Borges: Are Danny Ainge's assets treasure or trash?

BOSTON HERALD

Ron Borges Wednesday, June 22, 2016


Danny Ainge has been widely praised the past several years for having stockpiled a vast storehouse of draft picks. It has been said again and again this has given the Celtics flexibility and value. Yet he couldn’t convince anyone to make a deal with him last year, and this year he’s stuck with a ridiculous eight picks, including three in the first round of a draft most NBA experts say is not deep.

What’s the genius in having “deep depth,” as Earl Weaver once put it, if there’s nothing there to grab a hold of but your nose?

During the past five seasons, much has been made of Ainge’s ability to fleece teams like the Nets by unloading spent shells like Paul Pierce for a bonanza of draft picks. But are you fleecing somebody if you can’t get much more than the basketball equivalent of a fleece jacket when you use them?

Fleecing the opposition is always fun and something Red Auerbach turned into a science. Fleece jackets are nice, too, especially in late fall and early spring. But the Celtics don’t need the basketball equivalent of a fleece jacket. They already have a locker room full of them.

What they need is an impact player. A sable coat, as it were, to get them through the NBA winter. Yet even while holding the draft’s No.  3 pick this year, few seem to feel Ainge is in position to find such a player. No offense to the president of basketball operations, but where’s the genius in that?

The last time the Celtics drafted an impact player arguably was Pierce. That was 18 years ago, people. That might say more about the draft and the limited number of NBA-quality players around, but it also speaks to the question of whether piling up picks really does any good in today’s NBA.

Since Ainge arrived in 2003, he’s drafted 30 players, including three in the top seven of their draft class. Exactly none has had the kind of impact the Celtics need to break free of the spiral of mediocrity they’ve been in since reaching the NBA Finals in 2008 and 2010. Since then, Ainge has spun the Wheel of Fortune more often than Pat Sajak, and the result the past five years is a team with a collective record of 193-200. Where’d the value go?

Certainly the past two seasons have shown incremental improvement, but as was proven in the playoffs, the Celtics as presently constructed are not competitive with the top teams in the NBA. Heck, they weren’t competitive with the Hawks, who weren’t competitive with the Cavs.

Ainge conceded as much during the season, regularly pointing out the Celtics were nearly as close to being out of the playoff race as in the middle of it. Now he sits with a treasure trove of picks, three in the first round (Nos. 3, 16 and 23) and five in the second (Nos. 31, 35, 45, 51, 58), but are they treasure or trash?

There’s not even a consensus on who the third-best player is this year. Is it Kris Dunn, and if so, does Ainge go for him when he already has two non-shooting guards in Marcus Smart, himself the sixth pick in the draft two years ago, and Terry Rozier, a first-rounder a year ago?

Or does he roll the dice on someone like Buddy Hield of Oklahoma, who can light it up but seems to have as many teams unsure of his NBA future as believing in him?

This is where the trade talks start. A few weeks ago, if the local pundits were to be believed, there were a number of teams salivating to acquire that No. 3 pick. Where’d they go?

Do the Sixers want to pair it with the draft’s top pick and try to remake their losing image in one evening by giving up Jahlil Okafor or defensive specialist Nerlens Noel? If they do, they’re taking their time about it. If all these picks are so valuable, how come nobody’s pulling the trigger? Because they’re not.

One NBA talking head claimed part of the problem is teams fear trading with Ainge because he’s “fleeced’’ so many teams in the past. Certainly the trades that brought Kevin Garnett and Ray Allen to Boston to pair with Pierce are the kind he can be rightly proud of. But that was nearly a decade ago. How long can you rest on those laurels?

Since then, the Celtics have drafted such names as J.R. Giddens, MarShon Brooks (he was dribbling in China the last time I looked), the not so Fab Melo, Jared “I Never Met A Plate I Didn’t Clean” Sullinger, Lucas Nogueira (who was traded for Kelly Olynyk, and while that might not strike you as value, at least Olynyk’s in the NBA. Nogueira has toiled in the D-League).

We could go on, but maybe you are a Smart true believer. If so, please explain his 35.7 shooting percentage?

If Dunn is the choice, it is assumed Ainge, who only shops at Trader Joe’s, would ship Smart with a bundle of draft picks for somebody like Jimmy Butler. That would be interesting, but one wonders if Butler is the kind of player who can move the needle enough for the Celtics to move into the 50-plus wins stratosphere if they can’t also coax Kevin Durant to leave Oklahoma City. Of course, why would he? To play with the perennially grousing Butler?

Maybe this will all work out, but one wonders. That’s what we’ve been doing a lot of the past few years, wondering what Danny will do with all the value he’s collected. And wondering, too, if he’s really collected any at all.

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The huge pile of draft picks all in the same year has lessened their total overall value, but some of the picks will sill be valuable this year. Even without any trades, the first three picks should yield at least one starter and another rotation player before the rookie contracts run out in four years.

Perhaps in future deals he does not end up with so many picks by spreading them out over a longer span of years.

Articles like this are crap.This clown and other like Ferger ,Tanguay think they know about basketball,but they don't.How can you say ..this draft is not deep?You can get players like Thon Maker,Brice Johnson,Diamond Stone,Ben Bentil,Tyler Ulis ,A J Hammonds in the second round and this piece of sh....say the draft is not deep.Come on,how can you judge players like Marcus Smart only for the shooting %,basketball is a lot more than that.Frankly I don't give a damn about jerks like this.

I would like to think that by having 8 draft picks out of 30 total, spread out over the entire draft, three in the first round (Nos. 3, 16 and 23), five in the second (Nos. 31, 35, 45, 51, 58) with some picks in special positions (3rd in the 1st round, 1st and 5th in the second) this would put Danny Ainge and the Celtics firmly in the catbird seat.

Other teams may target a certain player and Danny's flexibility to provide a opportunity to get that player for them could easily be interpreted as a WIN for the Celtics.

Anyway, I would like to think that . . .