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BOSTON -- The best thing that can be said about Danny
Ainge's first year running the Boston Celtics is that it's almost
over. Already on his third coach, with just three players remaining
from the roster he inherited last May, Ainge may finally have
turned the corner in his efforts to build a team resembling the one
he played on in the 1980s. No, they're not ready to win a
championship yet, but at least Ainge is done tearing things apart
and ready to start rebuilding. "We're all on the same page," the former Celtics guard said
last week after hiring Doc Rivers as the new coach. "That's a
great feeling that I have today that I haven't had since I've been
here." The Celtics have won a record 16 NBA titles, but their last was
in 1986 with Ainge supplementing the trio of Larry Bird, Robert
Parish and Kevin McHale. Since then, the team has spent most of its
time in the NBA's no-man's land: Good enough to make the playoffs
but not good enough to contend for banner No. 17. That's why Ainge was brought in last year in the middle of the
conference semifinals and installed as the executive director of
basketball operations. Even before the Celtics were swept by the
New Jersey Nets, Ainge conceded that they weren't championship
material and promised a bold makeover. He started by trading Antoine Walker -- one of the team's two
stars -- to the Dallas Mavericks nine days before the start of the
season. The Celtics were hovering around .500 in mid-December when
Ainge shipped Eric Williams and Tony Battie -- favorites of coach
Jim O'Brien -- to the Cleveland Cavaliers for talented but
troublesome guard Ricky Davis. O'Brien soon had enough and quit a month later. John Carroll, an
assistant originally brought in by Rick Pitino, took over on an
interim basis and lost 12 of his first 13 games. He turned things
around in time to grab the eighth and final playoff berth in the
East but was let go the day after the first-round sweep by Indiana. "The Celtics are going through a lot of changes, more than any
team should have to go through in one year," center Raef LaFrentz
said at the news conference to introduce Rivers. "I think the
waters are calming down and now we can get back to work." Ainge had wondered aloud about the wisdom of leaving the draft
lottery for an almost certain first-round exit -- a prophecy that
came to pass -- but fans had no such ambivalence. Going up against a
Red Sox-Yankees series in New York, the Celtics failed to sell out
either of their playoff games and TV ratings were lower than NASCAR
-- not the race, but the pre-race show. "The Celtics fans are knowledgeable fans," Ainge said. "We
need to give them a product to watch." The next step is adding some stability to a team that Ainge has
called "dysfunctional." Reminded that most of the tumult
originated with him, he said, "I do take responsibility." "It's still a player's job to play," he added. "Some
adversity that was unexpected, they reacted well in a lot of ways.
Others, (that's) not so." Ainge hopes that a large part of the solution will be a better
relationship with Rivers, the first coach that has been of his own
choosing. The Celtics also have three first-round draft picks this
summer, giving Ainge a chance to reshape the team's future in one
stroke. And, having pared their obligation to Vin Baker from about $40
million to $16 million over the next three years, the Celtics will
have the salary cap space to sign free agents, too. "I feel terrific today that we have a nucleus of young players
and draft picks. Settling Vin Baker is huge," owner Wyc Grousbeck
said after Rivers was hired. "The situation is attractive enough
that we could go out and get the best coach available. This is a
new day for the Celtics." Rivers evidently thought so, too. "If you like basketball, I don't know how you can say 'no' to
this opportunity," he said. "You can't say 'no' to the Boston
Celtics."
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