Will Danny Ainge get fired after this season?

[Lefty]

I always wonder why the Celtics hired Ainge. I have never been a fan of his and would not shed a tear if he gets canned.

Am I the only one here who never liked Ainge?

 

[Bunker]

I like Ainge alot, especially when he played ball. However, I don't blame people for disliking him though-- I can see why he would be easy to dislike.

 

[elindholm]

Am I the only one here who never liked Ainge?

I always disliked him, but in retrospect I have come to have relative respect for the coaching job he did in Phoenix. Horry's infamous towel incident notwithstanding, I thought that he was pretty effective with the players he had.

 

[MastersofCombat]

Danny Ainge isnt going to make it and doesnt deserve too. Danny tried too much listening to others and now he doest know what to do to get out of this mess

 

[thegrahamcrackr]

I really don't know why people are down on Ainge as a GM...

While some of his moves have looked bad, they always turn out well in the net effect (after trading the ammassed pieces). The LaFrentz trade may be the exception I guess, but even that isn't looking soooo bad.....

He has a very nice group of young players, especially when Allen becomes fully healthy. He has 2 good veterans in Wallly and Pierce - and because of his last move he has the flexibility to move Pierce this summer for some primo pieces.

He has also had a pretty good draft record since he has been a GM. He may not be a top tier guy, but after doing this job for only 2 seasons I would say he has been pretty impressive.... Hell - I would say he has done a better job than Danny Ferry (Overpaid a bad fit in Hughes, overpaid DJones, Marshall and Illgauskas) and that guy doesn't get any flak....

 

[HooverDam]

Ainge should stick to what he knows- 3 point shooting and Spencers commercials

 

[dreamcastrocks]

I really don't know why people are down on Ainge as a GM...

While some of his moves have looked bad, they always turn out well in the net effect (after trading the ammassed pieces). The LaFrentz trade may be the exception I guess, but even that isn't looking soooo bad.....

He has a very nice group of young players, especially when Allen becomes fully healthy. He has 2 good veterans in Wallly and Pierce - and because of his last move he has the flexibility to move Pierce this summer for some primo pieces.

He has also had a pretty good draft record since he has been a GM. He may not be a top tier guy, but after doing this job for only 2 seasons I would say he has been pretty impressive.... Hell - I would say he has done a better job than Danny Ferry (Overpaid a bad fit in Hughes, overpaid DJones, Marshall and Illgauskas) and that guy doesn't get any flak....

You echoed my thoughts exactly. Look at Isiah Thomas and Boston should count its blessings.

 

[Joe Mama]

I really don't know why people are down on Ainge as a GM...

While some of his moves have looked bad, they always turn out well in the net effect (after trading the ammassed pieces). The LaFrentz trade may be the exception I guess, but even that isn't looking soooo bad.....

He has a very nice group of young players, especially when Allen becomes fully healthy. He has 2 good veterans in Wallly and Pierce - and because of his last move he has the flexibility to move Pierce this summer for some primo pieces.

He has also had a pretty good draft record since he has been a GM. He may not be a top tier guy, but after doing this job for only 2 seasons I would say he has been pretty impressive.... Hell - I would say he has done a better job than Danny Ferry (Overpaid a bad fit in Hughes, overpaid DJones, Marshall and Illgauskas) and that guy doesn't get any flak....

I agree. He is not the best from office man in the NBA, but I doubt his job is in jeopardy. I haven't liked all of his moves, but like Andy said, most of them have worked out pretty well. I'll give this last one some time even though it doesn't appear to make much sense.

I'm not sure how anyone can gripe about Danny Ainge when Isaiah Thomas is taking the New York Knicks to new lows right there in the same division.

Joe

 

[MastersofCombat]

This is the BOSTON CELTICS look at their record under his tenure he is horrible.

 

[Gaddabout]

I don't get why Danny Ainge retired to be with his family, then takes one of the most stressful, demanding jobs in sports, in the most drop-dead serious sports town in the world.

I suppose he could've taken a job under Steinbrenner or moved to Japan where they hammer tacks under his fingernails and dip them in salty water, but maybe those jobs were already taken.

 

[nowagimp]

I don't get why Danny Ainge retired to be with his family, then takes one of the most stressful, demanding jobs in sports, in the most drop-dead serious sports town in the world.

I suppose he could've taken a job under Steinbrenner or moved to Japan where they hammer tacks under his fingernails and dip them in salty water, but maybe those jobs were already taken.

He probably retired to get a better position. I'm sure the Celts had to entice him out of retirement using more control and pay. I really dont think that he has been so bad. I agreed to the ditching Anton Walker, overpaid gunner from 3 and shoots 30%. Keeping a job in Boston may not be so easy.

As a player, all he could do was shoot. He was one of the worst defenders on the early 90's suns, a poor defensive team. I still remember him leaving Paxon at the 3pt line to double Horace Grant(?) in the final minutes of the 4th quarter in 6th game of the 93 playoffs. That was dumb, even for Danny boy. Imagine that, leaving the NBA's top 3pt shooter all alone for the winning shot!

 

[Errntknght]

Gaddabout, "I don't get why Danny Ainge retired to be with his family, then takes one of the most stressful, demanding jobs in sports, in the most drop-dead serious sports town in the world."

I never believed that hokey reason but, except for the fact that Skiles replaced him, I wasn't unhappy to see him depart.

I rather liked Ainge as a player when he was with the Suns. He wasn't a bad defender - certainly not in the way Ceballos and Chapman were - but he did try to do too much. Along the lines of Casey Jacobson in that regard.

I always said he'd probably make a good coach if he'd have paid his dues as an assistant under some good coaches but as it was I thought he was pretty poor. He was the worst sideline coach I've ever seen with his constant antics distracting his players and he tried to micromanage the game with flurries of substitutions. If a coach does a good job of preparing his team in practice he has no reason to be frantically coaching them from the sideline all during the games as Danny did. Watch any good coach and he'll be sitting there paying attention to what is happening on the floor.

Ainge also experimented with defensive gimmicks that he didn't thoroughly understand - we've seen the same from FJ and D'Antoni. All the gimmicks were failures - about what you'd expect, in other words. He also tried using a motion offense which he didn't understand and while the team wasn't as ill-suited as the one FJ tried the MO with, it wasn't a rousing success either. At times when Luc wasn't on the floor it did okay but a normal offense would probably have been better.

The last straw for me was his handling of McDyess, in particular having him sitting on the bench during critical stretches in fourth quarters. (In case you weren't around to witness the mess.) I always thought McDyess would have stayed here if Ainge had played him like he trusted him.

 

[BC867]

Gaddabout, "I don't get why Danny Ainge retired to be with his family, then takes one of the most stressful, demanding jobs in sports, in the most drop-dead serious sports town in the world." . . .

. . . I never believed that hokey reason but, except for the fact that Skiles replaced him, I wasn't unhappy to see him depart.The last straw for me was his handling of McDyess, in particular having him sitting on the bench during critical stretches in fourth quarters. (In case you weren't around to witness the mess.) I always thought McDyess would have stayed here if Ainge had played him like he trusted him.

You hit the nail on the head twice, Errntknght. Ainge didn't retire to be with his family . . . he resigned to get out of an embarassing situation . . . which he caused by sitting McDyess (during the 4th quarter) with each game on the line.

 

[George O'Brien]

I don't know how much of the McDyess situation was created by Ainge, but I think he contributed.

 

[thegrahamcrackr]

Being a head coach is 100x more stressfull and time exhaustive than being a GM. He can run the team from Mesa if he wants, and he doesn't have a hellish travel schedule. Most days he works 9-3, much different from the 18 hours a day he put in as a head coach....

MasterofCombat - the celtics record under him is so bad because he has had to spend the last 2 seasons getting away from the mistakes of Pitino and Wallace. At least now you can look at the Celts and say they have a future...

 

[nowagimp]

I rather liked Ainge as a player when he was with the Suns. He wasn't a bad defender - certainly not in the way Ceballos and Chapman were - but he did try to do too much. Along the lines of Casey Jacobson in that regard.

To call Danny Ainge "not a bad defender" sounds like true love to me. Danny couldnt move his feet on defense to save his life. As a two guard, he was probably a favorite among the guys he had to defend: their eyes lit up every time they came to town. I watched Danny as a Celtic for years when I lived back east. He had a great outside shot, but Parish and Mchale had to watch the penetration of his man( and Larry Birds man) on every possession. Without those two stellar shot blockers, Dannys man would have averaged 30 a night. Ceballos and Chapman may have been bad defenders, but it was because of lack of effort, not athletic ability. Danny simply couldnt guard a 2 guard, no matter how hard he tried.

 

[Errntknght]

I guess we'll have to agree to disagree, nowagimp... IMO, CC and Rex were far worse defenders than Ainge. In fact, Cedric was notoriously bad... I doubt if one Suns fan that watched him play would go so far as to say he was just moderately bad on D.

I don't think the two of us even see the same things on the floor. When you went on about how Banks and Carter hand checked, forearmed, bumped and held Nash all over the floor, I went back and rewatched two sections of the game again because that wasn't my reaction when I first watched the game (it's not something I normally overlook when it happens to Nash) - and I didn't see anything remotely resembling what you described when I was expressly looking for it.