Danny Ainge Takes Full Responsibility for Celtics' Loss

[eugen]

Danny Ainge Takes Full Responsibility for Celtics' Loss


After the Celtics failed to comeback and win Game 6 last night, Danny Ainge owned up for his teams failures.

“I take full responsibility for our team not being as good as New York. That is not Doc’s fault, and that is not KG’s fault or Paul Pierce’s fault or Rajon Rondo’s fault."
 
Before the regular season began, Danny Ainge appeared to have pulled off a series of excellent deals. He started by stealing Jared Sullinger with the 21st pick in the draft, and days later, he made his biggest move of the summer in re-signing Kevin Garnett.
 
After that, he acquired big bodies in Darko Milicic, Jason Collins, and Fab Melo (we all hoped one of these guys could find a rotation spot), then signed NBA champion Jason Terry for depth and late-game production.
 
When it looked like he was done dealing, Ainge snagged Courtney Lee in a sign-and-trade then beat the Lakers to land Leandro Barbosa, giving us a potentially dominant backcourt.
 
While KG had another elite season as an All-Star starter, the rest of these off-season acquisitions were disappointing. Jason Terry went through huge shooting slumps before finally dialing it up for the last 3 games against New York. Despite solid defense and athleticism, Courtney Lee never found his niche.
 
After pre-draft concerns about his health, Jared Sullinger had back surgery to end what could have been an exceptional Rookie year, and the rest of Boston's new bigs were horrible. Darko Milicic played FIVE MINUTES the whole season, Jason Collins played solid D but was horrid on offense and the boards, and Fab Melo is still far away from being more than a bench warmer.
 
Despite tons of grit and balls, The Celtics were simply overmatched by The Knicks depth and explosiveness.
 
I still think Danny Ainge had a solid offseason. Hindsight is 20/20, but I certainly would not have traded our opening day roster for a blown-up rebuilding team. The season ended when Rajon Rondo tore his ACL, and at that point no move was going to get us to The Finals.
 
That being said, Ainge once again failed to bring in a tall, rebounding center or a backup point guard. We all worried about those two areas during the offseason, and in the end, they turned out to be our achilles heel.
 
What do you think of Ainge's offseason? What about his overall tenure as Boston's GM? Sound off in the comments below.
 

[Meadowlark_Scal]

Doc/danny should have tried leading instead of following woodson.....going small..because that was all NY could do.....shav, kg, Wilcox...then twill, green....an attacking inside outside lineuip.....camby was hurt, amare was out...all they had was chandler and melo.....could have treid it once in 6 games....always small ball....ny wanted that...!!! Doc doesn't care for bigs at all....

[Yoki_IsTheName]

I think Danny did a pretty good job.

Half of it is Doc's fault for not playing the bigs, especially Darko who could atleast be a physical presence.

[Meadowlark_Scal]

shav was there as the rebounding shot blocker..and dooling was available....so was west..we could have had either...both knew the Celtics, and the celts knew them....west was the best of them all....and he kept cool while here....was very good on the floor...!!!

[Meadowlark_Scal]

Right Shav and DARKO..man..doc ruined that BIG TIME.....doc alwayts ruins the bigs.....always..!!!!

[eugen]

I think Danny did a pretty good job.

I disagre. In last 3 years the team is getting worse. Last season, regular season 41-40 and eliminated from 1 round of playoofs. I dont know where is the good job...I don like to takl about miserable financial managment, PP 15 mill/year at age of 35, minsteriosu tratment of Ray( letting him to go for free!!!), and getting junky players to fill up the roster(players not playing at all during playoff)
The ownership has to fire him, and get another GM

[bobbyv]

I also think Danny did a good job. Other than not getting competent big to replace KG, he did what he could. Most of us were praising him in the offseason.

[BballTim]

That being said, Ainge once again failed to bring in a tall, rebounding center or a backup point guard. We all worried about those two areas during the offseason, and in the end, they turned out to be our achilles heel.

  I don't recall anyone spending last summer worrying about our backup point guard situation, in fact pg was probably at the very bottom of the list of people's concerns.

[timobusa]

shav was there as the rebounding shot blocker..and dooling was available....so was west..we could have had either...both knew the Celtics, and the celts knew them....west was the best of them all....and he kept cool while here....was very good on the floor...!!!

English please?
Lol

[eugen]

Right Shav and DARKO..man..doc ruined that BIG TIME.....doc alwayts ruins the bigs.....always..!!!!

Hold on please...If Doc does not like to bring bigs like Darko&Co, why DA do something that the coach does not like???

[D.o.s.]

These posts hurt my brain.

[SHAQATTACK]

Right Shav and DARKO..man..doc ruined that BIG TIME.....doc alwayts ruins the bigs.....always..!!!!

 feeling yo pain bro..... 

[SparzWizard]

We had way too many combo guards.

We should have one starting PG and one backup PG
We should have one starting SG and one backup SG

We should have ONLY one combo guard to back up both position in case of an injury.

We should have a whole bunch of backup PF/Centers that can rebound the ball and play some solid defense AT LEAST (and I'm not talking about scoring).

This was perhaps the worst elimination out the five seasons we were eliminated. I loved the 2011-2012 season. Made it to East Finals and get pushed to the edge by Miami Heat in Game 7. That was basically their NBA Finals lol.

[nickagneta]

Ainge constructed a poor team. His talent was heavy in the SG and SF positions and he created a team woefully short on size and rebounding. Also, he expected too much from players that would be returning from some serious off season surgeries(Green, Bradley, Wilcox).

Darko leaving, Bradley not back until January, Green not playing well until January, Wilcox never got back 100%, Lee seems never to have fit in properly, Terry had a poor year. Any way you look at it in hindsight, it was a poor off season.

After Rondo, Sully and Barbosa went down, there was zero chance of any playoff success. And poor Doc gets so much grief around here from small ball but the roster after those injuries consisted of exactly ONE PLAYER over the size of 6'9" that was a rotation worthy player, that being Garnett. Bass is 6'8", an undersized PF. Green is 6'9" but plays like a 6'5" SF. What else could Doc do but play a small lineup. That's not on Doc its on Danny.

And please, I don't want to hear about Shav and White and Wilcox. They all suck. White will not be in the league next year. Shav might get the 15th spot somewhere and bounce between the NBDL and the NBA. I think Wilcox might catch on with a team next year but there's no guarantee there either. He may have played his last NBA game.

With 100% health and Darko never leaving and contributing, this team may have had a chance in the ECFs. But 100% health can't be expected and wasn't last year by Danny because he obviously had three players(20% of the roster) that was going to be fairly hampered for at least half the year. Combine that with 20% more of your roster and 33% of your rotation being over 34 and you see why he now says it was his fault.

[D.o.s.]

Ainge constructed a poor team. His talent was heavy in the SG and SF positions and he created a team woefully short on size and rebounding. Also, he expected too much from players that would be returning from some serious off season surgeries(Green, Bradley, Wilcox).

Darko leaving, Bradley not back until January, Green not playing well until January, Wilcox never got back 100%, Lee seems never to have fit in properly, Terry had a poor year. Any way you look at it in hindsight, it was a poor off season.

After Rondo, Sully and Barbosa went down, there was zero chance of any playoff success. And poor Doc gets so much grief around here from small ball but the roster after those injuries consisted of exactly ONE PLAYER over the size of 6'9" that was a rotation worthy player, that being Garnett. Bass is 6'8", an undersized PF. Green is 6'9" but plays like a 6'5" SF. What else could Doc do but play a small lineup. That's not on Doc its on Danny.

And please, I don't want to hear about Shav and White and Wilcox. They all suck. White will not be in the league next year. Shav might get the 15th spot somewhere and bounce between the NBDL and the NBA. I think Wilcox might catch on with a team next year but there's no guarantee there either. He may have played his last NBA game.

With 100% health and Darko never leaving and contributing, this team may have had a chance in the ECFs. But 100% health can't be expected and wasn't last year by Danny because he obviously had three players(20% of the roster) that was going to be fairly hampered for at least half the year. Combine that with 20% more of your roster and 33% of your rotation being over 34 and you see why he now says it was his fault.

Agreed. I like Wilcox (and he plays well with Rondo), but the dude is the wrong side of 30 and is a backup PF at best.