Trader Dan has been a busy man at the helm of the Boston Celtics and has some great trades on his General Manager resume. The Brooklyn Nets heist, moving Jeff Green, moving on from Rajon Rondo, stealing Isaiah Thomas, stealing Kyrie Irving, Ainge made multiple trades to give the Celtics a stockpile of picks that any rebuilding team would salivate over, but Ainge is still a failure.

Boston drafted Marcus Smart, Terry Rozier, Jayson Tatum, Jaylen Brown plenty of talent, but along the way there was Fab Melo, Jared Sullinger, R.J. Hunter, James Young, JaJuan Johnson, plenty of misses. Now, the draft is such a crap shoot so of course there will be misses, but of course there’s the IT and then Kyrie Irving trade. Danny Ainge has been in the middle of so many trades and deserves credit, but it’s the trades he didn’t make that will be his overall legacy.

Why did Ainge gather all those pics, to make the superstar trade to take Boston over the top after acquiring all that young talent to get out of the cellar. Paul George, Jimmy Butler, Kawhi Leonard, Anthony Davis are all stars, mostly superstars, that have been traded and never really came close to finding their way in to Bean Town. All those picks were stockpiled for those kind of players, and everyone knew they were waiting for AD. Now he’s a Los Angeles Laker, the Celtics biggest rival.

At least with all those young players, Irving, Al Horford and Gordon Hayward they should still be contenders right? Wrong. Irving is out the door and Horford seems to be too after everyone thought it was a done deal. All those picks, all the capital and what’s to show for it. Never a sniff at an NBA championship.
Let’s put the asterisk that the Hayward injury is something you can’t plan for and Irving is an enigma and pain in the butt that tanked the team, but Ainge watched OKC trade for George and re-sign with the Thunder and Leonard go to the division rival Raptors and win a championship. Now AD is with LeBron in LA and the title favorites for next year. What was it all for?

Will Boston head back to the lottery? No, and they still have draft capital with the Grizzlies pick for next season but with no guts to go for the high risk trade what does it matter? Irving could go to the Brooklyn Nets and none of the other big free agents in this monster free agency class are going to Boston either. They had all the capital, could have controlled the narrative on every big trade and really made none of them.

For the 2019 draft they add lottery pick Romeo Langford, Grant Williams, and a 1st round pick from the Suns from the Bucks, Carsen Edwards (a great pick Boiler Up!) and Tremont Waters. That’s more young talent, but for what? They’ve stockpiled young talent and did get to two Eastern Conference Finals, and a game 7 two seasons ago, but no one thought they were going to beat LeBron. They keep adding future 1st round picks which is great for the GM but they aren’t doing enough with them.

Danny Ainge can’t get big free agents and won’t make the big trade and so that means Boston will be good but not great. More playoff appearances but no more banners. That’s not good enough and that means no matter how many 1st round picks Danny Ainge gets, he has failed. The Celtics will be the team tied to the big trade but won’t be courageous enough to pull it off. Lavar Ball said the Lakers won’t win another championship since they traded his son, how’s getting kicked off of ESPN you jerk, but that comment is 100% reserved for the court with the leprechaun on it.