best free agents Danny has signed before

[Future Celtics Owner]

I remember Back when Karl Malone signed with the Lakers to form a "super team" the same year that Kobe ended up raping that girl, Karl said he would have signed with the Celtics because Danny Ainge. He went on to say that Ainge did a great job talking with him and recruiting him.

[knuckleballer]

Worst - Jason Terry, by far.  What a lemon he was.  Of course, there's also the White Mamba to consider here and Ryan Hollins.  Ugh.

Best - Definitely Posey (way to let him go, Danny!), followed closely by Eddie House, imo.  PJ Brown was huge in game 7 vs the cavs, as we all fondly remember.  Even Sam Cassell made meaningful contributions that year.  I also thought that Marquis Daniels was an excellent pickup.  It's just too bad that he was injured, but that's the chance that you take with Marquis.  He sure looked like a world-beater in the first month or so of the 09-10 season.

I was really excited when they signed Terry.  I've always enjoyed him as a player.  It stunk to keep waiting and waiting for him to show up, and he never really came close.

If Terry would have been signed in addition to Ray Allen, it would have been a good move, imo.  As his replacement, though?  Absolutely not.  I think we all saw the mistake Ainge made in the first game that year, when Ray had 19 points and Terry was horrible.  That contest also showed that we had overpaid to get him, especially when Leandro Barbosa, who was signed for a fraction of the cost, had come off the bench to provide the type of production that Terry was acquired for, ie, 16 points in 15:50.  I miss Barbosa.  He was great.  It would have been better to, in this order, resign Ray, sign Barbosa, and then go out and get Rashard Lewis, or, if he's snatched up by the Heat, Antawn Jamison.  Now that team is loaded.   

But back to Terry.  I think it was also Doc's fault, because he never adapted the style of play to his players.  Terry needs the ball in his hands to be effective, he's not really a guy who comes off of screens like Ray does.  It was a terrible fit, all around. 

As for JO, I foolishly wanted him, but I wish that he had been required to undergo the same procedure that Kobe had done before we signed him.  It's interesting, and frustrating, to see how well O'Neal can still play, and again, I think that that's on Doc.  He treated the guy like Perk on offense, and that's more than a little insulting.  Here you've got a guy who actually likes and wants to play inside, and nothing ever became of it.  He should have had the wrist surgery, though. 

Also, I can't believe that I forgot about Pietrus   He was great, but once again, we finally have James Posey's replacement, and Danny let's him walk.  I know that he didn't play much after that, but still.  That guy showed up in the big moments on both ends, especially in game 5 against Miami.  Sigh.

I know that no one will agree with me on this, but the guy that I hoped Danny would resign was Marbury.  Why give Nate Robinson that chance and not him?  He would have been the perfect 3rd guard, imo, like Vinnie Johnson was for the Pistons.  At the bare minimum, Marbury showed that he could wake up, walk off the bus and run a team haha.  His passing was great, and I think that, with a few minor moves, that 09-10 bench could have been much better than the one in 08, and that's saying a lot.

Marbury?  He was eating Vaseline on video during that offseason.  He had a complete emotional breakdown and has lived in China since.

[pokeKingCurtis]

I remember Back when Karl Malone signed with the Lakers to form a "super team" the same year that Kobe ended up raping that girl, Karl said he would have signed with the Celtics because Danny Ainge. He went on to say that Ainge did a great job talking with him and recruiting him.

TP.

Ainge is not perfect. But you know he's trying and he's smart.

I don't think many GMs would have been able to pull the BKN deal off.

GMs are getting smarter. But I'm glad we have one who's been ahead of the curve. I confident Ainge will stay ahead.

I'm grateful for Ainge.

Because some teams have GMs who are like:

[Tr1boy]

I wonder what danny offered bazemore and hill.  Hopefully it was a fair offer. Hill has a chance to start right away. These guys are taking a risk waiting it out imo.

[GreenWarrior]

i'd say posey myself. i'll even say we should have re-signed him over house. I know posey fell off the face of the planet after he left but his best quality was he could play 3 positions, hell I bet he could play SG or PG if he had to. he was so darn versatile.

his ability to do that was great for a team like us at the time. we didn't have the money to fill out the rest of the roster at those positions with players that could give quality mins. so Danny signed one guy to do it all. one guy gave us the depth that we needed and something we had a very difficult time replacing after he left.

Yes Posey was the best FA signed by Danny.

[celts10]

Yeah, Marbury was putrid. In fact, that 08-09 offseason may be the worst of the Big Three era. I remember Joe Smith wanting to come play here after he got bought out by the horrible Thunder, and Ainge instead opted to go after Mikki Moore instead.

[yoursweatersux]

I will seriously throw up in my mouth if somebody mentions PJ Brown again as one of Ainge's good signings.

I have no idea what people were smoking when it comes to him - I remember him looking absolutely terrible and the stats back me up: he averaged 2 points a game on .341 shooting that season!!! That's, like, unbelievably bad offense!

Now I know you're thinking that he played small minutes, so clearly the per game averages don't do him justice. Ok, let's look at his per 36 minute numbers: 6.7 points on .341 shooting, .688 ft%. Terrible. His rebounding was good, but we had KG and a healthy Perk for that.

Most importantly, and this is the one fact on here nobody ever seems to admit, bring up, or even whisper about: Leon Powe was having the most outrageous fluke of a season ever, and PJ Brown, even if he had played WELL, would have been hurting us simply by taking minutes from Powe.

That year, on a per 36 minutes basis, Powe was averaging 19.8!!! points per game on .572%!! shooting! That is outrageous. He was also averaging 10.1 rebounds per 36 and getting to the line 8.6!!@ times per 36 (which was just about on par with Lebron freaking James that year)!

I'm putting in exclamation points because it still boggles my mind how this went under the radar. And then people were shocked when he blew up for that 20 point game in the finals. Leon Powe was legitimately amazing that year and I remember idiots arguing over whether him or Big Baby or PJ Brown should get minutes, when in reality it wasn't even a contest. His .256 ws/48 was All-Star level, and this will seemingly go forever unnoticed as one of the best seasons for a bench player I've seen in recent history.

[Beat LA]

Yeah, Marbury was putrid. In fact, that 08-09 offseason may be the worst of the Big Three era. I remember Joe Smith wanting to come play here after he got bought out by the horrible Thunder, and Ainge instead opted to go after Mikki Moore instead.

Joe Smith should have been signed for 09-10.  A big man bench rotation of Sheed, Smith, and honestly, because hindsight is 20/20, Bass.  He would've been awesome that year and we missed it.  We should have tried a sign and trade of Big Baby and Perk for a 1st round pick for the 2010 NBA draft, because their respective values were never higher than immediately after the 09 postseason.  I thought it was a foregone conclusion that Smith was going back to Cleveland, though.  He would have been great here.  Don't forget about McDyess either, after he was bought out by Denver.  The Big 3 should have visited him together like they did with Sheed and begged him to come here haha.  They also should have done that with David West.

[Beat LA]

I will seriously throw up in my mouth if somebody mentions PJ Brown again as one of Ainge's good signings.

I have no idea what people were smoking when it comes to him - I remember him looking absolutely terrible and the stats back me up: he averaged 2 points a game on .341 shooting that season!!! That's, like, unbelievably bad offense!

Now I know you're thinking that he played small minutes, so clearly the per game averages don't do him justice. Ok, let's look at his per 36 minute numbers: 6.7 points on .341 shooting, .688 ft%. Terrible. His rebounding was good, but we had KG and a healthy Perk for that.

Most importantly, and this is the one fact on here nobody ever seems to admit, bring up, or even whisper about: Leon Powe was having the most outrageous fluke of a season ever, and PJ Brown, even if he had played WELL, would have been hurting us simply by taking minutes from Powe.

That year, on a per 36 minutes basis, Powe was averaging 19.8!!! points per game on .572%!! shooting! That is outrageous. He was also averaging 10.1 rebounds per 36 and getting to the line 8.6!!@ times per 36 (which was just about on par with Lebron freaking James that year)!

I'm putting in exclamation points because it still boggles my mind how this went under the radar. And then people were shocked when he blew up for that 20 point game in the finals. Leon Powe was legitimately amazing that year and I remember idiots arguing over whether him or Big Baby or PJ Brown should get minutes, when in reality it wasn't even a contest. His .256 ws/48 was All-Star level, and this will seemingly go forever unnoticed as one of the best seasons for a bench player I've seen in recent history.

While I agree that he was atrocious in the regular season, Brown had his moments in the postseason.  We might have lost game 7 against the Cavs without him.  He was huge off the bench and hit that clutch jumper to put us up 3 with under a minute to go.  I do understand your view, though.

Also, yes, Leon was awesome.  It's too bad what happened to his knees, because he was always great at one critical category - getting to the free throw line.  He used to kill Cleveland.  I don't know why Ainge didn't sign him after he was waived by Cleveland in 2011.  After trading Perk, he would have restored at least some of that toughness on the interior, imo.  He played pretty well for the grizzlies that year.

[Fan from VT]

If you count keeping your own free agents, he's probably pretty good, not great, better earlier than later.

Posey and House were very good.

He did re-sign KG and Ray to reasonable levels at the time.

Rondo was a great signing for the team

Perk's first deal was great.

He's missed a lot though with other FAs. He's too intrigued by "has beens with maybe 1 run left," but that could be a Doc thing too. San Antonio, for example, gets great burn out of random young guys repeatedly. Even the Heat won 2 titles with guys like norris, chalmers, etc rather than trying just has beens.

And re-signing his own guys, lately he's been too enamored with "well that's a reasonable deal" resulting in cap-clogging contracts for middling players like Green and now Bradley.

[yoursweatersux]

I will seriously throw up in my mouth if somebody mentions PJ Brown again as one of Ainge's good signings.

I have no idea what people were smoking when it comes to him - I remember him looking absolutely terrible and the stats back me up: he averaged 2 points a game on .341 shooting that season!!! That's, like, unbelievably bad offense!

Now I know you're thinking that he played small minutes, so clearly the per game averages don't do him justice. Ok, let's look at his per 36 minute numbers: 6.7 points on .341 shooting, .688 ft%. Terrible. His rebounding was good, but we had KG and a healthy Perk for that.

Most importantly, and this is the one fact on here nobody ever seems to admit, bring up, or even whisper about: Leon Powe was having the most outrageous fluke of a season ever, and PJ Brown, even if he had played WELL, would have been hurting us simply by taking minutes from Powe.

That year, on a per 36 minutes basis, Powe was averaging 19.8!!! points per game on .572%!! shooting! That is outrageous. He was also averaging 10.1 rebounds per 36 and getting to the line 8.6!!@ times per 36 (which was just about on par with Lebron freaking James that year)!

I'm putting in exclamation points because it still boggles my mind how this went under the radar. And then people were shocked when he blew up for that 20 point game in the finals. Leon Powe was legitimately amazing that year and I remember idiots arguing over whether him or Big Baby or PJ Brown should get minutes, when in reality it wasn't even a contest. His .256 ws/48 was All-Star level, and this will seemingly go forever unnoticed as one of the best seasons for a bench player I've seen in recent history.

While I agree that he was atrocious in the regular season, Brown had his moments in the postseason.  We might have lost game 7 against the Cavs without him.  He was huge off the bench and hit that clutch jumper to put us up 3 with under a minute to go.  I do understand your view, though.

Also, yes, Leon was awesome.  It's too bad what happened to his knees, because he was always great at one critical category - getting to the free throw line.  He used to kill Cleveland.  I don't know why Ainge didn't sign him after he was waived by Cleveland in 2011.  After trading Perk, he would have restored at least some of that toughness on the interior, imo.  He played pretty well for the grizzlies that year.

Agreed, I thought Danny should have taken a chance on him and re-signed him after the knee injury as a low risk, high reward sort of play. He definitely never was the same player after that 2008 season though.

As far as PJ Brown is concerned, though, I remember him hitting that shot and thinking that if Powe had been in the game instead, we wouldn't have NEEDED him to hit that shot because we would have been further ahead. Obviously there's no way to prove that, but if we were just to play the stats game and go with the most likely scenario, Powe would have put us in a better position 9 out of 10 times.

[BballTim]

I will seriously throw up in my mouth if somebody mentions PJ Brown again as one of Ainge's good signings.

I have no idea what people were smoking when it comes to him - I remember him looking absolutely terrible and the stats back me up: he averaged 2 points a game on .341 shooting that season!!! That's, like, unbelievably bad offense!

Now I know you're thinking that he played small minutes, so clearly the per game averages don't do him justice. Ok, let's look at his per 36 minute numbers: 6.7 points on .341 shooting, .688 ft%. Terrible. His rebounding was good, but we had KG and a healthy Perk for that.

Most importantly, and this is the one fact on here nobody ever seems to admit, bring up, or even whisper about: Leon Powe was having the most outrageous fluke of a season ever, and PJ Brown, even if he had played WELL, would have been hurting us simply by taking minutes from Powe.

  PJ wasn't signed for his scoring. He was signed for rebounding and (more importantly) a decent defensive backup center. Leon wasn't that player. While PJ wasn't a superstar we probably would have been in trouble without him.

[DraftSmart33]

Free Agents never come to Boston.....I don't think it has much to do with Ainge.