The Fan Hub

How should Celtics fans feel about Danny Ainge right now? It's a good question, and by all accounts he should be revered as one of the best GM's in the NBA. Ainge is the captain of a big market team, who acts with the precision and shrewdness of smaller market teams like Oklahoma City, San Antonio, or Utah.

He brought an NBA title back to the rafters of the Garden (we can still call it the Garden), and re-established Boston as a destination for aspiring veterans in search of a title. He was a trendsetter, acquiring the first big three and laying a supposed blue print for an NBA title.
Nonetheless, if the Boston Celtics do not win the NBA title this year, Danny Ainge might fade into Celtic obscurity, like many in the long line of Celtic front office men who could never leave the shadows of Red Auerbach. What many Celtics fans are wondering quietly to themselves is this: Did Danny Ainge trade away another banner along with Kendrick Perkins?

Great teams are a bit like dysfunctional families-a family that has lots of different egos, personalities, and temperaments, yet it realizes that the family is greater than the sum of its individual parts. Danny was part of one of those families from 1984-1987 with the Celtics. In 1988, Ainge was still young and in his prime, but the rest of Boston's roster was growing older, and Celtics GM Red Auerbach sat stubbornly, choosing not to inject any youth onto the roster; the Celtics lost in the Eastern Conference Finals to the upstart "Bad Boy Pistons". Larry Bird's back began to give out, Kevin McHale and Robert Parish got older, Len Bias and Reggie Lewis both died tragically, and the Celtics seemingly overnight became a shell of their former selves.
As of now, it sure appears as if the Celtics GM did the one thing he thought Red failed to do in 1986, but he also did the one thing no GM should ever do, for any team, in any sport. Ainge decided to shake up the 2011 Celtics and in doing so dramatically changed the identity of the most feared team in the NBA not named the Los Angeles Lakers.

Think about it-give me any championship-caliber team and I'll give you their identity. The teams that stick to that identity win, and the ones that don't lose. Does talent matter? Of course! Does coaching matter? Without question! But any and every winning team has an identity, and the Celtics had theirs ripped away from them on Feb. 24.

The Celtics With Perkins & Ubuntu

From a pure basketball standpoint, the Boston Celtics had more than a few chinks in their armor-namely in the form of Nate Robinson and Marquis Daniels. This part of the Celtics bench was a bit like a porn where the scenes with seasoned vets like Jenna Jameson and Ron Jeremy are sandwiched between a couple of awkward girl-on-girl scenes with two B-grade actresses-it sort of doesn't fit. It sounds good in production, but once you see the final product, the producer says, "We probably should have sprung for Sasha Grey."

So to argue that the Celtics roster prior to the Perkins trade was a championship juggernaut might have been a little overzealous. Heading into the trade deadline, the Celtics needed a player or two who would upgrade their athleticism, while at the same time give them some size to match up against the likes of Carmelo Anthony, LeBron James, Luol Deng, Danny Granger, and Joe Johnson in the East, and then players like Kobe Bryant, Kevin Durant, and Dirk Nowitzki out west.

Where could they find such a player? I mean, if only players like Corey Brewer, Ryan Gomes, O.J. Mayo, Courtney Lee, Ronnie Brewer, Al Harrington (contract aside), Earl Clark, J.R. Smith, Renaldo Balkman, Mickael Pietrus, Shane Battier, or Tayshaun Prince were on the block. Oh wait-they all were.
From a pure needs assessment, the Celtics were looking for a player who could play multiple positions, be it a shooting guard/swingman role, or three/four spot. And while none of us can be sure of the precise asking price of the aforementioned players, and with the Celtics seemingly short on marketable assets, maybe acquiring these players MAY have been tougher than we think. However, it would have maintained the C's identity as a tough and rugged, chippy team intact, while adding a needed scorer off the pine.

So Celtics fans have to acquiesce that Danny had to make a move or two to upgrade that piece of the Celtics roster. Nonetheless, maybe Danny failed to understand that this Celtics team had a core group of five guys who all felt that when healthy, no one could take them. It's what Doc engrained into their psyche, "When we are healthy, no one has beaten our starting five."
Rondo, Perkins, KG, Ray, and Pierce all believed that right down to their core; they had Ubuntu (an African philosophy which means: “I am what I am because of who we all are”). In 2007, all of the Celtics bought into it. While the Cavs, Lakers, and Magic might have had more talent, the C's had guile grit and each other. Is it cheesy as sh*t? Of course, but they believed it, so who are we to question it?

Behind all the posturing, if you pulled Danny aside, he would probably tell you that his job as the Celtics GM is to do what's best for the team, for now and into the future. That as the GM of the Boston Celtics, his fiduciary responsibility is to ensure that that Celtics are not just competitive in 2011, but in 2012, 2013, 2014, and beyond.

Before Perkins's departure, teams didn't want to play the Celtics. If you went to the basket, odds were that either KG or Perk was going to put you on your rear end. Al Jefferson, who is probably one of the best big men in the game, had this to say after the Perkins trade:

"I still can't believe it. It's not a Boston defense without big Perk down there. It kind of sucks for me too because I've got to face him four times a year now. [Expletive]. But I don't ever question nothing Danny does, because he brought me into this [league], so maybe Danny knows something that don't nobody else know. But I was shocked."

What the second sentence says is a proclamation that every competitor of the Celtics felt. It ain't Boston without "Perk". Forget that Rondo looked catatonic for about three weeks after the trade. Forget that there were rumors of Perkins, KG, Pierce, Allen, and Doc crying like a family member had been exiled to some far off land, or that Perkins was so shell shocked he did not want to leave his hotel room, hoping that his agent would call him to say something like, "Just kidding…April Fools!" Now, Doc has to try undo the foundation that he firmly set a few years ago.

The Celtics Post-Perkins

Here was the conversation I had with myself on Feb. 24 to try and justify the trade: "No Perk for about half the year anyway…okay…Shaq can give them at least 18-20 minutes a night and be half of the presence in the paint as he was earlier in the year. This might be a pretty good move if you want something, and you typically need to give up something…right? Right! Jeff Green can play multiple positions on the floor, is a tough defender, was playing out of position in OKC, and has an injection of youth to come off the bench (I think they call that stage denial). If Jermaine O'Neal can come back and be one-tenth of the player he was, that should be okay, and now we can go real big up front with Shaq, KG, Green, Pierce, and Allen/Rondo. Or real athletic with KG, Green, Pierce, Allen, and Rondo. Ha Miami, take that (again, still denial).

Having six weeks to look at the new look Celtics, a team that was once a force in the middle is now soft, a team that got by on intimidation (just look at the faces of the Heat players after a game in Boston on Feb. 13) now seems mortal. The look on Doc Rivers's face late in games is one of shock, fear, and remorse all in one. It's like the face of Luke Skywalker when Darth Vader tells him he is his Papi. (See here) Like, "This can't be real, it's a dream right?"
I admit I wasn't totally opposed to the trade in its entirety. I thought Shaq could fill that role, I thought they could find another buyout guy similar to P.J. Brown in 2007. But I appreciated that Perk signified the anchor that kept the ship from drifting to shore, and now without him, this ship could end up smashing against the rocks. Perhaps Perkins best symbolized the team's identity, and now they simply don't have one. They are soft in the middle, primarily use jump shooters on the outside, and lack that certain je ne sais quoi which made them so indestructible.

Can You Defend Danny Ainge?

Behind all the posturing, if you pulled Danny aside, he would probably tell you that his job as the Celtics GM is to do what's best for the team, for now and into the future. That as the GM of the Boston Celtics, his fiduciary responsibility is to ensure that that Celtics are not just competitive in 2011, but in 2012, 2013, 2014, and beyond.

Maybe Danny knew that when Perkins's contract was up this summer, he would command and be awarded a deal that would be commensurate with his abilities. Maybe Danny knew he couldn't meet that price, so rather than see an asset turn into a liability, he decided to try and get 80 cents back on the dollar?

Maybe that explains why Ainge jettisoned Semih Erden, Marquis Daniels, and Luke Harangody, and received three trade exemptions, not to mention the Clippers' unprotected, 2012 first-round pick (I don't know about you, but having an unprotected Clippers pick is never a bad thing). Maybe Danny thought that this team just didn't have what it takes to get out of the East, and that he should start building for the future now? Maybe he thought the team either had the wrong identity to win it all, or thought that a veteran team like the 2011 Celtics could seemingly adapt?

If the Celtics do not win the title this year, all we will focus on will be the trade that sent Boston into a tailspin. Was it written that the C's would even head back to the NBA Finals with Kendrick Perkins? Of course not, but unfortunately that's not what Celtics fans or the 2011 Celtics will remember about 2010-2011. They will recall a trade that seemed to fracture the Celtics' mojo into a thousand pieces, and transformed them from title contenders as the "Bad Boys" on the block, to just another team fighting to get out of the East.

If Danny's play was for 2012-2013, okay, but there is a good chance that the Celtics' title hopes for some time might have left with Perkins. In a division with teams like Miami, Chicago, and now New York, the Celtics might have passed up their best chance at a 'chip' for sometime. I can't say I questioned the trade from the beginning, but seeing the toll it's taken on the big four, Doc, and the lift it's given the rest of the league, Danny Ainge might have single-handedly taken the Celtics out of the driver's seat on the road into the playoffs.