sorry to join the thread a bit late...19 pages late. 
has it been established that george would have definately signed with boston beyond one year?
if not, then trading anything of worth for him would have been a mistake by ainge.
It's not definite.
At the same time, it's not definite that we get the LAL pick, or even the SAC one.
But with all the LA rumors never stopping, the odds might be greater with those picks.
I ran a sandwich shop for almost 20 years, when a customer wanted extra of something, you didn't give them a ton of it, just a little. Why? because the next time they come in they expect that much and more. And it goes up and up until you're broke.
I'm sure DA would have put the LA/Sac pick on the table AFTER Hayward was commited, but if he would have lead with the LA/SAC pick, Indy would have asked for the Nets/Brown/ or Tatum. DA would have said no, and Indy would be p---ed and walked just like they did.
If Danny didn't put his best offer on the table, then he messed up. I agree that you don't lead with your best offer, but these negotiations have been open for weeks.
To play with your analogy a bit, if the biggest company in town offered you an exclusive catering contract, would you dicker over a 10 cent slice of cheese per sandwich?
Danny lowballed Indy, because he thought everyone else was low balling them, too. If he'd paid a fraction of what a 27 year old superstar is worth, we'd be contenders right now.
I'm on the fence. I agree with you that if you have a chance to field a legit championship team, you do it.
So here are the uncertainties that would have to go our way for this to work out:
1. Hayward signs too. (IMO George doesn't do it alone esp. if we give up either Crowder or Bradley, or both). what would we say those odds are right now - 30% 50%?
2. We beat both CLE and GS next year. What are those odds with Hayward and George? 10%? 30% I don't know really.
However even with those two contingencies you're looking at something like a 10% chance at a ring, tops. Most likely, for one year.
Now, you're trading that against, proximately, the chances of that LAL/SAC pick giving us a franchise talent or otherwise pushing us over the top (assuming that would have been enough). I analyzed some of those odds in another post, but in brief, they are very, very small. You're looking at the odds of getting a high pick, the odds that guy is All-NBA, etc.
So I think through that lens it looks like a winner to move the LAL/SAC pick.
Here's the only monkey wrench I see, that would make this a smart decision by Danny rather than a bad one: he has something else in the works for that same pick that beats a one-year George rental.
Maybe it's moving it for a vet big who's signed for multiple years? (I know what you're thinking, we could have had Boogie, but Ainge clearly saw something there he didn't like). Or what if we can trade some of those lesser 1st rounders plus Crowder or Bradley for a terrific interior defender?
So I think we should wait until the dust has settled on this offseason before making any judgments.
Also, it's probably been said elsewhere but if Pritchard was holding out for BKN 18, then I think we should all agree Danny was right to say no.
I understand the basic objection to all this, which is that Danny's been kicking the can over and over, and when does it stop. But I think he's also been vindicated, in some sense, because the vets that many of us happily would have given up BKN 18 for at the deadline this year ended up going for much less in trade. He hasn't been the right trade partner but I don't think he's 100% to blame, especially if he's been the highest bidder in at least some of these deals.
