HotelVitale wrote:Captain_Caveman wrote: I think Ainge unfairly gets knocked on his drafting. While not a hands-down #1 in the league as he is with trades, I think he is still top 5 or so among GMs in drafting. That's a tougher one to measure, though. Most of Hinkie's picks were top 5. Most of AInge's were in the 20s...Anyhow, I have found The Process to be an interesting experiment. In a league that rewards ineptitude and where high draft picks rule, why wouldn't you just tank? Makes all the sense in the world outside of the loss-of-revenue side of things. Presti did the same thing and no one gives him **** for it, no? Of course, you have to hit on the picks like Presti did, and time will tell on that.
I'm not liking the Midas/genius narrative that's behind a lot of this. Ainge's definitely done a nice job overall but a lot of his moves were just simple good fortune and exploiting ineptitude and gaps rather than genius things. Don't mean to knock him but any reasonably intelligent basketball fan should be able to tell that all a GM does is try to take the best guesses he can and then cross his fingers tightly and hope that things work on.
I agree that Ainge isn't a bad drafter--that's gotten out of control--but your evaluation of him is way too generous. That's like 20 years of picks you're pulling from, and he's made some serious blunders: traded Brandon Roy for Sebastian Telfair, had a run where 6 of his 8 1st rounders were complete busts, etc. Point is, neither he nor anyone else has a genius eye for talent--Ainge more or less took the guys that made sense for his draft range, sometimes those guys were great picks and other times they were totally worthless.
As for trades, he's made some ones that turned out brilliant but a lot of that was luck. The Nets deal was one of the best we've ever seen, but a) holy god was Billy King a sucker and b) there's no way anyone would've bet on the Nets being awful right away--no one would've predicted at the time D Will would go from all-NBA to mediocre over night (while in his prime), that Lopez would miss half his games, that J Johnson was just about done, etc. And while most of us here loved the IT move (since he'd been underrated and poorly used), no one--including Ainge--predicted that he'd become a true offensive superstar (he just seemed like a really solid 6th man scorer). No one also thought Jaw Crowder would be a terrific all-around player at the time too--he got a lot better relatively late into his development, and not because Ainge dabbed him with a magic wand. Ainge gets credit for buying low and taking smart shots, but it's really more about the players making strange and unusually big leaps. (Also, remember how Ainge was ready to trade boatloads of picks for Justise Winslow? For Okafor? I'm not knocking him for that, but it should be a check on the view that Ainge has a master plan that's outwitting everyone else).
Point is--Ainge made good moves but luck deserves most of the credit. GMs know this and that's how they talk to one another, it's us fans who keep insisting that every move is brilliant or stupid, or else judge guys based on results 5-10 years later. What we liked about Hinkie was that he admitted that and didn't want to play the game of taking credit for lucky moves and catching blame for unlucky ones--it was all about working the random boom/bust odds into team-building.
You have to be lucky
and good. I think Ainge has been more the latter. Wasn't too lucky when Boston slipped to #5 in the Durant draft. Wasn't too lucky when injuries probably cost Boston a ring or two after 2008.
All in all, he's had to make his own luck, for the most part. It's not like we are LA or Miami, who can just clear cap room and have superstars fight to sign with them. Nor was it a Cavs/Spurs/OKC situation, where they got lucky in the lottery a bunch of times in the right years. Landing TD/Drob or LeBron/Irving #1 overall is what's truly lucky, not ripping off a hapless GM like Billy King.
Other quick points...
I definitely knew how bad we got the Nets in real time. Really felt very early on that we were going to land multiple top 10 pick. Yes, we were even luckier than that.
He didn't trade Brandon Roy for Telfair, strictly speaking. Roy's medicals did not check out, and our doctors told us to make a hard pass. With that info on Roy's knees in mind, and it proved to be solid info fwiw, Ainge used the pick to trade a broken down LaFrentz for Theo Ratliff, who had one less year on his contract. That was massive in the KG trade the next summer, as having a big expiring contract allowed us to outbid other teams. So not a great return on a #6 overall pick in the conventional sense, but no way the KG trade happens without it. FWIW, the trade that brought LaFrentz in the first place was probably the only bad trade of Ainge's tenure.
As to a stretch of 6 of 8 first round busts, when was that? I assume you are forgetting Rondo there. Giddens, JaJuan Johnson and Fab Melo were bad picks, but all were in the 20s. My point there would be that 50% of picks in the 20s crap out, and that Ainge is well above 50% (Rondo, Tony Allen, Perkins, Delonte West, even Sullinger).
Anyhow, I don't put Ainge at the top in drafting, but he's no slouch. Until recently, his picks have mostly been non-lottery ones, and you have to grade on the curve there IMO.
And to trades he didn't make, I dunno. Hard to trust the rumors that get put out there, as a lot of that is spin and disinformation. No idea what he actually offered for Winslow, for instance. But I do think for as much abuse as he got for not "trading for a star" the last couple of years, he's been vindicated at then some. He held onto the Nets picks and his cap room at all costs, and that paid off wildly. Contrast with the teams who tried to extort us for stars, like the Pacers, Kings and Bulls. They... didn't fare as well, haha.
