| Has Danny Ainge Jumped The Shark? Authored by Elrod Enchilada - June 22, 2007 - 6:40 pm
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For four years Danny Ainge has guided the Celtics with a clear vision: get younger, get more talent, be patient. Build from within. When you are able to make your move into contention, do not do it as a flash in the pan, but be in a position to remain in contention for a decade. Attempt no shortcuts a la Pitino; those invariably backfire and leave you worse off than where you started. Dumb teams everywhere get inpatient and seek short term improvement at the expense of ever being a legitimate contender. Danny was committed from the get-go not to fall into that trap.
Danny bit the bullet trading away almost every player with any value aside from Pierce to go much much younger. Without cap space to sign free agents and without lotto picks he managed to acquire some promising young talent. Except for a few brain farts - like signing Blount and trading for Telfair -- he has executed his plan effectively. Despite going an injury-induced 24-58, the Cs have an intriguing collection of young talent, led by Big Al Jefferson, Rajon Rondo, Gerald Green, Tony Allen, Delonte West, Ryan Gomes and Kendrick Perkins. All those guys are legit rotation players, some are legit starters, and a couple, most notably Big Al, may become all-stars. Few teams in the league have seven players of this quality under the age of 25.
Due to injuries, the 06-07 season was a disaster. The silver lining is that the Cs get the 5th pick overall. There will be excellent talent available for the Cs to pick from. There will also be a decent prospect there at pick 32 in the second round. This is a deep draft, and the player there may well be of the same caliber as players taken in the 20s in other years, guys like Allen, West and Rondo.
Everything seems in position for the Cs to get much better next year and become a 50 win team in 2008-09. If the Cs allow Ratliff's and Szczerbiak's contracts to expire, they can have a core team in place that is both young and experienced and talented going forward. And the team can have its core under long-term contract and still be south of luxury tax land. Now this does not mean the Cs might not want to deal for a veteran or shuffle assets or sign MLE free agents in the next two years - that may well be appropriate - only that Danny Ainge has built a solid base to build from. This has been the mantra from Wyc Grousbeck, who in interview after interview has praised the long-term patient approach and made clear that he is not a “day trader.”
But ever since the tragic events of May 22, a far more pessimistic story line has come like a dark cloud over Celtics Nation. Sportswriters like Steve Bulpett, Shira Springer and Peter May have all weighed in on the imperative need to trade youth and maybe even the high lotto pick for a veteran, to make the team respectable in the near term. (The question of what this would do for the team's chance to ever actually win a title has fallen conspicuously from view. The goal now has been ratcheted down to simply making a bang in the impoverished eastern conference. Titles, apparently, and no longer worth even considering. Let's be happy to win 49 games and maybe sneak into the second round of the playoffs. Then after Pierce and the other veteran are washed up, we go back to square one and revel in the glory of our illustrious six-game loss to the Magic or the Wizards in the second round of the 2009 playoffs. Long run? Screw the long run. In the long run we will all be dead.) The tenor of the analysis has been almost hysterical at times. It has been echoed by many on the boards at Real GM and elsewhere.
Such a response is understandable. It is a drag to have a 24-58 team. Indeed, what is striking is how utterly supportive Cs fans have been toward the Ainge era teams. To a remarkable extent, Cs fans have bought into his vision and have fallen in love with his kids. In my view it demonstrates that Cs fans are among the most sophisticated in the nation. But the beat reporters are sick and tired of youth and losing. They want to cover a playoff team. And coach Doc Rivers knows that he needs to win a lot more games next year or he is going to be fired. So screw contention, do whatever we can to get into the playoffs in 2008. And fans, too, are growing a bit impatient. When exactly is this turn around going to take place? Maybe it is time to gamble and try to jump start the process? It sure seems like a lot of all-star veterans are on the market. Maybe we should grab one and try to raise a little hell next year. After all, Paul Pierce is about to turn 30 and he might start bellyaching if he does not get another veteran to play alongside him.
None of this would matter if there were not ominous signs that Danny Ainge, the grand visionary himself, has decided to short circuit his program and seek short-term improvement at the expense of ever being able to legitimately contend for a generation, as he initially promised.
Now all of this is based on hearsay and news reports by reporters with their own agendas, but put together it gives the clear impression that Danny has, to draw from the metaphor about when TV shows get desperate to keep audiences, “jumped the shark.”
To what, exactly, am I referring?
1. The week of loud rumors about an impending Garnett to Boston deal for Big Al and the no. 5 pick and possibly even Gerald Green. All the rumors had Boston wildly overpaying for Garnett, and putting them in a position where they would have no hope of winning the NBA title. Yet all indications are that there was serious talk and Big Al and the no. 5 pick were in play. In fact, several Boston sportswriters were tripping over their tongues as they enthused about the prospect. This would have been like the Antoine Walker trade of 2005 on steroids. We would have gotten a much better player, but we would have given up much more of our future in return.
2. The constant talk about drafting Jeff Green or Corey Brewer with the first pick of the draft. The rationale was not that these were markedly better prospects than the other players available at the time; instead it was simply that these guys were “ready to play,” as Doc Rivers put it. Drafting a player on the grounds that he is “ready to play” is the sure fire sign of an NBA franchise that is not in the business of winning championships. It is also a sign that a GM has no idea what he is doing. The draft, especially the high lottery, is where you draft the player who has the best chance to be a superstar, even if it takes several years for the player to develop. Because only teams with superstars win titles, not teams with role players who are ready to play. The Cs still can use a superstar, if you haven't noticed. The Cs can use the MLE free agent slot to find someone “ready to play.” I want the patient visionary Danny drafting who came up with Perkins and Jefferson and Green and Rondo; not some guy looking for a player because he is most ready to contribute in his rookie season.
3. The incessant talk that Danny is eager to trade the pick for Marion or some other veteran. Dumb, dumb, dumb, for all the reasons listed above.
In my view it is clear the Cs are not close enough to having the talent to win a title that we can afford to trade off our very best young player and/or a lotto pick for a veteran and think we can contend. We need to be patient and wait to make our move in that direction. In fact, I am not opposed to trading our 2008 no. 1 pick this summer or next season before the trade deadline. Let's just stay the course for the time being. We need to be patient. We have nothing to be gained by acting desperate. Right now it is premature, Doc's career and Steve Bulpett's impatience notwithstanding.
I would sleep better if Danny would come forward and make clear that he has not jumped the shark, but his comments, such as they are, play into this story line. We can hope and pray that he has not gone the way of Pitino and lost all patience. If he has, we are in for another decade of championship-less basketball in New England.
So has Danny Ainge jumped the shark? We will have a much better idea come June 28. Like countless other Celtics fans, I have my fingers crossed. |
