ParticleMan wrote:the only proper way to evaluate ainge and the C's FO is with respect to other teams (all of whom also have scouting depts). if there's a GM who has, with every single draft pick, always picked the player that turned out to be the best available, then i will accept these sort of "oh but danny missed on XXX" criticisms. hint: there's no such GM.
otherwise, you have to evaluate things statistically, based on metrics that are APPLIED TO ALL TEAMS. not just one standard for danny ainge, and another standard for every other GM.
when you do that sort of analysis, ainge typically comes out as one of the top or at least better drafters in the league. here's a recent example, which puts ainge as the #2 GM in drafting ability over the last 10 years, just edged out by Denver's Tim Connelly:
https://towardsdatascience.com/measuring-success-in-the-nba-draft-a7f67cfb7718
of course we can argue about the assumptions and metrics that go into these measures. the above one is based on win shares of the pick vs players drafted after the person picked. this seems fairly reasonable though i could think of others. but to simply dismiss all such analyses and say "oh i know danny sucks at drafting because he picked olynyk over giannis" is pure lazy thinking that will not ever convince me of anything.
It seems more like Ainge built a good track record in his first 10 years or so, but has fallen off in his second 10. Yet, like a high profile College coach, is still living off his early day rep. Bottom line for me, regardless of success as a whole, I find it almost indefensible what Ainge has done since his "grand-slam" trade/drafting of Tatum.
It's like Ainge found the mother-lode of ammo (draft picks) and misfired on all targets.
