Danny's Job Security is Secure

[BitterJim]

Danny Ainge as GM summed up in 4 words:

Deals: Exceptional

Draft: Average

Draft is average ? You can't be average when you've had garbage picks (because you had a darn good team most of his years) mostly in the 20 something ranges. Big Al, Tony Allen, Rajon Rondo, West, Bradley, Gerald Green are far from 'average'. The pick locations have been average at best, that's for sure. Mostly garbage 20 something picks.

Give Ainge Hinkie's pick locations the past 10 years and tell me with a straight face he'd be average. He's turned Hinkie type picks into players like Ray Allen (draft night trades). He's made a draft night trade 5 out of like 11 drafts btw

Gerald Green? When your listing him in the group of Ainge's top picks, it proves my point.

Sure, if you ignore draft position.

[aingeforthree]

Danny Ainge as GM summed up in 4 words:

Deals: Exceptional

Draft: Average

Draft is average ? You can't be average when you've had garbage picks (because you had a darn good team most of his years) mostly in the 20 something ranges. Big Al, Tony Allen, Rajon Rondo, West, Bradley, Gerald Green are far from 'average'. The pick locations have been average at best, that's for sure. Mostly garbage 20 something picks.

Give Ainge Hinkie's pick locations the past 10 years and tell me with a straight face he'd be average. He's turned Hinkie type picks into players like Ray Allen (draft night trades). He's made a draft night trade 5 out of like 11 drafts btw

Gerald Green? When your listing him in the group of Ainge's top picks, it proves my point.

Sure, if you ignore draft position.

Exactly BitterJim. So many garbage pick positions since he built championship teams. Still, he came away with guys like Green, Tony Allen, & Glen Davis....etc. etc.

I'm extremely confident in him and can't wait for these top Brooklyn picks with him at the helm.

[MJohnnyboy]

This is true. Nice post.

Danny certainly hit the jackpot with the Brooklyn picks. There was no guarantee at the time they would be anything better than mid-first round.

Ainge does need to stay hungry. He wasn't that great a GM, imho, from 2009 to the Brad Stevens era.

On the other hand, Ainge has been very nifty with recent deals having nothing to do with the Brooklyn lottery pick(s).

Perhaps he tried his best in the Big Three era and he simply had his hands tied due to salary cap limitations.

Danny has lined himself up to become a historic GM. With better luck in regards to KG's knee, that team might have three-peated. Then Danny would be completely immune to critique.

Whether Danny is a genius or lucky or some combination, he has earned the job security you mention. In a way, that is scary. Hopefully he is bringing more people into the decision mix as he ages and doesn't get too full of himself.

How so ?  In 2010, he wins a championship without injuries.  Darn good team that year.  You have to be a pretty darn good GM to make the finals.

56 win team in 2011, and he wasn't a good GM ?  Come on now.

4th seed in the East in 2012.  Not to darn shabby.

Then came one of the best NBA thefts in the history of the league.  The Brooklyn trade.

I think you need to rethink it if you thought he wasn't that good from 09-to the Stevens era.  He was darn good.  Sign the boy up to a 10 year extension please.

He's a great GM, don't get me wrong --- but he was kind of in cruise control after winning a ring in 08....

for example:

In 09 he never should have let Posey walk.  He ended up leaving that team to defend the title with a bunch of rookies & malcontents (Giddens, Walker, Marbury, Sheed) and lost the one glue guy that helped us most off the bench. 

Then 2011 he drafted Marshon Brooks with Jimmy Butler and Chandler Parsons still on the board.  Assuming his scouting at the time was in the backseat as our team was a major contender -- but still as a GM can't let that happen.

Also failed at evaluating Jeff Green's talent, again.  That alone might have cost us a banner -- but also seemed to be the reality check he needed to get himself back into gear.  Has been much better since that ill-fated Perk deal.     

You could say that about any GM in the league any year.  Late 1st round drafting not a valid criticism.

I think he has made two clear mistakes in his GM role, other wise he has been amazing.

1)  Letting Tony Allen walk away.  He would have been very helpful late in the KG-Pierce era.

2)  Doing the Telfair trade when they could have had a much better player.

I'll add three more:

3.The first Antoine trade. I admire Danny because of his realistic view on the team with this trade. He knew the 'Toine and Pierce team had piqued and weren't going to get better so he traded Toine while his value was high. However, what he got back for Antoine was awful. Washed-up Lafrentz and his albatross contract, filler and Dallas' 1st. Atleast the Celtics got Delonte West, who became one of the pieces in the Ray Allen deal. I still think Danny could have gotten more for Walker.

4. The Blount extension. A classic contract run by one of the least-liked Celtics of all time. Luckily Danny has not been fooled like that since then.

5. The Scalabrine contract. I didn't mind Scal when he was here but his contract was way too long. It should have been cut down to 3 or 4 years. Not 5 for just a borderline role player.

I also disagree with the TA assessment. Danny offered him more money than Memphis did. Tony Allen leaving was on Tony Allen because he wanted a more prominent role than the Celtics had to offer. He wanted to be more than just a back-up to Ray and Pierce. Even if that screwed both parties out of winning another championship in the league, Tony was right. Memphis gave him a bigger role than the Celtics would have. That however is not Danny's fault. Not to mention before he suddenly morphed himself into a valuable rotation player, we all wanted TA gone ASAP.

A few fans will point to the Jeff Green-Kendrick Perkins swap as one of Danny's biggest mistakes. I see their point but to this day I still think it was a risk worth taking. The Celtics were one of the best teams in the league without Perk playing for most of the season. The Celtics had no back-up for Pierce with Quis out and knew they were going to face Lebron in the playoffs. Jeff Green was young and had shown he could produce. The silver lining was we thought he could be the future along with Rondo when the Big 3 era was over. Not to mention OKC would definitely never do that trade if they knew what was going to happen.

He's made his mistakes, but Danny's done a masterful job.

I wouldn't call his job a masterful job.  Since the KG trade he really hasn't hit a homerun on any trade, any free agent signing, or any draft pick.  He has been pretty average for close to a decade and the last 4 years have lacked direction.  I still have no idea if we are trying to win or if we are rebuilding.  That isn't the place to be.  He needs to pick a direction (it can probably wait till this summer, but he has to go one way or the other i.e. either trade the BKN pick or build around that player).   

His job is secure, but it isn't nearly as secure as it once way.

Are you expecting a home run trade every year? I guess what I mean by masterful is that Danny turned this team from a bottom dweller to a contender, then he got potentially exponential value for what was left of the team from its championship days, and what he's done now is position the team to either get some great young talent out of that Nets deal or get a superstar(s) with the assets he's accumulated. I think that's masterful because no matter what happens, things are looking up. I mean the Celtics aren't in the best position in the league right now, but I like where they are headed.

Since they traded KG/Pierce to the Nets, he's basically made every conservative deal he can while waiting for the big fish to come. Or did you mean when he traded for KG back in 2007?

[MJohnnyboy]

I'll add three more:

3.The first Antoine trade. I admire Danny because of his realistic view on the team with this trade. He knew the 'Toine and Pierce team had piqued and weren't going to get better so he traded Toine while his value was high. However, what he got back for Antoine was awful. Washed-up Lafrentz and his albatross contract, filler and Dallas' 1st. Atleast the Celtics got Delonte West, who became one of the pieces in the Ray Allen deal. I still think Danny could have gotten more for Walker.

4. The Blount extension. A classic contract run by one of the least-liked Celtics of all time. Luckily Danny has not been fooled like that since then.

5. The Scalabrine contract. I didn't mind Scal when he was here but his contract was way too long. It should have been cut down to 3 or 4 years. Not 5 for just a borderline role player.

I am not a fan of pointing at contract signings as as clear "mistakes" because you can always recover from that somehow, via trade or at worst a buyout.  Blount was worth nowhere near what he was paid, having said that he actually played quite well in his contract year and he was a Center...those guys always get overpaid.

You can also recover from guys leaving too. Remember Marquis Daniels was doing an admirable job filling in for TA. The only problem was he was injury-prone. Hell, if Gilbert Arenas hadn't pointed a gun at Javaris Crittenton, the Celtics could have won the championship in 2011.

You can also turn use a result from a bad trade into make a good one from it. If the Telfair trade doesn't happen, then neither does the KG trade.

[PhoSita]

Hell, if Gilbert Arenas hadn't pointed a gun at Javaris Crittenton, the Celtics could have won the championship in 2011.

Wait, what?

[ssspence]

Danny Ainge as GM summed up in 4 words:

Deals: Exceptional

Draft: Average

Draft is average ? You can't be average when you've had garbage picks (because you had a darn good team most of his years) mostly in the 20 something ranges. Big Al, Tony Allen, Rajon Rondo, West, Bradley, Gerald Green are far from 'average'. The pick locations have been average at best, that's for sure. Mostly garbage 20 something picks.

Give Ainge Hinkie's pick locations the past 10 years and tell me with a straight face he'd be average. He's turned Hinkie type picks into players like Ray Allen (draft night trades). He's made a draft night trade 5 out of like 11 drafts btw

Gerald Green? When your listing him in the group of Ainge's top picks, it proves my point.

Sure, if you ignore draft position.

Exactly BitterJim. So many garbage pick positions since he built championship teams. Still, he came away with guys like Green, Tony Allen, & Glen Davis....etc. etc.

I'm extremely confident in him and can't wait for these top Brooklyn picks with him at the helm.

.

This is a cop out. I'm well aware of where the Cs have picked, how those picks faired, and who was picked after them. Ainge has not been an above average drafter.

[CelticPride2016]

Ainge has been pretty good at drafting. He does tend to make the roster a bit too redundant. or that's just part of rebuilding. Nothing is free. You are stuck with Gerald Wallace to get the top draft pick.

It is revisionist history to claim Ainge is terrible at drafting. But it is also ridiculous to call him some form of genius when take away 2008 and this epic gift from Brooklyn, then Danny is just another guy.

It doesn't matter. He is in the driver's seat. I like Danny Ainge. He has earned this. But let's not get carried away putting him on Mount Rushmore with Red and John Wooden. And by chance this turns into a monster dynasty through Brooklyn, I will still claim Danny wasn't one of the best GM's, but most certainly the luckiest. We could get the next superstar without doing a thing or at least very good players. We could win ten straight titles. Still won't matter. That's luck, not skill.

[MJohnnyboy]

Hell, if Gilbert Arenas hadn't pointed a gun at Javaris Crittenton, the Celtics could have won the championship in 2011.

Wait, what?

Chain reaction. Arenas pointed the gun at Crittenden which led to both getting suspended. Arenas was their best player so his suspension led to them sucking which led to them drafting John Wall. Them drafting John Wall led to them wanting to trade Arenas. Orlando was dumb enough to take him for Rashard Lewis. Then this happened.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fLPTJJV3QYg

Make sense now?