The Boston Celtics owe a lot of their current success to Danny Ainge. Four of the five starters on the court for Game 1 of the NBA Finals against the Golden State Warriors were drafted by Ainge during his time as President of Basketball Operations of the team before he retired in 2021 and handed over the role to Brad Stevens.
His best ever move as President was swindling the Brooklyn Nets in the trade, which ultimately helped the Celtics land Jayson Tatum and Jaylen Brown in the draft. It set the Celtics up for the success they’re enjoying right now and owner Wyc Grousbeck was full of praise for the job he had done for the team but he also painfully recounted on the ‘Greg Hill Show’ the time when he had to threaten to kick Ainge out of the locker room:
“He was so instrumental while he was here. It really pained me to have to threaten to throw him out of the locker room when he showed up all of a sudden in the Milwaukee series. I’m like, ‘I’m sorry, guests are not allowed in this locker room. You represent the Utah Jazz. So that was a lot of fun. We all had a pretty good laugh about that. It really pained me to have to throw him out of the locker room.”
“You look back to what he did. I told him I wanted a fresh mind for a coach, and he said, ‘sounds like you want a college coach,’ and he recommended Brad Stevens. And so that was a great run with Brad. And now Brad is running the basketball side. And Brad identified Ime as a top candidate for the coaching job. So it dates back to Danny”
“The core of this team now was put together obviously under Danny. And then he bailed out last year of his own wishes. So it’s all the sweeter to be having him try to get a pass into the locker room now. But we love Danny, we always will, and he’s a Celtic for life.”
Grousbeck is, of course, referring to the fact that Ainge is now the CEO of the Utah Jazz. Still, his imprint is all over this Celtics roster and he would deserve some credit if they do go on to win the title this year.
Ainge will be hoping to do something similar with the Jazz but it has been a rocky start. They were knocked out of the playoffs in the first round by the Dallas Mavericks and it looks like Quin Snyder’s time with the team might be coming to an end. There is also the whole Donovan Mitchell-Rudy Gobert drama going on and Ainge will need to work his magic to get the Jazz back on track.
