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why everyone is so sure Ainge would have taken Durant over Oden?

With Durant now clearly >Oden, this has come up quite a bit.

Does anyone have any links? Any quotes? Any articles? Any backup?

I'm sure Ainge LOVED Durants game. But so did EVERYONE. But everyone loved Oden too.

Are we just giving Ainge the benefit of the doubt for no good reason? i'd just like some clarification.

we already had perkins and jefferson so people speculated wed take durant. nothing was certain tho. we prob would have picked oden @ #1 and durant @ #2

I don't have links or quotes or anything, but at the time I was myself more into drafting Oden over Durant and I remember being surprised at much of the speculation that Ainge would take Durant if we won the draft lottery. Some of it seemed credible at the time, who really knows. I'm pretty sure that this impression started before the draft lottery that season though.

It was common knowledge in the circles of Celtics beat writers and other people with connections to the Celtics (Greg Dickerson, Bill Simmons) that Ainge loved Durant and was taking him with the #1 pick. Heck, Ainge even sat right next to Durant's mother during the NCAA tourney.

Ainge did not publicly say he would have taken Durant until months later when he was on the Big Show with Ordway. Ordway got him to admit he would have taken Durant. The Big Show is the only place I have ever heard Ainge say he was taking Durant.

The problem is if they took Durant they probably would have traded Pierce and obviously no KG or Ray Allen.

FWIW

from Bill Simmons the other day:

Note to @truehoop: Danny Ainge was absolutely taking Durant if C's got 1st pick. I know for a fact. He's the only one. http://bit.ly/58tHiu
2:43 PM Dec 6th from web

http://twitter.com/sportsguy33

Which means it was really a win-win draft, although we didn't know it at the time...

Option #1: KG, Allen and Championship

Option #2: Durant, Big Al, Perk and Rondo for 5+ years

A team of Durant, Big Al, Perk, Rondo and whatever Pierce brought back in trade (plus the complimentary pieces like Gomes and West) had dynasty potential. If nothing else, it would have been a fun team to watch.

Yea the whole Danny sitting next to his family at the game and then a few insiders mentioned that Danny had plans to draft Durant if we got # 1.

I specifically remember Chad Ford mentioning in one of those pre-draft chats or articles (not entirely sure) that Danny would take Durant no.1 over Oden. No matter your opinion on Ford's prowess as a talent evaluator or insider for that matter Ford always seemed to have the inside scoop on Danny's drafts.

Everyone said he'd take Durant.

Posters like me however we're still skeptical because a classic 5 and 4 combo of AL and Oden would be too good to pass up.

But Ainge has often made decisions that are controversial. And other pre-draft comments about Ainge have been true like his infatuation with Rondo.

But most reports says Ainge loved Durant. And it would be better if we got the second so no one could blame him for taking him.

That said, even with Durant and Big AL as our core... I'm not sure if we could win anything. There's not an intimidator in that front court nor is there a great post defender...

IIRC, Ainge said he had Durant as #1 on his board going into the lottery, but also went on to say that he still would have brought in Oden for a workout. He didn't say outright that he would have taken Durant. So who knows what may have happened. All I do know is that I'm quite happy with Banner #17.

Kind of unfair about Ainge saying this during an interview though. I believe the interview took place after Oden went down before his rookie season even started.

Just to add, Ainge was on the Big Show each week with a dreadful team and not being able to really talk about draft prospects, but each week he would talk about drafts were teams (ironically almost always POR) took the "big guy" because you have to instead of the best player and embarassed themselves.

The problem within the organization was that if Boston took Durant they likely would have dealt Pierce.

I remember seeing some poll of GMs where all but one said they would pick Oden ith the number 1. That combined with all the talk had me convinced we would have passed on Oden. It was one of those "there is too much smoke not to be a fire" situations.