Fire Ainge: Thanks Danny, but it's time to go

[sully00]

Did I just read turner is an all-star caliber center?


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Are your eyes working? Because it says exactly that.

Turner is 24 and has had a very good career thus far. To say he couldn’t put together an All Star caliber season may be the most greener teamer, Ainge ball washing BS I’ve read on this board.

You guys would rather rag on Turner than just admit that Ainge f*cked up. Such a weird stance to take.

So you don’t believe Zach Lowe?

I do not. Besides LBF's impeccable credibility I think that is a campaign in place to keep MJ from losing his mind. I also think Ainge would have been fine with taking back Turner in a S&T I just don't know how far the road that really was. I think Ainge was still just trying to resign Hayward, probably to trade his ass in year, but still trying to resign him.

[JimmyPlopper]

I'm honestly very frustrated in Ainge. But time to fire him? No. This draft was not some big surprise. He won't trade away assets willingly. He may let them expire without trading them in time. When playoff teams are built on guys like Kyrie, Al, and Gordon, who are on last year of contract, its never that stable of a team in the first place. Its just a shortcut way to approach team building. Now time to lock up the future. Tatum deal is a good start.

[scottyno]

Ray, Al and now Gordon . Danny lost them all by misjudging the market and playing hardball . He also failed to understand why those guys would leave . The Celts used to be the franchise that was loyal to its players . Now that franchise is Miami . No wonder Tyler Herro said he was happy the Heat ( and not Boston) took him . Bartlestein is a snake - Danny had to know he was playing with fire. There’s a pattern with Ainge and it has cost us a lot over the past two years . I don’t see how you sugarcoat this . Hopefully we get the trade exception so that we can salvage something . Danny has done great when he drafts 1-6 but after that he’s a disaster. I hope this year is better than the prior years but Prichard sure seemed like a reach

Ainge 1st round picks outside the top 6, if I didn't miss any:

Home runs:
Rondo
Jefferson

Good/very good picks relative to draft spot:
Perkins
Allen
Bradley
Olynyk
Rozier

Mediocre picks:
West
Green
Sullinger

Busts
Banks
Giddens
Johnson
Melo
Hunter
Yabu
Zizic

Not counting anyone from 2018+ because they're too early to determine, but it's fair to at least say none of them look like busts so far. When you factor in that Yabu and ZIzic were hamstrung picks because they needed to draft stashes and that all these guys were mid to late 1sts, not even late lotto for the most part, that's hardly a disaster.

[SMTBSI]

Danny has done great when he drafts 1-6 but after that he’s a disaster.

Ainge 1st round picks outside the top 6, if I didn't miss any:

Spoiler:

Home runs:
Rondo
Jefferson

Good/very good picks relative to draft spot:
Perkins
Allen
Bradley
Olynyk
Rozier

Mediocre picks:
West
Green
Sullinger

Busts
Banks
Giddens
Johnson
Melo
Hunter
Yabu
Zizic

Not counting anyone from 2018+ because they're too early to determine, but it's fair to at least say none of them look like busts so far. When you factor in that Yabu and ZIzic were hamstrung picks because they needed to draft stashes and that all these guys were mid to late 1sts, not even late lotto for the most part, that's hardly a disaster.

The only way to evaluate a GMs drafting, imo, is to ask the question, "How many picks overperformed, met, or underperformed their draft slot?"

One problem is that coming up with a list to analyze is actually not trivial. There are a couple of methodological decisions to be made. Personally, I include picks that were made by other teams for us (i.e. draft day trades that couldn't be completed until after the draft), and exclude picks that were made by us for other teams. I think this is kind of how you have to do it, if you want to get the best sense of who the GM was actually wanting. For example, we didn't technically draft Olynyk. He was drafted for us by Dallas. But, he's clearly the guy Ainge wanted, so Ainge should probably get the credit/blame.

Where this gets a little weird is when we drafted a player for another team, but that guy also may have been our choice if we had stood pat. Best example in Ainge's draft history is Jeff Green. We drafted him for Seattle in the Ray Allen trade, but all signs point to that he would have been our guy anyway. So, should we include him in Ainge's draft record? My gut says it would be more informative to include him than to exclude him, since it still tells us something about Ainge's talent evaluation, but I also don't want to open the floodgates of trying to make a judgment call every single time we've traded a pick as to whether the guy we traded still would have been "our guy". There's no way to know that in most cases.

Anyway, here's the list of all Ainge picks, including only picks we made ourselves and either signed or at least did not immediately trade away, and the picks that were credibly reported as being directly made for us by another team. Ranking them will be left as an exercise for the reader. All I will say is that it should stand out right away that it's pretty backloaded - a lot more late picks than early ones.


Sorted by draft slot:

Spoiler:

#03 Brown, Jaylen
#03 Tatum, Jayson
#05 Jeff Green
#06 Smart, Marcus
#13 Olynyk, Kelly
#13 Banks, Marcus
#14 Langford, Romeo
#14 Nesmith, Aaron
#15 Jefferson, Al
#16 Rozier, Terry
#16 Yabusele, Guerschon
#17 Young, James
#18 Green, Gerald
#19 Bradley, Avery
#21 Rondo, Rajon
#21 Sullinger, Jared
#22 Melo, Feb
#22 Williams, Grant
#23 Zizic, Ante
#24 West, Delonte
#25 Allen, Tony
#26 Pritchard, Payton
#27 Perkins, Kendrick
#27 Johnson, JaJuan
#27 Williams, Robert
#28 Hunter, RJ
#30 Giddens, JR
-----------------
#32 Pruitt, Gabe
#33 Mickey, Jordan
#33 Edwards, Carsen
#35 Davis, Glen
#37 Ojeleye, Semi
#40 Reed, Justin
#45 Thornton, Marcus
#45 Jackson, Demetrius
#47 Walker, Henry
#47 Madar, Yam
#49 Powe, Leon
#50 Gomes, Ryan
#51 Joseph, Kris
#51 Bentil, Ben
#51 Waters, Tremont
#52 Harangody, Luke
#53 Green, Orien
#53 Iverson, Colton
#53 Allen, Kadeem
#55 Moore, E'Twuan
#56 Hunter, Brandon
#56 Bird, Jabari
#58 Hudson, Lester
#58 Nader, Abdel
#60 Erden, Semih

Same list, sorted by year.

Spoiler:

2020
#14 Aaron Nesmith
#26 Payton Pritchard
#47 Yam Madar

2019
#14 Romeo Langford
#22 Grant Williams
#33 Carsen Edwards
#51 Tremont Waters

2018
#27 Robert Williams

2017
#03 Jayson Tatum
#37 Semi Ojeleye
#53 Kadeem Allen
#56 Jabari Bird

2016
#03 Jaylen Brown
#16 Guerschon Yabusele
#23 Ante Zizic
#45 Demetrius Jackson
#51 Ben Bentil
#58 Abdel Nader

2015
#16 Terry Rozier
#28 RJ Hunter
#33 Jordan Mickey
#45 Marcus Thornton

2014
#06 Marcus Smart
#17 James Young

2013
#13 Kelly Olynyk
#53 Colton Iverson

2012
#21 Jared Sullinger
#22 Fab Melo
#51 Kris Joseph

2011
#27 JaJuan Johnson
#55 E'Twaun Moore

2010
#19 Avery Bradley
#52 Luke Harangody

2009
#58 Lester Hudson

2008
#30 JR Giddens
#47 Henry Walker
#60 Semih Erden

2007
#32 Gabe Pruitt
#35 Glen Davis

2006
#21 Rajon Rondo
#49 Leon Powe

2005
#18 Gerald Green
#50 Ryan Gomes
#53 Orien Green

2004
#15 Al Jefferson
#24 Delonte West
#25 Tony Allen
#40 Justin Reed

2003
#13 Marcus Banks
#27 Kendrick Perkins
#56 Brandon Hunter

[ConstableGeneva]

I haven't gone through this Fire Ainge thread so I'm not sure if this has been already posted, but this take is reasonable: https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1330881522744913923.html

Original tweet found here:

Read on Twitter

[scottyno]

As to the above post, yeah everyone I mentioned was guys that the celtics ended up with, it makes no sense to grade danny for picking guys for other teams. And I just realized I probably should have clarified, the Green on that list is Gerald, not Jeff. You can quibble a bit with where guys belong on that list, but it's clearly not a disaster. You can also argue with his draft strategy, in general he seems to draft higher floor lower ceiling guys, but he's also found some guys that did end up having really high celings.

[Red2]

How about the year we drafted Brown and we had something like 7 picks ? Maybe 8. Outside of brown and Nader Danny and Austin missed on all of the others . All of them . Or last year. The jury is still out but so far Edwards is a bust , Romeo can’t stay in the court and Tremont is too small . Ainge never makes the obvious pick . Too many small guards and wings who can’t shoot. He seems adverse to drafting anyone with size . Maybe he’s trying too hard to find guys who fit Stevens’ system . Draft Clarke for crying out loud or Thybule or any other number of guys who could actually help me . And this year with Pritchard ? C’mon . If Austin Ainge is part of this he needs to go . Turn the drafting over to someone who knows what they’re doing

[darrendaye]

I think it's fair to criticize Ainge's draft strategy overall, especially recently. It should be understood that picks outside the lottery are prospects with question marks, but, Ainge has not read the tea leaves well on any of them outside of Rozier in the last several years. There's still time for Timelord, Langford, Grant Williams, Edwards, etc. to show they can develop in the areas they'll need to be significant contributors, but there's no way to say Danny doesn't have a spotty track record at this point.

My major issue has been his inability to use picks to move around the board successfully. It started in the 2014 draft with the Young pick with Nurkic sliding a bit. And, of course, the pretty disastrous 2016 draft after Brown.

[scottyno]

How about the year we drafted Brown and we had something like 7 picks ? Maybe 8. Outside of brown and Nader Danny and Austin missed on all of the others . All of them . Or last year. The jury is still out but so far Edwards is a bust , Romeo can’t stay in the court and Tremont is too small . Ainge never makes the obvious pick . Too many small guards and wings who can’t shoot. He seems adverse to drafting anyone with size . Maybe he’s trying too hard to find guys who fit Stevens’ system . Draft Clarke for crying out loud or Thybule or any other number of guys who could actually help me . And this year with Pritchard ? C’mon . If Austin Ainge is part of this he needs to go . Turn the drafting over to someone who knows what they’re doing

The "obvious pick" would have got them fultz and either bender or dunn over tatum and brown.

Also in that 2016 draft you're referencing you ignore the fact that other than the #3 pick they pretty much had to draft stashes because they needed to leave 2 max slots open to try and get KD.

Also criticizing him for not drafting clarke or thybulle when he instead drafted a guy that was out there making big plays in a game 7 of a playoff series at the 5 and looks like he could be a useful player in the nba for a long time is an interesting criticism.

[jfs1000d]

Are your eyes working? Because it says exactly that.

Turner is 24 and has had a very good career thus far. To say he couldn’t put together an All Star caliber season may be the most greener teamer, Ainge ball washing BS I’ve read on this board.

You guys would rather rag on Turner than just admit that Ainge f*cked up. Such a weird stance to take.

So you don’t believe Zach Lowe?

I do not. Besides LBF's impeccable credibility I think that is a campaign in place to keep MJ from losing his mind. I also think Ainge would have been fine with taking back Turner in a S&T I just don't know how far the road that really was. I think Ainge was still just trying to resign Hayward, probably to trade his ass in year, but still trying to resign him.

You don’t watch the games then. Turner is what he is. He isn’t A good rebounder, isn’t a good PnR player on offense or defense. He would get taken off the floor later .

For $18m for the next 3 years. Not good.


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[Spin Move]

Ray, Al and now Gordon . Danny lost them all by misjudging the market and playing hardball . He also failed to understand why those guys would leave . The Celts used to be the franchise that was loyal to its players . Now that franchise is Miami . No wonder Tyler Herro said he was happy the Heat ( and not Boston) took him . Bartlestein is a snake - Danny had to know he was playing with fire. There’s a pattern with Ainge and it has cost us a lot over the past two years . I don’t see how you sugarcoat this . Hopefully we get the trade exception so that we can salvage something . Danny has done great when he drafts 1-6 but after that he’s a disaster. I hope this year is better than the prior years but Prichard sure seemed like a reach

Ainge 1st round picks outside the top 6, if I didn't miss any:

Home runs:
Rondo
Jefferson

Good/very good picks relative to draft spot:
Perkins
Allen
Bradley
Olynyk
Rozier

Mediocre picks:
West
Green
Sullinger

Busts
Banks
Giddens
Johnson
Melo
Hunter
Yabu
Zizic

Not counting anyone from 2018+ because they're too early to determine, but it's fair to at least say none of them look like busts so far. When you factor in that Yabu and ZIzic were hamstrung picks because they needed to draft stashes and that all these guys were mid to late 1sts, not even late lotto for the most part, that's hardly a disaster.

Delonte west had 9 seasons in the nba as the 24th pick, that aint no medicore pick, If your taking about gerald green he also had a very solid career. Fab Melo, and Giddens were legit busts, Banks would be mediocre for his slot, but any player who plays 7 seasons in the nba and is not a top 5 selection is not a bust. Zizic is not a bust he just makes more in europe then he could stuck behid kevin love and andre drummond on the Cavs, when they gave him PT he played well. Yabu is the one real bust as he was a pick in the teens GIddens and Fab melo were busts but most players in teh 20's are.

Overall that is a darn good track record

[OldCeltics]

Ainge is an average GM at best. 1 Championship in 20 years for a historic Celtics franchise is nothing.

[Ernest]

Just simple math makes that wrong.

There were people wanting to fire Ainge when he traded Antoine Walker. There were people who wanted to fire him in 2009, less than a year after winning a title. Seems like people here fall into 2 groups:

1. People who have no idea what goes on behind the scenes and are ok with that and trust Ainge because he rebuilt the team into a good one after years of sucking post Larry Bird.

2. People who think they could do a much better job if they were GM and win a title every few years because they can do it on NBA 2k fairly easily.

[LarryBirdsFingr]

Are your eyes working? Because it says exactly that.

Turner is 24 and has had a very good career thus far. To say he couldn’t put together an All Star caliber season may be the most greener teamer, Ainge ball washing BS I’ve read on this board.

You guys would rather rag on Turner than just admit that Ainge f*cked up. Such a weird stance to take.

So you don’t believe Zach Lowe?

I do not. Besides LBF's impeccable credibility I think that is a campaign in place to keep MJ from losing his mind. I also think Ainge would have been fine with taking back Turner in a S&T I just don't know how far the road that really was. I think Ainge was still just trying to resign Hayward, probably to trade his ass in year, but still trying to resign him.

Right, and I think you could interpret it in any way you want really, but you could twist the overall message into something more like "there wasn't a willingness to retain hayward for on court purposes, but for asset purposes" but that isn't how it was worded to me fwiw.

[sully00]

So you don’t believe Zach Lowe?

I do not. Besides LBF's impeccable credibility I think that is a campaign in place to keep MJ from losing his mind. I also think Ainge would have been fine with taking back Turner in a S&T I just don't know how far the road that really was. I think Ainge was still just trying to resign Hayward, probably to trade his ass in year, but still trying to resign him.

You don’t watch the games then. Turner is what he is. He isn’t A good rebounder, isn’t a good PnR player on offense or defense. He would get taken off the floor later .

For $18m for the next 3 years. Not good.


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I think your deciding that Turner is limited to being the guy he is playing next to Sabonis. I will say that Turner is proven that his ability to play between the 4 and 5 isn't what you would hope it would be. That said he can knock down threes and is one of the best shot blockers in the NBA. If you have broken down his PnR play to that point then show the numbers I don't have them just telling me it is an opinion. Rebounding isn't great at all but his defensive rebounding isn't bad similar to Horford.

[sully00]

I do not. Besides LBF's impeccable credibility I think that is a campaign in place to keep MJ from losing his mind. I also think Ainge would have been fine with taking back Turner in a S&T I just don't know how far the road that really was. I think Ainge was still just trying to resign Hayward, probably to trade his ass in year, but still trying to resign him.

You don’t watch the games then. Turner is what he is. He isn’t A good rebounder, isn’t a good PnR player on offense or defense. He would get taken off the floor later .

For $18m for the next 3 years. Not good.


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I think your deciding that Turner is limited to being the guy he is playing next to Sabonis. I will say that Turner is proven that his ability to play between the 4 and 5 isn't what you would hope it would be. That said he can knock down threes and is one of the best shot blockers in the NBA. If you have broken down his PnR play to that point then show the numbers I don't have them just telling me it is an opinion. Rebounding isn't great at all but his defensive rebounding isn't bad similar to Horford.

This so side tracked the original point that I don't think Ainge actually gave a ****. He wasn't going to S&T Hayward to IND and is probably only half interested in doing a deal with CHA.

[SMTBSI]

Just simple math makes that wrong.

There were people wanting to fire Ainge when he traded Antoine Walker. There were people who wanted to fire him in 2009, less than a year after winning a title. Seems like people here fall into 2 groups:

1. People who have no idea what goes on behind the scenes and are ok with that and trust Ainge because he rebuilt the team into a good one after years of sucking post Larry Bird.

2. People who think they could do a much better job if they were GM and win a title every few years because they can do it on NBA 2k fairly easily.

There are rarely two sides to anything. I soundly fall into neither category. The rest of this post is not directed at you, it's just me rambling.

My assumption is just that we know a lot less than we think we do. Twitter is chock full of misinformation, teams leak misleading stuff constantly, and we rarely if ever know all the details of actual offers or the timing of how things went down.

As a result, it's not that I don't try to analyze what went down in every move and non-move, it's just that I acknowledge that my error bars on my analyses are huge. I usually wind up saying, "This is what I think happened, but my confidence is somewhere from 10-30%"

I guess that I probably come across as defending Ainge a lot here. But my intent is rarely if ever to say "Ainge did a good job". It's usually to say, "The prevailing narratives are taking a lot of things as fact that we don't really know as fact." It just so happens that the prevailing narratives have been heavily anti-Ainge of late, so my attempts to temper them appear like a defense. But I promise, if the prevailing narratives involved all kinds of wild, unjustifiable assumptions to explain why Ainge actually always did a great job, I'd be trying to temper that too. I just don't see it nearly as much. (Really, basically not at all lately.) ((BTW, this is why you'll see me insult Reddit so much on here. Their C's board is so saccharine, over-the-top positive and defensive. If I posted over there I'm 100% sure they'd think I was a huge pessimist.))

Right now, where I'm at is basically that the Tatum era will tell. If we get one or more titles with Tatum, Ainge probably goes down as a good GM. If we fail to do that and fall into another rebuild, Ainge's time is done and he won't be remembered as a good one.

[Ernest]

So many fools on this thread. What you want from a GM and owners is to put the players and coach in positions where they can win as often and as regularly as possible. No one's competing for the title every year nor are they hitting a homerun on every draft pick. You just want to be in a situation where you can succeed.

A lot of things are outside of a GMs control. It would have been really nice if KG didn't get hurt. Or if Kyrie had flurished here, or if IT or Hayward didn't get hurt. It's too bad Ray felt slighted, too bad KD picked GSW over us. The list goes on. The fact is we just came pretty close to the finals. Ainge built the KG team up pretty fast. The last rebuild was fast too. We are a good team with a lot to be happy about. The idea that Ainge sucks and should be fired is just beyond foolish. Just really stupid stuff.

[ParticleMan]

Yeah there's not another GM I can think of who, in the last 20 years, has *twice* taken a 20's win team and turned them into a perennial ECF or greater team, without the benefit of a Lebron-like player showing up on their doorstep.

Once you get to the final 4, it becomes as much a matter of luck as anything. And if anything, we've had piss poor luck with injuries in the playoffs.

[Tai]

You don’t watch the games then. Turner is what he is. He isn’t A good rebounder, isn’t a good PnR player on offense or defense. He would get taken off the floor later .

For $18m for the next 3 years. Not good.


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I think your deciding that Turner is limited to being the guy he is playing next to Sabonis. I will say that Turner is proven that his ability to play between the 4 and 5 isn't what you would hope it would be. That said he can knock down threes and is one of the best shot blockers in the NBA. If you have broken down his PnR play to that point then show the numbers I don't have them just telling me it is an opinion. Rebounding isn't great at all but his defensive rebounding isn't bad similar to Horford.

This so side tracked the original point that I don't think Ainge actually gave a ****. He wasn't going to S&T Hayward to IND and is probably only half interested in doing a deal with CHA.

Half interested? If Danny doesn't wanna do the S&T, why haven't the Hornets just signed Hayward outright yet? Stretch out Batum and be done with it lol.