Who’s Afraid of Danny Ainge?
How the Boston Celtics’ recent moves have changed league perspectives of the veteran GM
It’s probably not a bad idea to preface this by making note of the possibility that these seemingly illogical moves are in fact part of Danny Ainge’s long game and a sort of con on the rest of the NBA. He knows his moves much better than I — or any ‘analyst’ for that matter — do, and he’s made plenty of people look stupid by looking further to the future than anyone expects him too.
Danny Ainge and Sam Hinkie aren’t too different in their approaches to franchise building. Yes, Ainge has a ring. Yes, Ainge is a year removed from being the East’s #1 seed in what was widely expected to be a rebuilding year. Yes, Ainge presently has a job working for an NBA team. Hinkie has none of those three and wasn’t even close to two of them. Whatever differences Hinkie and Ainge had, however, were almost exclusively a result of their varying short-term visions. In the nine seasons since Ainge was promoted to President of Basketball Operations, the Celtics have made the playoffs eight times with a combined regular season record of 414–307. In the two and a half years Hinkie was GM, he went 47–195. Danny Ainge won basketball games. Sam Hinkie didn’t. None of this is an indictment of Hinkie, but instead an indication that Ainge is quite savvy as an executive. It’s not easy to simultaneously win and rebuild, and Ainge deserves credit for keeping the Celtics relevant while forming a team for the future.
Despite these rather significant differences, the pair’s similarities are what will ultimately define each of their tenures. Both were, before anything else, asset builders. Both piled up future draft picks and stashed foreign players. Both won nearly every deal they brokered and, frankly, robbed a few teams blind. Both were remarkable at finding and exploiting over- and under-valuations of both veterans and prospects. They had nearly identical long-term plans.
The point, however, that Ainge unsuspectingly reached last season — one of success, depth, and solid team chemistry — has affected his mindset much more than many Celtics’ fans would like. Ainge’s ability to separate the future from the present is part of what has made him so successful over the last decade. He knew how to reconcile immediate needs and anticipated needs, all while keeping an eye 3–5 years ahead. Now that the future has arrived sooner than he’d like, he seems unable to keep his priorities straight. Ainge was seemingly planning for the Celtics to develop and improve while LeBron played out his last years in Cleveland, arriving at dominance soon after LeBron retired. With the moves made this offseason, it’s clear that Ainge has skipped a few years ahead. He believes his Celtics are capable of dethroning the King while managing to stave off the younger Eastern contenders.
Unfortunately for both Ainge and the rest of the organization, the Celtics, despite their recent acquisition of Kyrie Irving (which is now up in the air), are still quite far from the Cavaliers. Prior to this past summer, this was not a problem. They simply had to wait LeBron out while continuing to add to their war chest of assets so that in 2–3 years they could be legitimate title contenders. They might’ve taken a luxury tax hit, but they’d find a way to stay away from being bloated and bogged down with older players on long contracts. Their biggest threat was going to be the 76ers, the only team with better picks and prospects than the Celtics. In the last few months, those plans came to a grinding halt. Ainge wants to win now.
While that mentality is more risky, it’s also how he won a title in 2008: throw caution to the wind and count on your coaching and player development. If this was 2008, this may have worked. If this was 2012, this may have worked. The present NBA, however, is nothing like the NBA ten years ago, nothing like the NBA five years ago. The landscape has changed and there exist essentially only two paths to an NBA Championship: the Warriors/Spurs way (draft well, develop players, maintain depth) and the Heat way (load up as many star Free Agents as possible). The most successful of each have a tiny bit of the other in them: the Warriors sign Kevin Durant, the Cavs draft and develop role player Matthew Dellavedova. The problems in these paths arise when an organization switches too quickly from one to the other, similar to the approaches of the Knicks and Bulls over the last few years, who vacillate between rebuilding for the future and committing to older veterans to win now. While I’m not at all suggesting that the Celtics are fated to end up like either of those teams, I do think that Ainge may have changed his priorities in a fashion that will result in less success both in the short-term and long-term plans for the organization.
Entering the summer of 2017, the Celtics were in arguably the most enviable position in the NBA. Though they were outclassed by the Cavs in the Eastern Finals, they had free agent interest, opposing stars on the trading block (Jimmy Butler, Paul George), and the two most valuable future picks in the league (2017, 2018 unprotected Nets’ first-round picks) in addition to their own and a few others to deal. Two months later, 5 of the Celtics’ top-7 by minutes are gone, replaced by Kyrie Irving, Gordon Hayward, Marcus Morris, and six — count ‘em — six rookies. Only four of the 2016–17 Celtics are still on the roster. Both of those unprotected Nets picks are gone, the 2017 pick traded to the 76ers and the 2018 pick to the Cavs. Even Isaiah Thomas, the 5’9” superstar and spiritual leader of the Celtics, is gone. The NBA has seen some crazy rebuilds, but I can’t think of any team as good as the 2016–17 Celtics that so drastically reworked their roster [I’d appreciate suggestions]. Danny Ainge has changed everything about the Celtics. Are they better than they were last year? We’ll have to see if Brad Stevens can run the team as well as he did last year, but they probably are better. The question is whether the Celtics’ improvements are worth the price Ainge paid. Their bench, once the best in the league, is totally depleted. Their uber-modern and uber-valuable 3-and-D guys (save Jaylen Brown) are gone. Their size and strength are gone.
If Ainge was stripping the team down and selling it piece by piece for the future, I’d understand what he’s doing. If he decided he wanted to tank and build a dynasty through multiple top-5 draft picks year after year, I’d understand what he’s doing. If LeBron left Cleveland and Ainge decided he wanted to take the East by storm, I’d understand what he’s doing. None of those are the case. Ainge wants to beat the Cavs now, and he’s willing to sell away years of patience, work, and assets for the right to lose to the Warriors in the Finals. After years of building from within, Ainge has decided to go the 2008 Celtics route: buy/trade for a few big names and hope it works out.
Ainge’s lack of patience illustrates just how frustrating it’s been to be a 76ers’ fan the last 3–4 years: at some point in time, you’re fed up with building and waiting and you want to win some basketball games. It was in the very opposite mentality, however, that Sam Hinkie found his success. He traded away Rookie of the Year Michael Carter-Williams, held on to and worked with Joel Embiid despite two straight years of foot injuries, and gave undrafted prospects like Robert Covington time on the floor to develop, even though a better immediate option may have been available. Hinkie never cared about ‘winning now’. He cared about building a dynasty. Until recently, Danny Ainge had seemed to think the same way. In his urgency, however, he’s made a few potentially fatal mistakes.
Don’t get me wrong; Ainge has improved his starting lineup. Kyrie is an upgrade (however minor) over Thomas, Hayward is an upgrade over Avery Bradley, and Marcus Morris will most likely be an upgrade over Amir Johnson. It’s likely too that either Jaylen Brown or Jayson Tatum — possibly both — step up to challenge for starting minutes as they develop their game. The Celtics are undoubtedly good.
Why, though, did Ainge decide to take this path to being ‘good’ when he could’ve built a team that’s great? It could be that he low-balled both Indiana and Chicago in his efforts to trade for Paul George and Jimmy Butler, respectively, and they decided they weren’t interested in dealing with him. Seeing the return (or lack thereof) for George and Butler, both better fits and more complete players than Kyrie Irving, Celtics’ fans are left to wonder where the generous package that Ainge sent Cleveland was a month ago when it could have resulted in a starting line-up of Thomas, Hayward, Butler/George, Morris, and Horford with Tatum, Brown, and Marcus Smart off the bench. As a 76ers’ fan, I love that the Celtics are where they are, as it completely opens up the Sixers possibilities for the next 3–4 years (and increases their odds of dominance), but I still don’t quite understand what angle Ainge is playing.
It’s possible that Danny Ainge is playing exclusively for value and has decided that his picks and bevy of looming free agents (Thomas, Bradley) no longer hold enough value to justify withholding them any longer. I understand that Ainge is on the business side of basketball and needs to remove himself personally from his decisions, but he has been around long enough to know that basketball is sometimes most beautiful when it’s completely personal. Yes, Thomas is a year away from a max deal and Kyrie Irving is a much better value, but it was perseverance, not value that turned Thomas into a superstar and Boston god. Thomas didn’t score 53 in the playoffs on his sister’s birthday less than three weeks after she was killed because of business. He did it because it was personal.
Danny Ainge seems to have rapidly altered his team-building mindset, and many are left wondering why. There are rumblings that he’s collecting more tangible assets (players rather than picks) to make another blockbuster move for Anthony Davis or a similar young All-NBA post player. Maybe he’s infatuated with Jayson Tatum and expects him to make an immediate impact to complement Irving and Hayward’s offensive prowess. Maybe it’s just that he’s made a few mediocre trades in a row after winning nearly every deal in which he was involved. Whatever the case, league GMs are no longer asking, “Are we afraid of dealing with Danny Ainge?’
