The Accidental Contender

Shades of Theo? Couldn’t get Contreras/Vazquez, had to settle for Schill?

Not a good text! The main decision of Danny was work in order to obtain KG. And that’s because he has changed the context of Celtics, landing Ray Allen. No doubt: this time is a Danny’s success

I think you are short changing Danny Ainge of his due credit. Deals like the one we have made don’t happen without a lot of work/thought, long nights, patience and a bit of luck.

danny has his minuses, but his pluses abound. now he had better have a plan b, or c, for coach (sorry ej playa ).

Lucky? In life you make your own “luck”. A wise man has a plan B, C, ect… A fool tries the same thing over and over hopping for it to change somehow. Most people fail in life because they try something and it doesn’t work so they just give up. If you want to “win” in life first decide what you really want, then do something, if it doesn’t work do something else. (repeat till you get what you really want) That is what Danny did. He knew from day 1 he wanted a team that could win it all. Sure he had to change directions many times. However that’s the mind set of winners. Remember “there are many paths to the top of a mountain.”

We have to look at facts not rumors. Fact…Danny took a bunch of poor draft picks and turned them into valuable trading chips, that was always plan A, his flexibility in dealing with dynamic situations is due to his abilities not luck. We will never know if his plans in acquiring Ray was for Kevin to come to Boston, and we will never know if Reggie was the first option over Posey, he was working both deals and the outcome may have been just face saving. In my opinion the only luck Danny has had is bad luck which he has been able to turn around with great skill and knowledge. I have been a Celtic fan since the sixties and this is no knock on Red but Danny is up there with the best.

I think Red’s take is correct. Clearly, Plan A was winnning Oden or Durant at the lotto. We’d all have been thrilled with that outcome. Through dumb luck, or Stern weighting balls, didn’t happen.

Danny then had the monumental choice that had been looming for years; youth or Pierce. Once he made his choice, I think Red’s right again, in that Ray Allen was Plan C after KG and Marion. To me, it seemed a desperation move on draft night, and I was near apoplectic about it.

To Danny’s credit, he maintained his main chips on draft night in Theo’s contract and Big Al.

On draft night, I could not imagine that KG was coming. I thought that ship had sailed and that Danny had paniced and settled for Ray Allen. Hey, who knew?

That he was then able to snag KG and subsequently Posey make this one of the most remarkable summers for any NBA team in history, and yes, it was partly luck (Red always said Danny was lucky… he was right).

Still, to give Danny his due, when he came on board, he rightly surmised that the squad had no upside and was going nowhere, despite its recent playoff appearances.

He took a flame thrower to that collection. Many pined for the days of Twan and Obie and the magical (fool’s gold) trip to the ECF. Thank god Danny saw that for what it was.

Then, there was the incessant carping about Danny’s moves over the next couple of years, and people wanting to prematurely judge Ainge a failure, when all along many felt like he was gathering chips and would cash in at the right time.

He had luck, but hard and diligent work makes for much better luck. Truth be told, we’d all have been thrilled with Oden or Durant and the rest of our young squad. When it didn’t happen, Danny chose the veteran path and did so in spectacular fashion. But… he could not have done so without gathering the assets (that had enough value to land us who they did) that he had over the previous three seasons.

In short, Danny is both good and lucky, and those of us who believed that he was engaging in asset acquisition before cashing in are feeling especially good about this. Happy for the team, and happy for Ainge.

Those that beat the Danny sucks drum for the last couple of years… it probably has never felt so good to be so wrong.

Why is there always some offhanded comment designed to reduce the job Ainge has done? He had a vision which was building chips through youth and progressive improvement of talent and finacial positioning through trades. There was plenty of blame to go around through this process.

Now, he’s lucky. Ya, getting number 5 in the draft was extraordinary luck! Come on folks, Ainge has taken what he was dealt and made this team into a huge contender! He took the big gamble with R. Allen. There’s still no guarantees they get KG. He calculated, he won. He calculated others would follow, contrary to the no one wanted to play in Boston because it’s a racist city (another sore subject with me that I someday hope to hear Wilbon recant).

Even after drinking a high dosage of green Koolade, who could have dreamed up all the LUCK that went the C’s way in this offseason? How many had the vision to predict that this team would be clear contenders last April when the C’s were finishing one of their worst seasons in history?

I don’t remember reading those predictions.

But speaking of luck, I feel REALLY LUCKY I’m reading about Danny’s moves now! I’m drinking that lemonade and I can’t wait for this season to start!

Simple choice, because I don’t expect Gerald Green to be in the league in three years. I like this club, and I think it’s our best chance to compete in the next five years.

I think that a good GM is aware of the availability of opportunities and is wise enough to strike while the iron is hot.

I’m not totally sure that had the C’s won the lottery that they would have help on to Oden or Durant. I think had the C’s won the lottery Danny would have still gone after pieces to put around Pierce, but would have been able to keep Jefferson in the process. If you offer an Oden or Durant to Minnesota instead of Al that would have been a far more pallatable offer for the Minn community than what they percieved they got for KG in return. Allen was obviously for sale to anyone willing to bid and could still have been dealt for but with different assets in play. I think had the Celtics still won the lottery there was still going to be a KG deal, but the specifics would have been different.
Danny did say that his long term goal was the acquisition of talent and assets that would put him in a position to make deals to build a contender. Most of us were to short sighted and too caught up in the moment to see the future. Danny had made some poor choices in the past, but none of those choices cost us any of our key youth. Say what you will about the Lafrentz deal, but ultimately Danny has demostrated he is a more than competant GM.

Bonus answer….no guarantee of success with the kids and a 2-3 year wait to be competitive. I am very pleased the way things turned out.

Short answer: Nobody I recall has built a championship contender without a some good luck. Danny put himself in a position to get lucky by making excellent draft choices, and building up the value of those draft choices.

And it isn’t strange that his first options didn’t work out. Your first offer is supposed to be the one that doesn’t get accepted. It’s basic haggling technique, as explained by Eric Idle in The Life of Brian. ;)

Test to see if I can get around the “comment too short” error.

My loyalty to Pierce outweighs all others so i couldn’t be happier.

Well if the C’s had landed Oden, could we still have snagged another vet by selling off the same set of youth?

West, Gomes, Green, and Telfair would all have been ‘bad’ youth. Theo and Wally would have been matching salary. Perkins might have been expendable. Could we have ended up with: Oden, KG, Pierce, T. Allen, Rondo? Or Oden, Jefferson, Pierce, Allen, Rondo? And been even better? Wouldn’t that route have been DA getting ‘lucky’, but not getting the pick, and getting the worst possible outcome (#5) – yet still building a contender – that is skill.

As the saying goes, better lucky than good.
I for one am happy that things worked out like they did. This should be an excellent and exciting team for at least the next 3 or 4 years. It now appears that Boston is a place free agents want to come to, which is huge. The Celtics should be able to keep signing good players and when the bigs guys contracts expire, they should have money to sign top market players. I don’t see that players would have been flocking here had we won the lottery. I’m not seeing people lining up to play in Portland or Seattle. I guess my point is that the way things worked out not only makes the Celts contenters now, but should make them a top team for many years to come. I’ll miss Jefferson, but I think he’s really the only one who we be a top player in this league. I see Green, Gomes, anf Telfair as role players at best.

Danny Ainge is stumbling through what might be an historic offseason for the Boston Celtics. Every move he wanted to make this offseason has fallen through… leading him to look in another direction. The funny thing is, that other direction, has built us a contender.[/quote]
 
The linked-to article reminds me of the way Michael Jordan ‘‘stumbled’‘ through the switch-hand layup against the Lakers in the Finals. Lucky for Jordan, who ‘‘accidentally’‘ made an all-time great shot, the layup turned out better than the dunk, which we all know was Plan A.
 
The angle the article takes on Danny Ainge seems to utilize hyperbole while oversimplifying Danny and his efforts.
 
The most balanced comment comes early in this paragraph, but then seems undone by the following sentence:
 
[quote]Danny does deserve credit for not sulking when his best laid plans haven’t worked. He kept trying to figure things out. But I do find it a little disturbing that Danny’s initial instincts and efforts haven’t produced a single situation that we see on this team today.[/quote]
 
I’m not sure what the last sentence proves. Why is this stuff ‘‘disturbing’‘? Let us not confuse the means for the end. Kevin Durant was not Danny Ainge’s end goal. Championships were. Danny never changed that. But he always did his best with what he had to make that happen (whether or not what he did was best is another discussion, of course).
 
I’m not fully sure what the linked to article accomplishes. Are we supposed to think that Danny was on vacation all summer and just happened to get a call one day offering Ray Allen, followed by a call offering Kevin Garnett, followed by a call from the respective agents of Eddie House, Scot Pollard, and James Posey? This is Danny: active, making uncomfortable moves, always trying to improve. That was his approach to win a championship.
 
I wonder if the following might be a bit more productive and fair thesis: ‘‘Six months ago, Danny Ainge was hoping for Kevin Durant and Al Jefferson to take the Celtics into the future. Now, he has seasoned (super)stars in Kevin Garnett, Ray Allen, Paul Pierce and a added new bench to compete for a title right now. Who could’ve imagined it would play-out like this? In the world of the NBA, salary caps, agents, and the difficulties of working out a trade — it would be hard for anyone to envision this, even Danny. But his approach made it happen and kept us moving step after step.’‘
 
[quote]’‘But I know what I’m getting is not the result of Danny the Genius … This team is the result of dumb luck. Or is it destiny?’‘

 
I would wholeheartedly object to the term ‘‘dumb luck’‘ here. The term pushes the article’s angle and quotability more than objective analysis.
 
Six months ago, Danny was not shooting for KG, Ray Allen, and a new bench. Agreed. But ‘‘dumb luck’‘, ‘‘disturbing’‘, and ‘‘accidental’‘ are conclusions that I’m not sure hold water. This article was a good history of what happened, but the end analysis seems misguided.

Thanks for the help, Jeff. It’s too bad you couldn’t make your Plan A work out for quotation marks to be allowed in comments. You got lucky.

that’s a very good question Jeff. If we win a championship then it was worth giving up jefferson, delonte, gomes, green, draft picks etc. if we don’t then in 2-3 years we will be back to where we were 4 years ago. One thing I think is true though is that good teams get good players and also tend to get the breaks. You need to be good to be lucky. Crappy teams rarely are lucky. I find it hard to go from loving delonte, al , gomes etc to a whole new team of players that I don’t know but as they say winning cures everything and once this team starts winning games it will be amazing how fast everyone gets on the bandwagon. I would have loved to have kept one of our core young guys. I hope someday we get jefferson back and gomes and delonte

All great comments. I would add a few. DA had a plan when he took over, but it was not set in stone and DA had the guts and knowledge to change his plan as things unfolded. DA is extraordinarily prepared for multiple contingencies and was thus able to act quickly as events unfolded. DA is straightforward and honest. Agents perceive him that way. Players who know him do also. DA will not stop pursuing something that he wants to improve the team. When the KG deal went nowhere at the start DA got permission to speak directly with KG. Then the deal came through. I’m convinced DA talking to KG clinched it. As to the players traded, I heard or saw where DA said he liked his players, but was not emotionally attached to them. Emotion would not affect his effort to improve the team. With that said I think it was very hard for him to let, especially AJ, Gomes and I would assume GG go. DA and Doc invested alot of their souls into these guys. I think DA, the person, had much to do with what happened this summer.

On the bonus question, ask me again if any ‘lingering injuries’ develop with the big three. But without a doubt, that lucky Danny has overwhelmed me with the job he’s done.

Because the lottery played out the way it did, no way for me to look back and torture the brain to say I prefer this to that. I do think the Celts have done outstanding since the #5 ball came our way. As the saying goes, sometimes better to be lucky than good.

I will say this though, if the Celts had gotten the #1 ball and Oden, I would not have traded him, Big Al, etc. So I guess in a roundabout way, I answered the question.

A couple quick hitters about our bench and it being such a concern. I know Posey has justifiably eased many of those concerns.

On Pollard, I think Celts will be surprised that he contributes more than they may anticipate. Pollard will hustle and he will get some boards as well as clean up missed shots with garbage buckets.

Maybe he’ll average about 5 pts a game, but all things considered for a 2nd unit guy, he’ll bring an energy and will probably be an adequate contributer that will hold the tide somewhat and give some of the starters a rest here and there.

I do think also a guy like Scal, who we aren’t depending on to the extent we have for the past several years will do a similar job.

Regardless of what the deficiency there may be during the season with the bench, Pollard, Scal, pg need, injury, Celtic management will get that “part” before the trade deadline. There is too much invested in this season with the Big 3 to allow a weak bench for example to kill our chances for a banner.

It remains to be seen how better off the team is in the intermediate/long run by trading away Jefferson and West. Some people here talk as if the league ought to give the Celtics a bye until the EC finals.

Neither Garnett, Allen or Pierce won last year. Posey had knee issues and was suspended by Pat Riley for excess body fat (along with you-know-who). House and Pollard are career backups. The rest of the new players are second round picks and undrafted players. The Reggie Miller thing was a publicity stunt. And Doc Rivers strill can’t coach his way out of a wet paper bag.

Gerald Green was no great loss and neither was Gomes, who can’t defend a chair. Telfair will never make it in the NBA because he can’t defend either and has no compensating athleticism or offensive skills.

But the losses of Jefferson and West haven’t even begun to hurt. Just wait 2-3 years.

DJRYB13, If you follow the history of the C’s from the start of the Russell era to the end of the Bird era, there is one commonality. With a core of great players, mainly intact, with the infusion of talent as needed, the C’s would be winners for 10 -12 years. Then the great players would all be gone, we’d go thru a 2 year period of misery and then find a Dave Cowens. Repeat, two year down period, Larry Bird. In that time we had the brilliance of Red and rules that allowed him to do the things he did. Unfortunately, new rules and continuing dilution of the talent pool don’t allow that type of history to continue. I would expect a great run with PP, RA, and KG, but would then expect a long re-building project when these guys retire.

I have been a big critic of Danny’s for the past several years. I honestly will say this though. If the KG trade had not happened and we went into the season with Pierce/Ray Allen and the rest of the roster before the KG trade, I would still have been a large critic of his.

The KG trade has turned it all around for me. So maybe Danny’s really good, maybe it is luck, probably a combination of the two; but I can’t have ask for anything more at this point from the Celtic organization since the KG deal went down.

I know a back up pg is a potential shortcoming, but KG/Ray Allen/Posey is more than I deserve at this time.

I don’t write us in as the team to represent the East in the NBA finals. If the Mavs/Warriors series taught us all anything (#8 beat #1) is don’t count your chickens before they hatch.

That being said, the Celtics have probably a better shot to win the East then any other team, period; and I am just giddy with that, especially after 24W, tanking, etc.

Naysayers can say this player had never done this, or that, fine. But you also have to admit, Pierce, Ray Allen, KG have never had the opportunity to play with the type of team each are going to be playing with as Celtics this year. So some of that negativity needs to be tossed out the window.

Secondly, there is a buzz that you haven’t seen in Boston in 20 some years. Players, management realize we have the goose that can lay the golden egg. So you see the difference: Pierce dropping 15 pounds, Posey signing for less money so he can be a Celt, Rondo shooting 250 jump shots a day, etc.

Whatever breaks during the season is going to be repaired. If House is a bust as a back up, we will have a new pg back up, if Doc is classically underachieving and it is resulting in many more L than he will be gone, etc.

This team should and will go far in my opinion. Banner #17 is no longer a pipedream that we are having to wait another five years to build youngsters up in the hope of competing.

Bonus question – Big Al and Oden would have been one of the best PF-C combos the league has seen since, what, Robinson and Duncan? Realistically, that’s what you’d want as plan A. On the other hand, Pierce-Allen-Garnett is a heck of a plan B.

Brick….Right on.

I remember how lucky Red Auerbach was in the various trades and pickups he made. How about McHale & Parrish;
Dennis Johnson; Don Nelson; Paul Silas; Charlie Scott not to mention getting JoJo White as he was passed due to military commitments.
Red was lucky along with shrewed trading.

I’m not entirely sold on Delonte West per the comment above on how much we will miss him.

I love D. West play, hustle, good defender, and showing some signs he is capable of handling pg duties as well as sg.

Problems with it though are he still has those “tweener” issues. Last year he shot only 42% from the floor which isn’t going to get it done long term in the NBA. The biggest thing though is the guy’s durability. He’s missed roughly a dozen games each of the last two seasons and there were games last year when he was obviously in pain and had no business being on the court.

I do think D West has the potential to be a solid 16 pt a game player and maybe the 3rd option on a relatively talented team. However, I think the chances are greater that D. West will continue to have injury issues this year and/or throughout his career than the chances that the Celts will not be playing in the Eastern finals this year.

Great comments… I agree, it was a combination of skill and luck.

On the bonus question: Heck yes, I’d still rather have Oden or Durant. As it is, we’re set for the next 2 or 3 years. Bring in one of those guys, and (assuming we’re able to re-sign them and trade Pierce for another young stud) we’d be set for 10.

That’s not a knock on KG. I’m excited about this team, too. But there are some top draft picks you just don’t pass on, no matter what: LeBron/Carmelo/Wade. Shaq. Hakeem/Jordan. I think the Oden/Durant draft is in that league. As happy as I am to have a contender in the short term, in the long term I’d still rather be Portland.

Can I take option three, which I suggested before the lottery, and have the second or even first pick and trade it for KG. Then they’d have K.G., AL, and Pierce and enough other assets to get a two guard (probably not Allen but some one else.

The greatest credit to Ainge is that while he was trying to rebuild the team, he never made that truly crippling deal that locked the franchise into a bad situation. Even what now looks like his worst deal, trading Walker for a known-injured Raef, didn’t put the Celtics into a box where they couldn’t do anything else.

Mike

the loss of al MAY hurt in 2-3 years possibly. as for delonte we just replaced him twice over with pruitt and then house so no real loss there. as for al we’ll see though you could easily make a case that no matter what happens kg will always be a better defender than al will ever be.

Hat off to Danny for his hard and dedicated work on improving our roster. I am excited to be able see us compete in basketball games this upcoming season. I feel better about our chances no mater whom we play. i prdict we will win mamny more games, than we lose be in the palyoffs winn a round or two and have a real good possibility of competeing for the NBA championship next June. That is a feeling I have not had for a few year now so Danny deserves credit ofr that and what is to come. I bet Doc as our coach will deliver as well.

Doc, please keep Senator Larry Craig out of the Celtics locker room.

Call me crazy, but as estatic as I am about what the Celtics have done, I’d take Big Al, Oden, Gerald, Rondo, Gomes, and whatever Pierce brought back over what we have now. The only reason I say that is because there is a greater personal attachment as a fan, when you watch a team grow, and later succeed. Seeing Big Al & co. struggle, develop, and then win is more satisfying than trading for strangers. Part of that might also be the 10 years you grow with a player, versus the 3 years you buy one for. That being said. I’m VERY excited about the Celtics. It’s like asking what you like better, NY Sirloin or Filet Minion. Lobster or kaviar. You really can’t go wrong, and the only difference is personal taste.

Real World. You’re crazy.

As excited as I am for this team, I would rather have won the lottery.

Celtics fans have been waiting for so long for a winning team. If we won the lottery, it will be another tenfold of development. I want to win now while the sun is still shining… ;)

I’ve never bought a ticket, but yeah, I guess I too would like to have won the lottery. I don’t know how I’d go about spending all the money, but I’d figure something out.

I might as well defend what I wrote.

Imagine being in a car with someone navigating for you. You come up to a fork… and that person says “go left”… but there’s a tree in the road… so you have to right. You come up to another one… and he says “go right”… but there’s a car wreck… so you have to go left.

Eventually… you get to where you’re going. But what if you had actually taken the turns that person originally told you to take? Did this person really do a good job of navigating… or did you get to where you were going by accident?

I agree with the notion that Danny did a great job the the deals he made… but I don’t think it can be denied that if Danny had gotten what he wanted… we’d be nowhere near where we are now.

I’ll gladly file this under “rather be lucky than good”… and I’d rather win a title under a lucky GM than lose under a good one.

Only if we got Durant. He is the next big thing in the NBA and only if we had drafted him would I be happier. With that said, I’m still getting a lot of sleep these days.

If ‘’eventually… you get to where you’re going’’ why do you assume the navigator was merely lucky? Maybe he did longer to get you there then you would’ve liked, but then maybe you were overly optimistic in thinking he was going to be able to take you by the most direct route possible.

You know, I’ve been on trips where I’ve never gotten to where I was originally headed. And so have many NBA teams.

I’d rather have Oden and Jefferson.

5 years from now we’d still be contenders…instead in 5 years we’ll be perennial lottery hopefuls.

I assume he was lucky because he originally wanted to go in a different direction. But we got to where we are now because we didn’t go in that direction.

I’ll readily admit that it’s possible we would have gotten here if some of Danny’s plan had worked out. There’s no way of knowing. It’s possible we could have gotten Garnett and still had pieces left over to bring in a Ray Allen type of guy. It’s also possible that we wouldn’t.

 I somehow feel partly responsible (or to blame – lol) for this discussion – for good or bad.

Great points being made here.

If anyone is interested I put up my response to this issue as it was raised on Red’s blog.

Here’s the link…

http://mvn.com/nba-celtics/2007/08/28/i-meant-to-do-that/

Have at it – and me.

Cheers!
T

Thanks, RedsArmy, for the clarification. I still think that using the terms dumb luck, etc., does not seem to further your argument. I think your thesis is still muddy and your proof doesn’t lead to your conclusion. When you said that if Danny had gotten what he wanted [read: originally pursued], we wouldn’t be where we are now — well, of course. If that’s your point, then your thesis could simply be: months ago, Danny’s eyes were set on Kevin Durant and the longterm. Now, he’s got Kevin Durant and is a contender. It’s when you try to attribute skill and luck, etc. to Danny that things get confusing.

Your use of the term luck, especially dumb luck, is really out of place. Your car driving example was helpful in clarifying what you were getting at, but I don’t think it furthered your point. It was built on a somewhat tricky premis: that Danny always only had two options: drive into an accident or be forced (seemingly requiring little skill on his part — anyone could’ve done it) to take a road that was obviously better. I’m not sure it’s that cut and dry.

If we have to work inside your scenario, I’d make a few additional notes . Half the GMs in the league would’ve just stopped at the forks. And a good 1/4 would’ve driven right into the tree or the accident. Danny’s lucky? No. Danny was traveling a road that had scenery and obstacles that were always new and the road conditions were always changing, but he kept navigating to get to the destination: a contender. Were the Sonics and Wolves and the agents of House, Pollard, and Posey calling Danny while he was on vacation saying, ‘Please, please take these guys — we’ve constructed a contender for you’? No. More accurately, I think the lottery presented a huge road block (not a fork) and then Danny had to construct a road to get where he wanted to go (contending for a title). Also, I fear that your scenario about navigating a car gives little credit to a driver who was able to finish a road with many hazards and obstacles.

I think your argument also is based on comparing apples and oranges. You’re argument assumes that winning now is superior to winning later (if we had been able to go the Kevin Durant route). But these are apples and oranges, in many senses. Had Danny wanted to throw massive amounts of money at Rashard Lewis after trading Jefferson for Pau Gasol, and that plan fell through and the KG stuff was the fallout plan — then I think that would really be a great situation for your discussion’s angle and focus. But, a lot of your argument is effectively that Danny didn’t get Durant (etc. etc.), so he went shortterm. Just like you said, no one is going to disagree with that. It’s your supplemental conclusions (dumb luck, accidental, etc.) that are hard to agree with.

Again, I think you presented a very accurate and helpful history of Danny’s directions (thank you for that), but I think you may be reaching for what you’re concluding about Danny’s abilities, etc. Did Danny foresee this six months ago? No. Does that mean he has dumb luck and accidentally threw together a contender? Only if he went on vacation the moment the lottery happened, made no phone calls to the Wolves, Sonics, or any free agent’s agents, and only answered ‘yes’ to all phone calls he received with offers.

I recall Danny saying this was his plan all along, to build assets to trade for veteran help for Paul. He drafted very well and still was able to keep Perk, Tony Allen, and Rondo while aquiring two veterans stars.
Danny Ainge is a lock for GM of the year and deserves it!

Let’s make this simple.

Danny was the navigator… and the driver (we’re just sitting in the backseat kibitzing). There isn’t a reliable map, and like a lot of us who have been lost on dark country roads, he was making it up as he went along. But now he seems to have us near our destination, and we haven’t yet run out of gas.

people keep saying he was “lucky” to fall into plan B. I hate to tell you all that you are wrong on this idea. When Danny got here plan A was to move players he didn’t like, pick up talent in the draft, and free up some money. Then use the money/trade chips to add some vets to the players he liked already on the team. Then came last year… We fell pray to the “hurt player” bug and the up coming draft was VERY top heavy. So came plan B. Scrap this year and try to win the Loto.(we all remember how that went. Right?) So what did Danny do?… Go back to plan A. Trade our chips for vets. The only thing that was not apart of plan A was getting rid of Al (keep the players you like) But it was needed. So call what happen as plan “A 2.0” He was always working to trade a chunk of the team for vets. He just happen to trade more then I think he was planning. The only luck I think has been the Loto (and that was bad!)

So everyone assumes this team is an automatic contender? I sure don’t. Right now the glass isn’t half full or half empty. It’s opaque. So let’s not evaluate Ainge on these moves (or apportion the results between luck and skill) until the team has actually played a few regular season games.

 Brickowski said:

So everyone assumes this team is an automatic contender? I sure don’t. Right now the glass isn’t half full or half empty. It’s opaque. So let’s not evaluate Ainge on these moves (or apportion the results between luck and skill) until the team has actually played a few regular season games.

I believe you are of the very few sir. I’ve looked at every message board of every team in the league and they ALL feel as though the Celtics [i]will be [i]a contender this year. From the so called experts to the most hated Celtic fan…understand talent and yes, WE have talent now. Not guys with “potential” and that have “potential to be talented”….we have TALENT! Your comment just does not make any basketball sense whatsoever. A contender to what maybe I should ask? A contender to win it all? A contender to make the playoffs? A contender to win the division? If that’s the case, the Pistons arent an automatic contender. The Suns aren’t an automatic contender…..come on man. Anyone with a brain knows taht an injury here or there and there goes a teams season. With a fully healthy squad, all year long, we would have to play with the lights out on our side of the court every night to NOT be an automatic contender.

Obviously, I’m one of the many!!

No, you’re wrong there, Brick. The glass is either more half full or empty. We might not correctly assess its condition, and it may look opaque to you, but it is one or the other. And I’m saying it looks pretty close to full to me. The season ahead will tell the tale. (But thanks for raining on the parade.)

Mainevent, I think Jeff has a rule against shouting with both italics and boldfaced font. And if you use all caps, I think you get kicked off the blog for a week.

didnt mean to shout. Never do. I just didnt realize that when I went to italicize one word, the whole dern paragraph ended up like that and you cant edit it once i’s posted.
I dont shout at people I respect ;D

Yes, Brick I do respect you…..but…..

Pruitt isn’t nearly the player West is and never will be.

Just dumb luck? Probably. But Celtics are relevant and a “player” again in the East. Maybe Red is pulling some strings or calling in some favors. And thank you Kevin! And thank whomever changed KG’s mind.

If we had gotten Oden or Durant we wouldn’t necessarily have been set for the next 10 years. We would still be a few players away and 2-3 years of developing to be POSSIBLY in the position we are in right this very moment. In 10 years if one of those two are superstars then we may feel differently, but at this point I would chose the definite 2-3 year shot at a possible shot for 5-6 years. Either one is just a shot though, no guarantees.

I don’t agree – I think KG was plan A all along. He would have traded durant or oden to get him if we were luckier in the draft and we would of had more assets left after that trade. But give Ainge credit – he was still able to do the deal

I guess Ainge can never do anything right, huh? He’s lucky whenever something goes well, and he’s a terrible, Billy-Hunter awful GM when he does something wrong.

Ainge has said all along this was his plan: the 3 D’s. Draft talent, develop it, deal it for proven commodities. He’s said this from day 1. The current Celtics roster is a result of that plan. Who cares if he traded for LaFrentz? Who cares if he didn’t draft Brandon Roy? Does any of that matter in the here and now? No, not one iota. This is the best chance the Celtics have had to win it all since they had Bird. And that’s the point of playing in the NBA- to win championships. You don’t amass young talent for the sake of amassing young talent. Everything an NBA GM does should be geared towards raising a banner. That’s what Ainge has done. He’s put the Celtics organization in the best position it’s been in since Larry Bird to win it all. That’s why he should win GM of the year.

Let me ask Brick (and the other doubters) this: what makes you so sure Big Al and all the young talent everyone drools over is going to win at all? All this “young talent” won 24 games last year, including 18 loses in a row. I don’t care about the coach; I saw those games, and this team played with zero pride. Just like the current roster hasn’t played a game, you can’t guarantee any of the kids, including Big Al, will amount to anything because they haven’t done anything yet. Big Al might haunt the Celtics down the road, but West? Please. I’ve never seen a player pass up so many open shots. Gerald Green? If it’s a dunk, he’ll spend hours working on it. But his overall game? He claims to work on it, but how do we know he is? And if all these players agreed to tank to get the high lottery pick, I don’t want them. So to use your own logic, Brick, the glass is opaque in Minny, too, because all that “talent” has not proven a thing.

Brickowski said:
  So everyone assumes this team is an automatic contender? I sure don’t. Right now the glass isn’t half full or half empty. It’s opaque. So let’s not evaluate Ainge on these moves (or apportion the results between luck and skill) until the team has actually played a few regular season games.

Your point is most valid. In fact, one team’s GM made the same basic comment at the “New Big Three” press conference. His name was Danny Ainge who basically said we haven’t won anything yet.

I should probably go on record and say the C’s are now a contender for it all.

Cousin It said:
  As excited as I am for this team, I would rather have won the lottery.

We did win the lottery. (My one true regret is loosing Big Al. It was so great seeing him do his offensive thing in the low post. In this aspect of the game I think he is better than KG right now).

By the way, I also have a feeling that this summer will show that Doc Rivers CAN coach! I hate his in game coaching strategies…always have since he’s been here, but you really have to look at what he had to work with. Paul, Rick, Raef, Mark “bad news” Blount, Wally….what “true” honest to goodness classy, healthy, prime veterans has he had to work with? He was coaching a JV team and making them run against the varsity every night. Honestly, I think anyone would be scatterbrain dealing with a bunch of kids straight outta high school or college, in our case high school. Do you really think that the kids un-grown like behavior didn’t happen after games, in practice, on the road. Hell, it was like babysitting a bunch of kids with huge expense accounts. Doc looked tired a LOT of games. Danny’s biggest coup MAY be keeping Doc around. Wouldn’t it be something if Doc won Coach of the year and Danny won GM of the year? Heck, why not go all out…..Wyc, Steve and Bob can win Execs of the year, Lucky can win Mascot of the year, one of our cheerleaders can win Cheerleader of the year…..
Danny is AMAZING!!!
 ;) ;D

TrueGreen
Leon Powe

Re: Danny only Lucky? Red only Brilliant?
Â" Reply #11 on: Today at 09:17:51 AM Â"
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As to whether or not Red was lucky, I think he would be the first to admit that you need some luck. -Bob Cousy-Red didn’t like him and picked his name out of a hat. -KC Jones-I think Russ influenced Red to bring KC here. Red acknowledged not liking KC as a player until he noticed what happened between the time KC entered and left a game. -Larry Bird-Not luck, pure guts and genius. Red knew Bird wanted to finish college before he drafted him. He promised Bird he would try once to convince him to leave college early and would then leave him alone. He then only had to sign him before the next draft and went down fighting and screaming before paying him $450,000. A good GM needs brilliance, guts, a gambling nature, preparedness and luck to be successful.

TrueGreen
Leon Powe

Re: Danny only Lucky? Red only Brilliant?

Danny does his job of GM the same way he did his job as a player. He worked hard to improve his game. He learned by listening to others. He asked questions. He played hard. When he took a dirty elbow he went after the guy who did it, even if he was twice his size (Tree Rollins incident). He did it with humor, dignity and grace (as when he was traded by Red). He never stopped learning. He brings all this and more to his GM job.

The glass half full or half empty?

Danny put a damm Menthos in my coke because my glass is bubbling over!

Brickowski -Pruitt isn’t nearly the player West is and never will be.

And what sort of player would that be? I mean, DWest has been in the league for several years now and I don’t think anyone can argue that he looks like he’s going to be a great PG (like Chris Paul, Deron Williams, etc). As much as I like DWest, he looks like he’s shaping up to be another one of those combo guards who hang around the league for a long time but are never really great players.

If the Cs don’t win a title in the next 3 years, we may come to regret trading Al. But I’ll be very surprised if Ainge can’t find another DWest type combo guard in future drafts.

Mike

Defending Eastern Championship players who played for the Cavs when they clinched the East title beating Detroit by 16 points to make the NBA finals:

  L. James
  D. Gooden
  Z. Ilgauskas
  S. Pavlovic
  L. Hughes
  A. Varejao
  D. Gibson
  D. Marshall
  E. Snow
  D. Jones

How can naysayers look at our roster compared to that and not think we have a shot at contending to make the NBA finals? Oooh Nellie!

The only problem, docextension, is the first 3 letters of your moniker.

In June we found out after receiving the number 5 pick Danny had to trade for veterans and or pickup vet free agents to keep Pierce. Trying to win games with players around the age of 21 without Pierce did not work. Where I got confused it doesn’t take much, if Danny got Oden or Durant if I remember correctly the Celtics were all set. That did not happen so we had to get vets that were great or we would lose Pierce so the decision to go all out for vet players happened. Danny and the scouts know talent and have done well drafting which led to today’s roster. Personally I believe it was less a risk not to trade away 5 players and 2 future number 1’s for KG but if you want to see a possible championship right away they needed to do it. I hope health is on our side and we have a couple of years to win it but it will be exciting if that happens.

I’m with Real World.

As exciting as the current team is, I loved every minute of watching the kids grow into genuine NBA players.

That other aspect I really enjoyed was that the guys appeared to be genuinely nice people and from everything I have read, were good friends and a very tight group.

That in itself explains to me why they competed so hard every night, even during the tough test that was last season.

Give me Oden or Durant and I would be a pig in mud, very happy watching the team continue to develop into genuine contenders within the next three years and then continue contending for the next eight years.

The bottom line is, for the first time in 23 years of following the Celtics, I will have a genuine second team to follow.

That said, I am sure after watching KG for the first few games, I will fall in love with his intensity and “bring it every night” attitude.

I will also love watching Paul benefit from having veteran / All Star team mates. As I have said before, Paul will be the biggest surprise to many people this year.

As always, this die hard Celtic fan will enjoy the ride.

Go the Green !!!!

Cheers

Aussie

I remember my thoughts at the time—“What the hell is Danny Ainge thinking?”—when he he agreed to become GM of the Celtics(a truly thankless job since the late 80’s)…I think the only “luck” he had,was the timing/availability of both Ray Allen and KG….Seriously though,Where would we be if Chris Wallace was still in charge?

Sorry Brick, but Dwest is hustle at its greatest, but not much more. Pruitt’s upside remains to be seen. At this point in his career though, Dwest’s accomplishments aren’t that hard to reach. Underskilled PG and undersized shooting guard. If Pruitt can’t match up to those levels then he will be a dissapointment indeed.

danny has worked his tailbone off and has been terrific. like a good team has a good system but can also make the adjustment to the game at hand, danny has played and adjusted. this town would have had the same buzz as now if we had landed oden or durant. i don’t know what was ever on the table, but i would have preferred to keep big al and traded pierce. and doc would be gone. (but who knows, maybe doc is part of the attraction for kg ).