Danny 'WaRChEsT' Ainge was playing Chess while much of RealGM was playing Checkers.

[Ryoga Hibiki]

Yeah but he hasn't won anything since 2008 and the only reason the Celtics made it through to the finals this season was because of strange circumstances with the Nets and the Middleton injury, so I wouldn't get too excited. Losing in the finals is worse than not making it there in the first place.

he built a YOUNG team with like 3 ECF in 4 years.
to win you need som luck, but only good planning and execution gives you consistent success.

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[lordjeff05]

Ok, so multiple things can be true at the same time. We can agree that Ainge was a good GM without pointing to this year as a validation for all of the moves he made or didn't make. No one thanks Larry RIley or Marc Jackson for putting the Warriors together even though Riley drafted Steph and Klay and Jackson was the first coach to get them to the playoffs. When Ainge left, this team was spinning i's wheels.

In comparing the team now vs. where it was at the end of last year or even at the beginning of this year, there are several key differences, none of which had to do with Ainge. 1 Ime changed the defensive scheme to rely of Williams providing off ball rim protection which took a good defensive team and made them elite. 2 players accepted their roles, Tatum as the alpha, Brown as the number 2 and Smart more as a distributor than as a shooter. 3 the team became mentally tougher and more resilient and stopped making the self-inflicted wounds that hurt them last year and at the start of this year 4 Resigning Al Horford allowed them to play Rob Williams in the new scheme just discussed.

Ime (and the playoff injuries but that happens every year) has way more to do with this team being a championship contender than Danny Ainge does. He implemented a new scheme, provided mental toughness that was lacking previously and got guys to buy in to their roles more than they had in years prior. He has put them over the top. Stevens didn't make any huge moves but bring back Horford has also been pretty crucial to the success of the team.

[dc]

No one thanks Larry RIley or Marc Jackson for putting the Warriors together even though Riley drafted Steph and Klay and Jackson was the first coach to get them to the playoffs. When Ainge left, this team was spinning i's wheels.

Jackson often gets credit (that he shouldn't get) for improving the Warriors defense. In fact it was Mike Malone (specifically hired as the defensive assistant) who actually did the coaching on that end. That explains why Malone has now been an NBA head coach for 9 years and is still going.

Riley was kind of getting pushed down in the pecking order when Klay was drafted and was basically just the GM in name only, as Bob Myers was already been groomed to take over. It was Jerry West who heavily pushed to draft Klay.

Riley should get a ton of credit for drafting Steph, tho. He drafted him even when Curry's agent told him directly, in no uncertain terms, not to draft his client. His agent refused to grant the Warriors an interview or workout. It didn't matter to Riley. He didn't get pushed around by the agent and simply drafted the guy he wanted.

[MrSparkle]

Long defended his build. Nobody could've done better, short of super-selling Durant during the 2016 FA pitch. One of the best decade+ GM tenures in NBA history. The way the Hayward/Kyrie season fell apart, it was really out of his hands. Great (backup) idea, though - plan A was obviously Durant.

[Lost Angel]

if Lavar Ball wasn't such a magnificent marketer than maybe the Lakers would've done the sensible thing and pick Tatum (who they liked!!) instead of falling to the pressure of the home town point guard.

[Edrees]

I think this thread is premature. If they dont win the championship I highly contest that you can say it's playing chess.

[LordCovington33]

viewtopic.php?f=6&t=1899006&p=78879924&hilit=brown#p78879924

Found it for you.

Poll results

71% bad for Boston

*Edit. It was actually at 78% for bad for Boston but it was bumped last year so went down to 71%. Just go read the first 3-4 pages

My bad. I thought the new contract was signed the year when he was already a 20PPG player (I thought the 4th season numbers were his 3rd ones ).

2nd season numbers: 14.5/5/1.5
3rd season numbers: 13/4/1.5
(Sign extension)
4th season: 20/6.5/2

I don’t think you can really blame people for thinking that 25m for a player whose numbers got worse from year 2 and 3 was an overpay. The jump in production after that was crazy. Kudos to Ainge for having faith in Brown. It paid off.

of course you can, if they make some asbolute statements ignoring the context assuming that the executive is a complete idiots.
if you approach it that way and you end up so ridicolously wrong you must expect to called out.

I also mentioned that it looked too much for me, in this thread, but I decided not to call out Ainge conceding that he had much more info on hand.

___
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You seem kinda angry, unnecessarily. lol I have no issue with being called out - did I say I didn’t? Like you, I am just an anonymous dude on a keyboard so why would I care how people here perceive me? Some take out their internet persona more seriously than others - as I can see here.

[scottyno]

The one glaring thing I hated about Aigne's tenure was Kyrie. Bringing cancer into a locker room as young as that one was was a terrible idea. And then being naive enough to think Kyrie was gonna resign cost them a chance to trade him at the deadline. And what no one talks about is that the reason Horford left for Philly is because he didn't want to play with Kyrie. The whole thing cost them massively.
That team of Smart/Tatum/Brown/Horford/Hayward would have been phenomenal if they had traded Kyrie at the deadline and gotten some complementary pieces.

Other than that, Ainge did a create job maximizing the value of the chest.

Horford left because he didn't want to play with Kyrie... who the whole world knew was going to leave Boston already? Yeah that doesn't check out.

Horford obviously accepted tampering, and decided to leave before it was known Kyrie would leave himself.

Whether he really was as firmly committed to Philly as it seemed he was is less clear.

The whole world knew Kyrie was leaving before the Celtics were eliminated from the playoffs, and expected it going back to midseason, so no.

[NO-KG-AI]

People make fun of situations like this and the process because when it first happens and they see possible superstars surrounded by a plethora of picks and they hate the idea that some team other than their own could be flush with talent, so when it doesn't work out in a way where they end up with a team of 4 all stars and MVPs they come out the woodwork to get their shots in. They just are hoping for the failure of it all more than they think it is an actual failure.

[California Gold]

I don't think he had a real "war chest" to begin with. It's also hard to nail picks and trades right consistently in the league. To his credit it seems like Ainge did decently well.

[robbie84]

People make fun of situations like this and the process because when it first happens and they see possible superstars surrounded by a plethora of picks and they hate the idea that some team other than their own could be flush with talent, so when it doesn't work out in a way where they end up with a team of 4 all stars and MVPs they come out the woodwork to get their shots in. They just are hoping for the failure of it all more than they think it is an actual failure.

I wish I could give this post a thousand And 1's.
Thankyou.