Rumors are the fish, the internet is the barrel, Ainge has an Agent Zero firearm and he's taking aim.
I've been reading a lot of Ray Allen stories...
You've been reading one Ray Allen story.
Let me rephrase it: I've read a lot of different stories about one Ray Allen rumor. How's that?
There you go. That's my point. There's one little rumor, that's made up by the way, that gets reported that actually ends up being a story every day for a couple of weeks. That's the point I'm trying to make.
Is this just the time for rumors?
There's a lot of rumors that are out there that I read each day that there's no validity to them. Not involving the Celtics, involving other teams. I just laugh at some of them. they make no sense. They don't work financially and they're just not going to happen. They don't work from a basketball standpoint even if they did work mathematically. Then there's a lot that work mathematically that just make no logical sense, but there have been trades that have been done like that too. It's just that time of year. Everybody is in a race to try to find something new, to have people read their stuff. Like they know what's going on more than anybody else, and I just don't believe any of them really do know what's going on.
And my personal favorite:
You've made it clear in the past, with Red [Auerbach] holding on to the original Big Three, that you would have made some of those trades. You have set yourself up that you would not be sentimental. Are the players aware of that?
Yes, but there's one big difference in the situation that I was in as a player in Boston. In 1988, we knew we had no chance of winning a championship. Larry Bird was in two casts on his feet. Kevin McHale wasn't the same player he was physically. We weren't close to winning a championship. Our better days had gone by and we were on the way down. We could be a decent team but we were never going to be a great team again with the same cast of characters.
I think that's different. Right now, with our Big Three we have a legitimate shot at winning a championship. It doesn't mean that we're the favorites, it just means that we have a chance. There's a difference between breaking up something that could win a championship and those opportunities just don't come along all the time. That's the difference between 1988 and now.