Danny Ainge’s Dilemmas

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http://celtics.realgm.com/articles/366/20081231/danny_ainges_dilemmas/


Danny Ainge’s Dilemmas

When Danny Ainge made the deals for Ray Allen and Kevin Garnett in the summer
of 2007 – doesn’t that already seem like ancient history? – the general
impression was given that Ainge thought the team might need a year to gel and
that 2009 would be the year to make a claim for an NBA title. To the surprise
of many, including this author, the C's came together almost magically and
dominated the league en route to flag no. 17. At the time it seemed the
window for championships for this team would extend at least two or three
more seasons. With an extraordinary 27-4 start to the 2008-09 season,
everything seems set for another run on titles lasting at least two or three
more years. And with the brilliant Danny Ainge at the helm, perhaps longer.

But looks can be deceiving. Because RealGM is a website dedicated to serious
fans who are concerned with the architecture of teams, allow me to provide my
take on where the C's are right now in the larger scheme of things and what
options face Danny Ainge.

Lost in the excitement and drama of last season, the charisma of the star
players, the general consistent intensity of the team’s defensive play, and
the spectacular start to the 2008-09 season, there have been some potentially
ominous signs. Mostly, they have to do with the proverbial Big Three. We all
knew that they were at a point in their careers where their games would
diminish, but with superstars it is hard to know when that point would arrive
exactly. Some players continue at a high level well into their mid-30s, like
Michael Jordan, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, John Stockton, John Havlicek, Reggie
Miller, and Karl Malone. Others, like Charles Barkley, Dave Cowens, David
Robinson, Shaq, Kevin McHale, and Shawn Marion, head south in their early
30s. It is almost impossible to predict although pundits have 20-20
hindsight.

As I said, lost in the glow of the title there were some troubling signs with
the Big Three last year that have continued into 2009. Kevin Garnett was no
longer one of the top three to five players in the game in 2008, which he had
been for the much of the previous decade. He was a dominant defender with a
lovely mid-range jump shot, but his once Rodman-like rebounding had slipped a
notch or two. This trend continues into the current season, where he is now
settled in one of the top 10-12 players in the game and heading south. This
is an underappreciated development. As I have demonstrated elsewhere, teams
that win titles tend to be led by a player who ranks among the 3-5 best in
the game at the time. It is not always true; it holds around 80-85 percent
most of the time. But those are not great odds when the Eastern Conference
has players-for-the-ages studs like LeBron James and Dwight Howard leading 60
plus win teams into the playoffs. As Garnett gets further and further away
from the status of a top 5 player, the C's chances of winning titles decline
unless someone else rises to fill the breech.

Ray Allen’s play in 2008 was well below his career standards, much more so
than KG. His dreadful play in the Atlanta and Cleveland playoff series almost
cost the C's the title and suggested he might be washed up. Fortunately, he
found his groove deep into the conference finals and then in the finals, or
else the C's would have not won the title. His play has improved this season
with better health even though he is not at the level of his prime. And Paul
Pierce, too, circa 2008-09, is a notch below the Paul Pierce of his 20s.
Allen and Pierce are still fine players, but they rank in the top 30-40 now,
rather than the top 10-20, where they resided for much of their careers. If
Allen and Pierce remained at the primes, KG’s decline would be less
significant. They are all such fine players that even their combined slippage
does not prevent the C's from being a great team. But the question is not
whether this is a 60 win team – it is -- it is whether this team will win
the 2009 NBA championship.

Coming into the 2008-09 season, the C's task of repeating was perhaps more
daunting than was widely acknowledged by exuberant fans, basking in the
pleasure of being at the top. It was more than simply the Big Three showing
their age. Ainge had decided to let James Posey walk and see if Tony Allen,
Eddie House, Big Baby Davis, and Leon Powe could pick up the slack. It was
not an unreasonable move, as Posey’s salary was long and large and would
have been a burden in 2011 when the C's might be in a position to get well
under the salary cap. Moreover, Powe, T. Allen, and Davis are young and could
see significant improvement. But, at any rate, the C's had lost a major
piece, and its star players were a year deeper into their 30s. At this point,
1/3 of the way into the season, Ainge has lost that gamble. Powe and T. Allen
have had their moments, but neither has been consistent. Powe looked like a
Paul Millsap type in the closing two months of the 2008 season. This year, he
only plays like that periodically. T. Allen still plays out of control far
too often for a fifth year player. At some point one must wonder if he will
ever get it. Davis has been a major disappointment. Other than playing solid
position defense in the low post, he does little of particular value. Eddie
House still cannot play the point especially well, to the point that turnover
machine Tony Allen sometimes assumes those duties when they are on the floor
together. House is a hustling streak shooter who is of limited value if his
shot is not falling. The Celtics' bench this year has been a disappointment.
Right now it looks like Danny rolled the dice and lost.

The key to compensating for a declining Big Three and a disappointing bench
has come from dramatic improvements from the two remaining starters Kendrick
Perkins and Rajon Rondo, age 24 and 22, respectively. Much of the optimism
about the C's prospects this season rests upon their improved play. Perkins
has evolved into one of the best interior defenders in the NBA and will
possibly begin an annual trip to the All-Defensive team this year. His
offense has improved as well, and he is a credible option at the low post. He
now ranks as one of the 10-12 best centers in the league. If he can
consistently make the 12-15 foot wide-open shot, which he is invariably
granted by the opposing team, and which most comparable NBA centers learn to
shoot, he can possibly make an All-Star team or two down the road. But that
will not happen this year.

Rondo, of course, is the main source of optimism and excitement among C's
fans, not only for this season, but for the coming decade and the post
big-three era. His game has improved dramatically as a point guard and has,
therefore, made the offense far more effective. He has become a credible
offensive force with his drives to the hoop. And he is a superior defender
although a tad reckless at times. When Rondo is on his game, the C's can, and
will, play with anyone in the league and beat anyone in the league. So far,
he seems to play his game better at home than on the road. Anyway one slices
it, Rondo is arguably no less than the second or third best player on the
team, and he may well be the most important player on the team in short
order. His ascension has been breathtaking.

One can project Rondo as an All-Star already this season and possibly as an
All-Pro in the future. His talent is that enormous. But, he has two major
limitations. These limitations may be overcome down the road, but they are
going to persist through this season and next. First, he still plays a bit
out of control, and that translates into unnecessary turnovers and lost
scoring opportunities. This is a function of age and experience and the price
one pays with a young point guard. Second, and more importantly, Rondo cannot
hit the wide-open shot, even from 12 or 15 feet, in games. He has no
confidence. His free throw shooting is also dismally deficient. Nor can he
hit the pull-up 12-15 foot jump shot in games, which is available to him
every time down the court as no team in the league dares to guard him closely
until he is in the lane. I say “in games” because Rondo apparently nails
these shots, out to the three-point line, in practice. He simply lacks
confidence. Rondo’s talent is so prodigious that this unwillingness to take
open shots does not cause serious problems against most opponents. But when
playing the great teams of the league in the playoffs, it will possibly prove
fatal.

And this leads to the other great problem facing Danny Ainge and the C's as
they attempt to repeat: the other top teams in the league are better, much
better, than they were last year. Doc Rivers is not blowing CoachSpeak when
he says the Celtics have to improve dramatically to win again in 2009. The
Lakers are a tremendous team, clearly worthy of a crown. The Cavaliers are a
frighteningly good team, with the best player in the game today and arguably
the someone who will be regarded as greatest player of all time. If the
Celtics do somehow defeat these two teams to win a title in 2009, the C's
will have had as difficult a challenge in the playoffs as any team in
Celtics' history. It will be an astounding accomplishment. It is not unlike
the early 80s when Philly and the Lakers each had exceptional teams standing
in the C's way. And the Magic are looking like a 60 win team this year and
for years to come. If the C's do not get the home court advantage in the east
and have to go through Orlando and Cleveland en route to LA, their chances of
getting flag no. 18 are, to be frank, not encouraging. The degree of
difficulty this year is very high, a 19 game winning streak notwithstanding.

So that brings us to Danny Ainge’s dilemmas. I use the plural, because Danny
has a complex set of demands upon him. He is commissioned to win now while
the team is a legitimate contender first and foremost. In this capacity,
Danny needs to address the immediate problems facing the team: Its woeful
bench which lacks a back-up point guard who can run an offense, or a “big”
 who stands over 6-6 in his bare feet, or a forward who can have some prayer
of staying with a big 3 like LeBron, not to mention Rashard Lewis. Danny has
few resources to use to improve the roster. There are no future no. 1 picks
to deal until 2012, and such a pick has little value. (Not to mention, Danny
likes to keep his picks. Red Auerbach’s first commandment was Thou Shalt Not
Trade Future No. 1 Picks.) And the marginal young players on the C's roster
have little current trade value, but they do have some upside so the C's are
wise to keep them. Hence Danny is pretty much reduced to signing players who
are retired like Dikembe Mutombo and P.J. Brown and Jason Williams or who
might get bought out by their current teams, like, we hope, Joe Smith of the
Thunder. Danny must do something, anything within reason, to give this team a
better shot at succeeding in the playoffs this season.

But he is also responsible for attempting to extend the current window as a
legitimate contender for as long as possible, so he has to determine at what
point the C's are no longer legitimate contenders. When does the so-called “
window” shut? As this season winds down, and in the summer of 2009, this
will be the dominant story in Celticsland. Should the C's win flag no. 18
this year, Danny will almost certainly only tweak the roster and go for a
three-peat in 2010. Or if the C's lose in the 2009 playoffs, but Rondo’s
brilliant development convinces Danny that he can be an All-Pro as soon as
next year, that he can be the best player on a championship team, then he
would stay the course, as well. (This is not as far-fetched as it would have
seemed only three months ago, but the odds are still at best 1 in 10, as it
requires among other things for Rondo to become an effective and consistent
shooter.)

But should the C's lose in the playoffs and look old in the process, and
should the immediate horizon seem to have a handful of very good rising teams
equal or superior to the C's, Danny will face a major dilemma. Does he try to
tweak the team with an MLE signing -- say, for sake of discussion, Ben Gordon
for a five-year $35 million deal – and hope the team can rally for one more
title while the Big Three are still quality players? Then get another MLE guy
in the summer of 2010. The downside with that approach, aside from luxury tax
implications, is that he ties up the team with several long-term deals for
average players and kills any salary cap flexibility for years. (As a worst
case scenario of this approach, consider the Knicks' roster littered with
Jerome James and Jared Jeffries.) It also keeps the team good enough to avoid
getting a top draft pick.

The other course for Danny is to deconstruct the team, get under the cap, get
some draft picks, and reconstruct the team around Rondo, Perkins, and an
aging KG come 2011.

This is going to be a difficult situation for Danny if they fail to win the
title in 2009. (If they do win in 2009, the issue will be postponed for a
year.) The path of least resistance will be to try to patch up the show and
hope for a little luck and another title behind the Big Three and Rondo in
2010. The sportswriters will all approve and so will much of the fan base.
The owners will make money, and the C's will be on national TV frequently. At
best, they can be like the Pistons have been for the past three or four
years. But the downside of such an approach is to become like the C's from
1988-93: A team playing out the string and just postponing the inevitable
collapse without a legitimate chance at winning a title. If Danny milks the
2008 title to simply have a nice team for the next three or four years only
to have the C's return to the NBA basement for the balance of the 2010s, they
may come to regret having won the title in 2008.

Knowing what we do about Danny Ainge, it is unlikely he will settle for the
path of least resistance. My educated guess is that the moment he determines
the team does not have a realistic chance of winning a title, that minor
tweaking or a trade or an MLE free agent cannot fix the problem, he will
implement a comprehensive plan to retool. The refusal to sign James Posey in
2008 was an indication that Danny is not going to sacrifice the future for
the present. As much as Danny loves the C's tradition, I don’t think he
would have any qualms about trading anyone on the roster – anyone – if he
thought it would improve the team’s chances of ultimately returning to
legitimate contention. I cannot imagine him letting the Big Three have a
victory lap around the league from 2010 to 2012, similar to Larry, Chief, and
Kevin in the early 90s. I could imagine Danny trading Ray Allen as an
expiring contract, or doing whatever it takes to get under the cap and soon.
I could see Danny being willing to dip into the lottery for two seasons (a la
2006 and 2007) to get the chips necessary to put together a contender. In
short, I think the historical record suggests Danny will move aggressively
with a plan; he is not going to rest on the 2008 championship to go into a
gradual decline like the British Empire. He wants to stay on top, and he has
demonstrated a record of taking the long view strategically.

Now, of course, if the C's win another flag in 2009, or Rondo emerges the
second or third best point guard in the NBA, such thinking may be moot, at
least for another year or two. But I suspect that this is precisely the
thought process going on through Danny’s head although perhaps in somewhat
different terms.

One indication of how Danny is always thinking two moves ahead is to look at
the C's current roster. For a team that has just won a title and is a serious
contender for another one in 2009, it is an astonishingly young roster. Take
away the Big Three and this is one of the youngest teams in the league. There
are nine players 26 or younger. Danny Ainge signed a long-term project in
Patrick O’Bryant rather than bring in a crusty veteran to provide bench
power. He likes to develop young players, either to become players or to be
used in trades.

Danny has some major issues to determine in the short term as he attempts to
put together the strongest possible team for the 2009 playoffs and for the
future course of the franchise once those playoffs have ended. Aside from the
games themselves, which are a source of incalculable pleasure to watch,
watching Danny guide the franchise is a source of fascination and pleasure.
Just like when Red was at the helm, we have a grandmaster with his hands on
the wheel. It is a good time to be a Celtics' fan, even if treacherous waters
lie not too far ahead.

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推 gaiaesque   :感覺ainge是想要維持現狀讓母雞帶小雞..
推 tzar        :看完前面就不想看了～～竟然說ＫＧ不是ＴＯＰ５！！