Remember by the time Posey got the fourth year almost all of the other options had signed.

[Fafnir]

I hated the 2008 off-season, and thought that it made very little sense.  I thought the "dumpster diving" was a terrible strategy, and Danny got burned for it.

Did he? I agree not getting a suitable backup wing was a bad move.

But if we go by only results matter, avoiding spending money worked out because with KG's knee injury we weren't winning anyways.

Eh...  If nothing else, signing some legit players could have gotten the Celts past Orlando (earning the owners a ton more in playoff revenue), or could have set the team up better for this past off-season.

The 2008 off-season was an abject disaster.  Just because KG got injured doesn't absolve Danny for basically wasting an entire off-season on garbage players.

I don't think one more player would have gotten us past Orlando honestly. It was fluky that we got them to 7 games as it was...

[Fafnir]

Second, the LLE could have been used in 2008 rather than 2007 and gotten a player for a two year period that would have been better than the injury plagued and currently sitting at the end of the bench contributing noting, Marquis Daniels. I don't look at his contributions this year as much of a positive. I think both he and Wallace have been horribly underwhelming, regardless of what they have been paid.

Third, Wallace is a bust. He was supposed to be the difference making sixth man that gave this team off the bench everything it has never had since the Big Three were assembled and hasn't. Could he sometime in the future? We will see. Has he up until now? No he hasn't.

Who were the better options this last offseason for a big man and wing?

Danny got what most of us thought were the best two options out there. They didn't pan out, but that happens. Daniels played well until his injury, he hasn't been a complete bust in my mind.

[nickagneta]

In Danny's defense, I liked the Daniels and Wallace signings at the time, as did most basketball pundits and many on this board. They appeared like good signings at the time. But there were signs there that these types of seasons could have happened and were ignored.

As has been hinted at in articles, Daniels and Wallace might not fit in chemistry wise with this team and that Danny CAN and should be held accountable for. They were good fits personality wise or perhaps work ethic wise. Due diligence must be done to assure these traits blend in as well as the skills they bring.

I don't blame Danny's effort in signing these guys. Their performances are on them as players. I don't blame Danny because these guys lacked the intestinal fortitude
to put forth exceptional efforts every game like true professionals. What I do blame Danny for is not seeing that they fit into the chemistry of this team properly.