Danny's Three Jobs

[elrod enchilada]

http://www.realgm.com/src_feature_artic ... for_danny/

[cloverleaf]

Great article, Elrod! I love the bits about Red.

[celticfan42487]

You're a good writer. Hope you're getting paid.

[SonicYouth34]

That was really good. The part about the future was dead on IMO.

[elrod enchilada]

Thanks for the kind words. I can hardly wait for the show to begin.

[Jammer]

Excellent article. The one minor nit that I have is the reference to Auerbach fleecing people, which you often see in print. In fact, it's not true. I wrote the RealGM article on the Celtics in early 2001 where I went thru every trade of significance that the Celtics ever had. They were pretty fair. What was amazing was that in something like 31 out of 34 years (don't remember the exact amount now), Auerbach drafted the best player available.

The few times Auerbach passed over someone (Paul Silas in 1964, drafted 7 footer Mel Counts, who was swapped straight up for Bailey Howell, enabling the 1968 and 1969 championships), Auerbach acquired Silas 7 years later for the NBA rights to Charlie Scott. Ditto Curtis Rowe. Havlicek was a 40 mpg full time SF in 1971, the Celtics went looking for a PF, but got Curtis Rowe 7 years later in a 3 way trade sending out Paul Silas and Tom Boswell.

The McHale-Parish trade can't be counted as a fleece because it was proposed by Golden State, the team the Celtics obtained Parish and McHale from. Parish was exactly what he was in Golden State, except better paid with the Celtics. McHale was way better than expected, Joe Barry Carroll was not as good as expected for a #1 draft pick, and there was absolutely no one for Golden State to draft with the Celtics #13 pick that year. But still, it was proposed by Golden State.

The Rick Robey for Dennis Johnson trade in 1983 was not a fleece, because at the time, the Celtics were giving up a 27 year old 6' 11" 1978 #3 pick Center with NCAA and NBA Championships for a soon to be (September) 29 year old PG.

The only "fleece" I can think of was the 1984 trade of Gerald Henderson for the Sonics 1986 First Round Pick, without protection, and that was the Sonics fault for not thinking to put any protection on the pick. Since Lenny Bias did not survive to ever play in the NBA, the Sonics actually got the better of that trade.

Back in the days of an 8 to 10 team league, Auerbach would often use his second and third round picks to acquire a backup center or third string PG. The equivalent today would be swapping two #16 picks or a #16 AND #24 pick for a backup center or two #24 picks for a third string PG. Not exactly fleeces.

And in the Bill Sharman trade, within days of Auerbach's arrival in Boston and not long after the 1950 draft, he swapped the Celtics 1950 First Round Pick for the Washington 1950 Second Round Pick, netting a 7 time All-Star and future All-Star Game MVP. Again, on the surface, it seemed reasonable at the time.

The Russell trade was two All-Stars (McCauley and Hagan) for one of the GOAT.

Tommy Heinsohn, the second best player of the 1956 draft behind Russell, was acquired the one time the Celtics exercised their territorial rights to a player (swapping your First Round Draft Pick for a "local" guy), allowing the Celtics to move up from 5th to 2nd in the draft at no cost.

Bigger strokes of luck were 1961 #3 pick Larry Siegfried shunning the Lakers to sign for George Steinbrenner's rival ABL Cleveland franchise for twice his Laker salary, AT SIGNING, winning an ABL championship, the league going bust early the next year, Siegfried, already paid twice his Laker offer for the year, sitting out, thereby becoming a free agent in the summer, Cousy not being offered a contract by Auerbach at age 36, and signing Siegfried to back up Sam Jones and KC Jones at both guard spots.

Or, Don Nelson getting cut by the Lakers at age 25, and the Celtics signing him after the former #19 pick cleared waivers; and then watching Nelson dramatically improve his shooting ability, out to 19 feet, over the next 3 years.

The point is Auerbach maintained excellence by consistently drafting the Best Available Player, regardless of position, when his turn to draft came up, helped by other teams often leaving someone on the board who should not have been available (Sam Jones, best player of the 1957 draft, at #8; John Havlicek, best player of the 1962 draft, at #9; Tom Sanders, 5th best player of the 1960 draft, at #8); Dave Cowens, best player of the 1970 draft, at #4; Jo Jo White, 4th best player of the 1969 draft (Behind Kareem Abdul Jabbar and Bobby Dandridge, who went #43) at #10; and Paul Westphal at #10 in 1972; just to rattle off a few off the top of my head.

Of course, with fewer teams in the league, your turn to draft came up much sooner, so it was easier to pick other teams misses. WIth the 64 team NCAA tournament (versus 16 back then); and the pre-draft workouts, camps; this is much harder to do today, except with so many kids leaving early rather than staying 4 years, gems fall thru the cracks much more often than they used to because their is less time to see what a player has.

PS: One of the most important "trades" that is all but forgotten by Boston writers was the 1976 purchase of 1971 #2 pick Sydney Wicks contract for $2 million cash. Two years later, Wicks was part of the mega-trade that netted Tiny Archibald, Billy Knight (who became Danny Ainge and Rick Robey, who became Dennis Johnson), and two of the three first round picks that were used to acquire Bob McAdoo, who was swapped for the 1980 #1 Draft pick, which was used to acquire Parish and McHale.

[elrod enchilada]

Good points, and at some point I would like to respond. For now, a few quickies.

You are right, that the key to Red's success was shrewd drafting.

The Henderson deal alone was enough to cement Red's "fleecing" honor. Had Len lived and developed as many ACC observers projected, that deal alone would have entered the fleecing hall-of-fame.

Why wasn't the Robey-DJ trade a world-class fleecing? He traded a marginal back-up hack bigman who would soon be out of the league for a multiple-all-star hall-of-fame guard who would be a major star on two NBA championships. At the time of a trade the fleeced team always can rationalize its deal, or else there would be no trade. But is was still a major fleecing. The reason Phoenix made the deal was because of concerns about DJ's attitude, so it was a firesale of sorts. Red was smart enough to get to first in line.