I would love to see this quote where Ainge says he did the trade because he thought Shaq would be healthy. I keep asking and people keep ignoring.
He said that if both Shaq AND JO were down we'd be in trouble. But he never said he did the trade because Shaq especifically would be healthy.
In any case, Perkins wouldn't be out there against the Heat's small line up anyways.
You are welcome. Pretty funny that he also mentioned Krstic and Troy Murphy as making the team stronger. Looking back at Danny's quotes is a laugh riot. I will search for a few more:
“I think we’re stronger. I think our offense and our defense will be every bit as good, if not better as long as we get some bodies healthy….
“First of all, we were leading the conference because of Shaq. We had a better record with Shaq than we did with Perk. Our offense was better and our defense was at least the same. I don’t think Perk is Perk yet. I hope that he becomes that for Oklahoma City’s sake. We thought it was going to take some time for Perk. He wasn’t the shot-blocker or the rebounder that he’s been in the past. We think that by adding Jeff Green (Green had 21 against the Warriors last Friday), Nenad Krstic, and Troy Murphy we think we’re a better team than we were. Shaq was starting for us when we had the great run this year. Baby (Glen Davis) was finishing for us. So we basically lost middle minutes.
Ainge has more trust in Shaq to be able to perform consistently in the playoffs — especially on the defensive end — than I do. He thinks more of Jeff Green than I do.
First and foremost, Perk has hardly given OKC anything other than intangibles, a few tip-ins (one extremely controversial), and a few nice screens. Other than the nice screens, I don't think the Celtics are missing those things all that much. Nazr Mohammed has been far more productive for the Thunder, as has Nick Collison.
I think Ainge had good reason to think that the team would be very well off with an engaged and integrated Jeff Green (we're starting to see the potential of that in this series, as Green has played reasonably well the last few games) and a healthy Shaq.
It's fair to criticize Ainge for expecting Shaq and JO to be healthy given their age and injury history, but I think it's reasonable for him to believe that if our roster were healthy and integrated they would perform very well on both ends of the court.
Also, Ainge obviously had better inside information than us with regard to Shaq's injury, so I'll defer to him on this one. I doubt he could have foreseen Shaq injuring himself again literally 5 minutes after returning from the Achilles injury. If that hadn't happened, Ainge probably would have been proven right about Shaq.
So Danny had better inside information than us and he was still wrong. And, frommost things I have read, Shaq's second injury was directly related to the first. Finally, does Danny just get a free pass for this season? He doesn't from me.
He had better inside information and he knows far more about basketball than us (plus he has advisors who are far more knowledgeable than us). I defer to him on this one. Just because he was wrong doesn't mean the gamble he took was necessarily a bad one. Even a reasonable gamble can work out poorly. Doesn't mean it was a poor decision at the time that it was made.
No, Danny doesn't get a free pass for this season. I think his mid-season moves were understandable, and his reasons for making the trade make sense, especially considering where we were at the time.
However, I think his off-season moves deserve a fair amount of scrutiny, considering he basically leveraged this team's success so heavily upon players with very significant injury histories (Delonte, Shaq, Jermaine, Marquis). Considering that the Celtics are an old and thus injury prone team, building a bench out of older and injury prone players doesn't seem like the best idea. There's an argument to be made that Danny was doing his best with what was available, though.
Not re-signing TA considering his great play in the playoffs last year and Marquis' injury history has to be seen as a pretty serious mistake, too, especially considering our lack of wing help is one of the major factors that precipitated the Perkins trade which everybody hates so much.
Overall, though, I like the team that Danny built this season. I think if everything had worked out the way Danny planned, this team would have been more than capable of winning a championship regardless of their competition.
You could definitely say that a lot more went wrong than went right with Danny's plan, though. Still, a lot of went wrong wasn't necessarily foreseeable, I don't think.
Could Danny have really thought JO, Delonte, and Shaq would all miss so much time, and that Marquis's season would end in February? No, I don't think so.
Could Danny have foreseen that Shaq wouldn't be able to play at all in the playoffs? Maybe, I don't know. Could he have expected that Jeff Green would have so much trouble and take so long to really find his place on the Celtics? Maybe . . . probably not.
