Ainge Explains Why He Didn't Make A Minor Move For Rebounding..

[BitterJim]

Sounds like he's parroting Stevens words from earlier this season.  It's mostly bull**** though. See how it works out for you in the playoffs when defense is tighter and rebounding wins game.   ****s.

Honest question: Do you think that you understand basketball better than Danny Ainge and Brad Stevens?

[Casperian]

Might as well post this here

https://twitter.com/SynergySST/status/830867476640624641

[Bobshot]

Wasn't this Austin Ainge making these comments on talk radio? I saw his tweets. Sounds a lot like damage control to me. You won't find many in the NBA supporting those arguments about "rebounders hurting the offense."  Rebounders get 2nd shots. Russell turned the Celtics into champions with rebounding. So did Silas and Cowens. And Parish and McHale. And Perk, KG and Powe.

Spread the floor? It's still a game of get the ball, and pass for the best shot.

[Clench123]

Excuses, excuses, excuses.  More excuses on why you failed at your job again, Danny. 

You don't think rebounding is important?  Let's see how your overrated guards hold up in the playoffs against a good rebounding team.

These aren't excuses, their reasons. You don't have to agree with the reasons, but not even making an effort to understand his reasoning and just dismissing it as "excuses" is just lazy.

He didn't "fail at his job", because his job is not to make trades to satisfy impatient fans or to try and make the ECF.  His job is to win championships, and nothing he did yesterday moved us further away from that or made it impossible.

And he isn't saying that rebounding isn't important, he's saying that rebounding is not more important than fit in our offense.  This team is a lot better with a skilled big like Horford or Olynyk in there than a guy who's only skill is rebounding. If you can get a guy that can rebound and is skilled, go for it (Jones, maybe?). But don't sacrifice the offense for an extra 1 or 2 rebounds a game.

Nothing he said is reasonable.  Not one thing.

[PhoSita]

Open layups are clearly a problem, but Rosco didn't say they weren't. He said that "one of the most damaging plays is ... the offensive rebound," and he's right.

I don't necessarily disagree, but I guess my point is that simply improving the defensive rebounding wouldn't really move the needle that much for this team unless you're adding a guy who can also help you in the pick and roll and near the rim without sacrificing the integrity of the perimeter defense.

Defense is about the effectiveness of a five man unit, not what one guy does.  That is more true now than it was 10 years ago, because isolation, strong-side basketball has become less common. 

Perhaps the Celts could have added a player like that by going after Noel or Cousins, but a move of that kind would have had long term implications.

Giving up a couple seconds or a future 1st for a player who maybe helps on interior but isn't part of the puzzle long term may have made some difference for this season, but still wouldn't have given the Celts the pieces they need to have a realistic shot against the Cavs.  So in that case, while you're clearly sacrificing the chance to play better basketball this year, what are you really gaining by giving up assets, even minor assets, for the short term improvement of this year's team?

Rebounding may not be such a glaring issue as soon as next season.  Surely Ainge is thinking he's going to try to add somebody like Blake Griffin, or perhaps try to trade for a guy like Deandre Jordan (if Griffin and Paul sign with other teams).  Plus, you have Ante Zizic likely coming over.  He will be a rookie, but I expect he'll help on the boards right away.  Perhaps Mickey will finally be ready to give the team some minutes as well.

In that context, giving up a 1st or a couple 2nds this season to trade for, let's say, Kyle O'Quinn, might seem like a major overpay if you end up losing in the 2nd round anyway and then the guy you traded for becomes redundant after you make a couple major moves in the off-season.

Basically, I think rebounding is a significant short term issue for the team, but there wasn't an obvious solution available to address that problem, at least not one that would be worth the cost.  If the team can get a guy like Bogut or Terrence Jones on the waiver wire, why give up a pick at all?

[manl_lui]

Excuses, excuses, excuses.  More excuses on why you failed at your job again, Danny. 

You don't think rebounding is important?  Let's see how your overrated guards hold up in the playoffs against a good rebounding team.

These aren't excuses, their reasons. You don't have to agree with the reasons, but not even making an effort to understand his reasoning and just dismissing it as "excuses" is just lazy.

He didn't "fail at his job", because his job is not to make trades to satisfy impatient fans or to try and make the ECF.  His job is to win championships, and nothing he did yesterday moved us further away from that or made it impossible.

And he isn't saying that rebounding isn't important, he's saying that rebounding is not more important than fit in our offense.  This team is a lot better with a skilled big like Horford or Olynyk in there than a guy who's only skill is rebounding. If you can get a guy that can rebound and is skilled, go for it (Jones, maybe?). But don't sacrifice the offense for an extra 1 or 2 rebounds a game.

Nothing he said is reasonable.  Not one thing.

why don't you do his job then?

[Casperian]

Excuses, excuses, excuses.  More excuses on why you failed at your job again, Danny. 

You don't think rebounding is important?  Let's see how your overrated guards hold up in the playoffs against a good rebounding team.

These aren't excuses, their reasons. You don't have to agree with the reasons, but not even making an effort to understand his reasoning and just dismissing it as "excuses" is just lazy.

He didn't "fail at his job", because his job is not to make trades to satisfy impatient fans or to try and make the ECF.  His job is to win championships, and nothing he did yesterday moved us further away from that or made it impossible.

And he isn't saying that rebounding isn't important, he's saying that rebounding is not more important than fit in our offense.  This team is a lot better with a skilled big like Horford or Olynyk in there than a guy who's only skill is rebounding. If you can get a guy that can rebound and is skilled, go for it (Jones, maybe?). But don't sacrifice the offense for an extra 1 or 2 rebounds a game.

Nothing he said is reasonable.  Not one thing.

Seems like the two of you got a lot in common...

[Casperian]

Sounds like he's parroting Stevens words from earlier this season.  It's mostly bull**** though. See how it works out for you in the playoffs when defense is tighter and rebounding wins game.   ****s.

Honest question: Do you think that you understand basketball better than Danny Ainge and Brad Stevens?

Dude, you're fighting a losing battle.
There's a sentiment among our fans who don't care about what's right or wrong, all they want is things to go their way, and if they don't, they throw a temper tantrum.

[chilidawg]

http://nesn.com/2017/02/danny-ainge-explains-why-celtics-didnt-fill-rebounding-need-at-trade-deadline/

“When you just add a rebounder, and he hurts your offense, it defeats the purpose,” Ainge told 98.5 The Sports Hub’s “Toucher & Rich,” as aired on CSN New England. “A rebounder will just be sitting on your bench. We have players that are more skilled, and we play around our strengths. I don’t think it’s a coincidence that when we added Al Horford this year — and this is nothing to take away from Isaiah (Thomas) and Avery (Bradley), because they’re fantastic players — but I think that Al’s presence makes those guys all better.”

In short, Ainge didn’t believe Boston should have added a rebounder just for the sake of boosting the team’s numbers.

“We have the floor spread and we have skilled bigs,” Ainge added. “Al is leading NBA centers in assists this year, and that’s the way that we play. First of all, we know that we don’t have a great rebounding team from a personnel standpoint, but we also don’t play a great rebounding style, in that we rely on our bigs to play out on the perimeter and make plays and make passes and open up the court up for our guards.

“It is a weakness. There are some guys out there that can rebound OK. I think there was one or two rebounders that I would say that were good rebounders that could help us rebounding. But we’re always trying to evaluate if they’re going to help our team overall.”

I'm guessing Ainge also didn't think this team was beating Cleveland anyways, so why bother. Although I think we still should add someone like Jones or Bogut to help us in the first and second round series (especially against TOR and WAS).

Oh well, I'm over it now. Hoping for this team to make some noise in the playoffs and head into this draft and FA with fireworks (Fultz/Ball + Hayward/Griffin + Zizic/Yabusele)

Nice job of totally ignoring what he said and coming to your own conclusions.

[BitterJim]

Excuses, excuses, excuses.  More excuses on why you failed at your job again, Danny. 

You don't think rebounding is important?  Let's see how your overrated guards hold up in the playoffs against a good rebounding team.

These aren't excuses, their reasons. You don't have to agree with the reasons, but not even making an effort to understand his reasoning and just dismissing it as "excuses" is just lazy.

He didn't "fail at his job", because his job is not to make trades to satisfy impatient fans or to try and make the ECF.  His job is to win championships, and nothing he did yesterday moved us further away from that or made it impossible.

And he isn't saying that rebounding isn't important, he's saying that rebounding is not more important than fit in our offense.  This team is a lot better with a skilled big like Horford or Olynyk in there than a guy who's only skill is rebounding. If you can get a guy that can rebound and is skilled, go for it (Jones, maybe?). But don't sacrifice the offense for an extra 1 or 2 rebounds a game.

Nothing he said is reasonable.  Not one thing.

All these things are unreasonable?

We have players that are more skilled

we play around our strengths.

Al’s presence makes those guys all better.

We have the floor spread and we have skilled bigs

Al is leading NBA centers in assists this year, and that’s the way that we play

we don’t have a great rebounding team from a personnel standpoint, but we also don’t play a great rebounding style, in that we rely on our bigs to play out on the perimeter and make plays and make passes and open up the court up for our guards.

[Rebounding] is a weakness

Nobody's asking you to agree with Ainge's decision.  But saying that everything he said is unreasonable says more about your willingness to listen to what he has to say than anything else

[hpantazo]

Ainge's explanation doesn't make sense. He talks about Boston's desire to "spread the floor" with its bigs, but that's on offense; Boston's biggest rebounding problem is defensive rebounding—that is, giving up too many offensive rebounds to opponents. Boston needs to be able to limit opponents to one shot per possession, which means that relying on KO and Al is a disaster.

It's not football -- you can't swap offensive and defensive players every possession.   If you want Andrew Bogut out there getting defensive rebounds, it means that he's out there not spreading the floor on offense.  Ideally the Celtics would have a power forward who can hit threes, pass, and set good screens on offense while also being capable of getting rebounds on defense.  But they aren't getting Draymond Green, and I guess they couldn't quite get JaMychal Green.  Hopefully in a couple of years that's what Yabusele turns into.  That's what they hoped Jordan Mickey would become, but it hasn't worked out.

A false dichotomy is being perpetuated—namely, that you can only have offensively skilled bigs who are bad rebounders, OR good rebounding bigs who can't spread the floor.

The truth is that a player can be both, and that such players exist, and (I'm admittedly guessing with this part) there's got to be some out there who don't cost a king's ransom.

Porzingis is that type of a player. I think Bender can also become that.

[Clench123]

Excuses, excuses, excuses.  More excuses on why you failed at your job again, Danny. 

You don't think rebounding is important?  Let's see how your overrated guards hold up in the playoffs against a good rebounding team.

These aren't excuses, their reasons. You don't have to agree with the reasons, but not even making an effort to understand his reasoning and just dismissing it as "excuses" is just lazy.

He didn't "fail at his job", because his job is not to make trades to satisfy impatient fans or to try and make the ECF.  His job is to win championships, and nothing he did yesterday moved us further away from that or made it impossible.

And he isn't saying that rebounding isn't important, he's saying that rebounding is not more important than fit in our offense.  This team is a lot better with a skilled big like Horford or Olynyk in there than a guy who's only skill is rebounding. If you can get a guy that can rebound and is skilled, go for it (Jones, maybe?). But don't sacrifice the offense for an extra 1 or 2 rebounds a game.

Nothing he said is reasonable.  Not one thing.

why don't you do his job then?

I bet I could, if it means sitting on my ass, overplaying my hand, not making any moves, drafting useless guards, continuous refusal to address team's desperate need, and standing pat when the deal isn't a steal for me.  Easiest job.

[Moranis]

Ainge's explanation doesn't make sense. He talks about Boston's desire to "spread the floor" with its bigs, but that's on offense; Boston's biggest rebounding problem is defensive rebounding—that is, giving up too many offensive rebounds to opponents. Boston needs to be able to limit opponents to one shot per possession, which means that relying on KO and Al is a disaster.

It's not football -- you can't swap offensive and defensive players every possession.   If you want Andrew Bogut out there getting defensive rebounds, it means that he's out there not spreading the floor on offense.  Ideally the Celtics would have a power forward who can hit threes, pass, and set good screens on offense while also being capable of getting rebounds on defense.  But they aren't getting Draymond Green, and I guess they couldn't quite get JaMychal Green.  Hopefully in a couple of years that's what Yabusele turns into.  That's what they hoped Jordan Mickey would become, but it hasn't worked out.

A false dichotomy is being perpetuated—namely, that you can only have offensively skilled bigs who are bad rebounders, OR good rebounding bigs who can't spread the floor.

The truth is that a player can be both, and that such players exist, and (I'm admittedly guessing with this part) there's got to be some out there who don't cost a king's ransom.

Demarcus Cousins.  Player available.  Player that does those things.  And a player whose price dropped dramatically.

[manl_lui]

Excuses, excuses, excuses.  More excuses on why you failed at your job again, Danny. 

You don't think rebounding is important?  Let's see how your overrated guards hold up in the playoffs against a good rebounding team.

These aren't excuses, their reasons. You don't have to agree with the reasons, but not even making an effort to understand his reasoning and just dismissing it as "excuses" is just lazy.

He didn't "fail at his job", because his job is not to make trades to satisfy impatient fans or to try and make the ECF.  His job is to win championships, and nothing he did yesterday moved us further away from that or made it impossible.

And he isn't saying that rebounding isn't important, he's saying that rebounding is not more important than fit in our offense.  This team is a lot better with a skilled big like Horford or Olynyk in there than a guy who's only skill is rebounding. If you can get a guy that can rebound and is skilled, go for it (Jones, maybe?). But don't sacrifice the offense for an extra 1 or 2 rebounds a game.

Nothing he said is reasonable.  Not one thing.

why don't you do his job then?

I bet I could, if it means sitting on my ass, overplaying my hand, not making any moves, drafting useless guards, continuous refusal to address team's desperate need, and standing pat when the deal isn't a steal for me.  Easiest job.

[Chief Macho]

Sounds like he's parroting Stevens words from earlier this season.  It's mostly bull**** though. See how it works out for you in the playoffs when defense is tighter and rebounding wins game.   ****s.

Honest question: Do you think that you understand basketball better than Danny Ainge and Brad Stevens?

yes.