Fire Ainge

[nickagneta]

Just want to point out that in order for the Celtics to have ended up in the top three picks by tanking better and losing 7 more games then the Celtics would have had to have lost their last 30 straight games and not have won any game after February 9th.

Think about that.

The Celtics would needed to have obliterated the record for the longest losing streak in league history from the beginning of February on in order to have tanked for a pick that is not really worth all that much more than the pick they currently have.

The thought that Danny screwed upa tank job is absurd given how much the Celtics would have had to lose in order to end up in the top three.

Of course the only other way to have gotten into the top three was to win 8 more games and have gotten the #1 pick, but that doesn't really jive with the whole "You must tank to get the best draft position" philosophy I guess, so we will just forget about all that.

[fitzhickey]

Firing DA is obligatory now...Destroyed all 2007 team, sending all start out of the team, including the captain PP (tell me me any GM can trade a great captain?)..."Waiting" for lucky number from NBA draft lottery...Can this be a strategy for tanking and rebuilding??? Please...how can defend him...

Wait is this serious??

[Tr1boy]

What bugs me about Ainge is that he has said he is disappointed he didnt get a top 3 pick.  When he has also said he doesnt see a game changer. And also he said repeatedly this team is not tanking. Why not make up your mind??

If you wanted a top 3, you could of done it(had a better chance)by sitting out rondo for the last month, trading green, hump, ab or a combination. Like the 76ers did, at least they were pure about it.

Danny is really a greedy guy for the good and the bad

[Monkhouse]

What bugs me about Ainge is that he has said he is disappointed he didnt get a top 3 pick.  When he has also said he doesnt see a game changer. And also he said repeatedly this team is not tanking. Why not make up your mind??

If you wanted a top 3, you could of done it(had a better chance)by sitting out rondo for the last month, trading green, hump, ab or a combination. Like the 76ers did, at least they were pure about it.

Danny is really a greedy guy for the good and the bad

.....

All I gotta say to that statement.

Since when has Danny ever said something honestly? This guy is the master of smoke screening...

[Donoghus]

What bugs me about Ainge is that he has said he is disappointed he didnt get a top 3 pick.  When he has also said he doesnt see a game changer. And also he said repeatedly this team is not tanking. Why not make up your mind??

If you wanted a top 3, you could of done it(had a better chance)by sitting out rondo for the last month, trading green, hump, ab or a combination. Like the 76ers did, at least they were pure about it.

Danny is really a greedy guy for the good and the bad

.....

All I gotta say to that statement.

Since when has Danny ever said something honestly? This guy is the master of smoke screening...

Ha...beat me to it.  Gonna say something along the same lines.

I think he was totally b.s.ing when he talked about no game changers in this draft. 

Seeing the way Danny has operated the past decade or so (and played the media), taking anything at face time is a risky proposition.

[Roy H.]

If you wanted a top 3, you could of done it(had a better chance)by sitting out rondo for the last month, trading green, hump, ab or a combination. Like the 76ers did, at least they were pure about it.

As nickagneta noted above, we would have needed to lose every game from February 9 until the end of the season (a historic 31 game losing streak) to surpass Philly and end up with the 3rd pick.

Danny took a playoff team to a tie for the 4th worst record in the league, while picking up four #1 picks, the right to swap picks in another year, a large trade exception, and a large non-guaranteed contract.

For those who are cheering for rebuilding, that's a pretty impressive effort.

[BballTim]

all tanking does is buy you an opportunity, it doesn't guarantee you anything. if this makes anyone uncomfortable maybe the NBA isn't for you.

but threads like this make me hate the fans that don't appreciate this team, their history and their legacy.

because if they did appreciate those things they would realize what a FREAKING BLESSING DANNY AINGE IS!

so we didn't get a top 3 pick in a draft that doesn't have 1 player in it that is going to turn this team around. so what?!? go root for whatever teams are in the finals.

I'm equally not crazy about the reaction to the reactionary posts.

The reality is that very few fans want Ainge to be fired, but there are many that saw what just happened coming all season and were arguing for Danny to better ensure a top pick. Yes, there are no guarantees in the lottery, and I would agree that there don't appear to be any prospects in the draft that will immediately turn a franchise around. Still, there is a definite drop off in VALUE of the picks as you move from top 3 down to where we are at 6.

There are many reports now that using our pick to acquire a current top player (eg Love) is going to be more difficult and will have to use more assets (if possible at all) took a big hit with us landing at 6.

This was a terrible season for the Cs and if we were going to suffer through this as part of a rebuild, Danny should have done more to ensure that the pick we ended up getting out of it was premium. That doesn't mean he should be fired or anything remotely extreme like that, but it is a legitimate criticism that many were levying right along...

Should have won the same amount of games the Cavs had to "ensure" a top pick

CLE won the lottery. We all know that there is chance involved, but what MIL, PHI, and ORL did was ensure a top pick.

If the drop off in value was after #1, then maybe it wouldn't have made sense, but with at least 4 highly coveted picks and given how bad we were, it made sense to really go after one of those picks.

I'm really not sure why Danny didn't tank harder. I guess he was trying to thread the needle and keep the rights and chips to players like Bass, Bayless, and Humph while still getting a top pick. It didn't work, however, and left him in an incredibly hard rebuild.

The biggest worry now has to be losing Rondo to FA...

  Because tanking isn't the single-minded objective of the franchise, even though people think it is. If that was the case we wouldn't have had to lose 7 more games to insure a top pick, we'd have had to lose 20 more.

[Tr1boy]

What bugs me about Ainge is that he has said he is disappointed he didnt get a top 3 pick.  When he has also said he doesnt see a game changer. And also he said repeatedly this team is not tanking. Why not make up your mind??

If you wanted a top 3, you could of done it(had a better chance)by sitting out rondo for the last month, trading green, hump, ab or a combination. Like the 76ers did, at least they were pure about it.

Danny is really a greedy guy for the good and the bad

.....

All I gotta say to that statement.

Since when has Danny ever said something honestly? This guy is the master of smoke screening...

haha i guess. He seems kind of crazy if you connect all the things he has said about the draft and with what happened last night.   You don't know what he really wants

[knuckleballer]

If you wanted a top 3, you could of done it(had a better chance)by sitting out rondo for the last month, trading green, hump, ab or a combination. Like the 76ers did, at least they were pure about it.

As nickagneta noted above, we would have needed to lose every game from February 9 until the end of the season (a historic 31 game losing streak) to surpass Philly and end up with the 3rd pick.

Danny took a playoff team to a tie for the 4th worst record in the league, while picking up four #1 picks, the right to swap picks in another year, a large trade exception, and a large non-guaranteed contract.

For those who are cheering for rebuilding, that's a pretty impressive effort.

The Celtics were even sitting Rondo and Sullinger during a couple of those late season wins.  There wasn't much more they could have done outside of scoring on their own hoop.

[Tr1boy]

If you wanted a top 3, you could of done it(had a better chance)by sitting out rondo for the last month, trading green, hump, ab or a combination. Like the 76ers did, at least they were pure about it.

As nickagneta noted above, we would have needed to lose every game from February 9 until the end of the season (a historic 31 game losing streak) to surpass Philly and end up with the 3rd pick.

Danny took a playoff team to a tie for the 4th worst record in the league, while picking up four #1 picks, the right to swap picks in another year, a large trade exception, and a large non-guaranteed contract.

For those who are cheering for rebuilding, that's a pretty impressive effort.

The Celtics were even sitting Rondo and Sullinger during a couple of those late season wins.  There wasn't much more they could have done outside of scoring on their own hoop.

I guess blame Brad Stevens and that "little PRessey" then

[knuckleballer]

If you wanted a top 3, you could of done it(had a better chance)by sitting out rondo for the last month, trading green, hump, ab or a combination. Like the 76ers did, at least they were pure about it.

As nickagneta noted above, we would have needed to lose every game from February 9 until the end of the season (a historic 31 game losing streak) to surpass Philly and end up with the 3rd pick.

Danny took a playoff team to a tie for the 4th worst record in the league, while picking up four #1 picks, the right to swap picks in another year, a large trade exception, and a large non-guaranteed contract.

For those who are cheering for rebuilding, that's a pretty impressive effort.

The Celtics were even sitting Rondo and Sullinger during a couple of those late season wins.  There wasn't much more they could have done outside of scoring on their own hoop.

I guess blame Brad Stevens and that "little PRessey" then

I have to admit I was annoyed with Pressey when he led them to those victories.  The third seed was in sight. 

What really hurt the tank job was Crawford inexplicably playing like an all star point guard during the first couple months of the season.  I never saw that coming and I don't think Ainge did either.

[tstorey_97]

In a few weeks time, Danny Ainge turned Al Jefferson, Ryan Gomes and Jeff Green into the 17th championship for one of the greatest franchises in sports history.

Oh, Heck, you're right...let's get Isiah, he knows how to run a ball club.

[BballTim]

If you wanted a top 3, you could of done it(had a better chance)by sitting out rondo for the last month, trading green, hump, ab or a combination. Like the 76ers did, at least they were pure about it.

As nickagneta noted above, we would have needed to lose every game from February 9 until the end of the season (a historic 31 game losing streak) to surpass Philly and end up with the 3rd pick.

Danny took a playoff team to a tie for the 4th worst record in the league, while picking up four #1 picks, the right to swap picks in another year, a large trade exception, and a large non-guaranteed contract.

For those who are cheering for rebuilding, that's a pretty impressive effort.

The Celtics were even sitting Rondo and Sullinger during a couple of those late season wins.  There wasn't much more they could have done outside of scoring on their own hoop.

I guess blame Brad Stevens and that "little PRessey" then

I have to admit I was annoyed with Pressey when he led them to those victories.  The third seed was in sight. 

What really hurt the tank job was Crawford inexplicably playing like an all star point guard during the first couple months of the season.  I never saw that coming and I don't think Ainge did either.

  He's a pretty streaky player, isn't he?

[Sketch5]

I can't blame DA one bit not to go all into tanking. While it ended up working out, in '07 showed going all in doesn't always pan out. Cleveland showed crap luck can get you in.

Look at 6er's and Bucks roster, even with one of the top three players they still could still stink for the next four years. DA would have sold his team for pennies on the dollar for the C's to be as bad as them, and STILL get beat out by a semi talented middle of the road team. Have not players to show for it, and loose Rondo with in the year because he's not going to play with a bunch of young guys in his prime.

Yeah getting the top three pick could land us Love, but what kind of team would he be coming to? And why would he want to stay on that team. You see the Bucks or 6er's trading for Love and keeping him. The Cavs now have the best shot, but they still have good players and didn't tank to get the #1. Love was also a surprise this season saying he was leaving and people went nuts. There is still options that DA can do. We still have 3 unprotected, 4 if you included the swap, and any of them can be good. Minni might look long and hard at what they could collect and pull off the same move the C's could pull of in a couple years, and then they are right back in it.

I can't believe that people are still ticked that DA traded PP and KG. Have you seen them? PP was really inconstant, and had to move to the PF spot to be effective, and KG barely saw the floor at the end of the season. And DA got 4 picks out of that, 2 or 3 of them potentially being in the lotto. It's not DA's job to be sentimental, he also brought them back for one more run when others said he should get as much for them as possible. Which is funny, because I don't think he would have gotten a better deal.

Also this was a complete knee jerk post by the OP. How about we wait a month for the draft, than a few more weeks and into the summer, before we light up the torches and sharpen the pitchforks.

Oh, and if nothing does happen, we trade some vets, take the 6th and 17th pick, play them a ton of minutes with Sully and KO, and we see where we land, and make a move next years. I'm ready for it, but I was one of those realists that new last draft night we could be getting into a 3 year revamp. And you know what, that's still a pretty fast turnaround.   

[Mazingerz]

Firing DA is obligatory now...Destroyed all 2007 team, sending all start out of the team, including the captain PP (tell me me any GM can trade a great captain?)..."Waiting" for lucky number from NBA draft lottery...Can this be a strategy for tanking and rebuilding??? Please...how can defend him...

Hi Eugen