Saint Lazarus wrote:The_Hater wrote:GiannisAnte34 wrote:
The fact is Ainge was presented multiple opportunities to acquire players that would put the Celtics closer to title contention. (Paul George, Kawhi Leonard, Jimmy Butler, maybe Anthony Davis) He turned them down to hoard his prospects. The Hayward move wasn't a great fit even if he was healthy because of the makeup of the roster. Have to think that this is a little bit of karma coming back to the Celtics for ditching someone who played with pure passion, leadership, and desire to win above all else.
That was primarily about timing regarding Butler and George, any trade made while they were available would have cost the team major assets and it would have used up their future cap space. Hayward was signed without giving up assets, just using cap space and it went simultaneously with trading for Irving. If you don't time things perfectly you lose out on subsequent moves and that would have been the case here. Ainge waited until the 2017 off season on purpose.
Plus considering that both Butler has played for 3 other teams since that trade opportunity was there, that looks like an excellent decision and he had the same intel that everyone else had on George and Kawhi, that they both wanted to head to LA as free-agents and that's where they have both ended up.
All I'm saying here is that Ainge could have made one or more of the moves that you're pointing out here and still ended up being criticized for making the wrong moves today. Personally, I think he made a mistake not trading for Kawhi last season. He easily could have made that deal and the Celtics probably win the championship. But if they don't and Kawhi bolts to the Clippers, the criticism would be even worse right now.
Yo shoutout you man. Every other non-Celtics fan looking clownish here except you.
The_Hater's hypothetical about Ainge trading Brown for Kawhi and then Kawhi leaving is one of several nightmare alternate history scenarios I have thought about where Ainge could have destroyed the franchise if he went with moves that were popular here on RealGM at the time. Various combinations of things like trading away one or more of the Brooklyn picks that became Tatum and Brown for Winslow/Butler/George, drafting Bender over Brown, drafting Fultz over Tatum, and trading Brown or Tatum in a package for a player like Drummond/Cousins/Butler/George/Kawhi/AD who either wouldn't have been effective or probably would have left after 1-2 years were all popular ideas on RealGM at various points. There's a chance with some of these that they could have traded a future for a chance at a championship, but the most likely outcome would have been a depleted roster missing key young players who are part of this current playoff run.
None of this is to say that Ainge has always been right; he makes a lot of mistakes, like every GM. The point is that one or two strokes of luck can completely alter the fortunes of a franchise in ways that are hard to predict, and that being a GM and having to make decisions with so many unknowns about the future is really hard.