Ainge's Summer Turns to Winter of Content

I can't help wonder if this paraphrase of Henry V is the only one Rohrbach knows.


DANNY AINGE'S STRANGE SUMMER TURNS TO WINTER OF CONTENT
Tue, 12/10/2013 - 1:29pm  





Celtics president Danny Ainge should be all smiles this season. (AP)


As his Celtics prepare for a back-to-back against Paul Pierce, Kevin Garnett and Doc Rivers for the first time since he shipped them to Brooklyn and Los Angeles this summer, not even Danny Ainge could have imagined he’d be resting this comfortably on his perch atop the organization.

Ainge himself admitted the risk in trading the franchise’s two greatest players and most successful coach of the past two decades in the span of a few weeks. There was nobody to blame but him.

Only a few short months later, a quarter of the way through this NBA season, Ainge’s Celtics own the Eastern Conference’s No. 4 playoff seed, riding a three-game win streak and leading the Atlantic Division by 1.5 games. As a result, he may just be the leading candidate for Executive of the Year.

That honor sure as heck isn’t going to Brooklyn GM Billy King, whose roster is filled with superstars battling injury and chemistry issues. While Pierce might return for Tuesday night’s game against the Celtics less than two weeks after breaking a bone in his shooting hand, both he (12.4 PPG, 36.8 FG%) and Garnett (6.4 PPG, 36.2 FG%) are averaging career lows almost across the board for a 6-14 team.

Likewise, rookie coach Jason Kidd seems ill-equipped for the job, spilling drinks like a freshman at a frat party and telling Lawrence Frank, “I’m the coach of this mother-[bleep]-ing team,” before turning the only member of his staff with head coaching experience into Milton from "Office Space." King can’t get enough criticism for hiring Kidd to coach a team with a one- or two-year title window.

As Celtics fans know all too well, it’s far too early to count out Pierce and Garnett. The Nets trail the Celtics by just three games in the division, and their All-Star starting lineup has played a total of 78 minutes together as the result of injuries to Pierce, Brook Lopez (ankle) and Deron Williams (ankle).

Meanwhile, Rivers has the Clippers in the same position as the Celtics, a No. 4 seed leading their division, albeit with a superior record (14- in a superior conference. Still, Chris Paul & Co. had a better record (16-6), a better offense (107.4 points per 100 possessions) and a better defense (99.1 points allowed per 100 possessions) through 22 games under Vinny Del Negro last season.

Doc’s true test won’t come until the playoffs, when he’ll find out if the same tactics he used in Boston -- the ubuntu philosophy and the occasional ripping of his underperforming team for “pouting” -- can work on a group that hasn’t won a second-round playoff game.

Regardless of whether Pierce’s grit and Garnett’s balls can resurrect Brooklyn’s season or Doc’s charm can lift the spell that has plagued the Clippers for so long, Ainge can rest easy with the knowledge that his franchise is in good hands with Brad Stevens at the helm.

Through 22 games, the hiring of Stevens to a six-year, $22 million contract seems a stroke of genius. Ainge swapped a coach who no longer wanted to be in Boston for one who has embraced the rebuilding process at half the average annual value, picking up a first-round pick in the process. And the Nets might have to pay an assistant coach a few million to sit at home for the rest of the season.

The league’s only unbeaten team in December, the Celtics lead the NBA in efficiency differential this month, and Stevens has maximized the potential of just about everyone on his roster, including an Eastern Conference Player of the Week performance from Jordan Crawford. That alone probably validates the coach's contract.

All this, of course, before Rajon Rondo has played a game. As Avery Bradley, one of many making a leap under Stevens this season, said, “I know once [Rondo] comes back, a lot of teams are going to hate to play the Celtics.”

Things can change, for sure. The C’s may be singing a different tune once a week-long West Coast swing against the Thunder, Nuggets, Clippers, Warriors and Blazers coincides with the end of a string of 11-of-16 games in Brooklyn for the Nets that begins Tuesday night.

However the rest of this season shakes out, the future is a whole lot brighter now than it would have been had Ainge kept Pierce, Garnett and Rivers around for a couple more seasons, as entertaining as that may have been. Whether his team makes the playoffs or not, Ainge has the coach, the picks and the assets to pursue his vision, and that’s not such a bad thing for one of the game’s best executives.



bob


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Bob,

Do you think your question about the writer's redundancy should be known as the Rohrbach Test?

Sam