He gets ringing endorsement

["Stephen Beauregard" <sb@xxxxxxxxxxxx>]

He gets ringing endorsement


By Jackie MacMullan, Globe Columnist, 5/9/2003

he phone rang earlier than usual. Kevin McHale, who runs the basketball
operations for the Minnesota Timberwolves, picked it up and discovered his
good friend and former Celtics teammate Danny Ainge was on the line.



''We talk all the time,'' McHale said yesterday. ''We talk about what's going
on in the league. He has ideas about what I should do with my team. Who I
should trade, who I should draft . . . sometimes we agree, and sometimes we
don't.''

Danny Ainge has no official experience running a basketball team, but he has
lived vicariously through his friend McHale for nearly eight years, gleaning
an insider's view of the good, the bad, and the ugly of trying to make an NBA
franchise work.

Yet when he telephoned McHale a few weeks ago, it wasn't to argue hypothetical
personnel moves. It was to tell him he might have a chance to play the
front-office game for real -- with the Celtics, the franchise for which both
of them cemented their reputations as champions.

Ainge arranged for McHale and Celtics owner Steve Pagliuca to play golf during
his charity tournament last month. McHale came away convinced the new
ownership group wanted to upgrade, beginning with Ainge.

''What I came away with was that Steve Pagliuca is a basketball junkie,''
McHale reported. ''He's a guy who really loves the game. He's a guy who will
be very involved as an owner.''

Both Pagliuca and Wyc Grousbeck are awaiting Ainge's decision on whether to
relocate his family back to Boston, and accept their multimillion-dollar offer
to run the team. Team sources said if Ainge comes aboard, he will not be
looking to make an immediate coaching change.

He will undoubtedly, however, be looking to tweak the current personnel, which
will now give McHale the chance to bounce the ''what ifs'' off his friend and
his franchise for a change.

''The one thing I'd preach with him is patience,'' McHale said. ''You can't
listen to the media complain about what you do, should do, or when. You've got
to do what's best for the team, even if it means waiting a while, and enduring
some uncomfortable situations.''

McHale was lucky in some respects. He inherited a lousy team, a luxury Ainge
will not enjoy if he does take over the Celtics. When there's no place to go
but up, any improvement is considered a giant step. In Ainge's case, he will
inherit a team that went to the Eastern Conference finals a year ago, and has
gone to the second round this season, even though it's generally recognized
Boston's roster is not as deep as many of its opponents. Still, McHale warns,
quick fixes are difficult in the NBA.

''We're all a little impulsive in the beginning, and you have to really fight
it,'' McHale said. ''It's the toughest thing to learn. When I look back, one
of the decisions I wish I had more patience with was when Stephon [Marbury]
demanded to be traded.'' (Marbury groused he didn't like the cold winters or
the small Midwest lifestyle of Minnesota.)

''He was coming up on free agency, at the time I was thinking, `Geez, I better
do something, or else I'll lose him for nothing.' Hindsight is always 20-20,
of course, but you've got to experience it to get the 20-20 out of it.

''Now, if a situation like that comes around again, I can see that I don't
necessarily have to react to it. Sometimes it's better to sit back, and see
how it plays out.''

McHale heartily endorses Ainge as the man who can have an impact in Boston.

''Danny knows the game,'' McHale said. ''He's played it, he's coached it. He's
done the TV, which gives you a variety of experiences that will help him. It
always helps when you've coached before.

''I don't think any of us as players know what a coach goes through, and how
much responsibility a coach feels for every little thing, how much they live
and die with every mistake.

''When one of our guys throws a bad pass, and it's driving our coaches crazy,
I tell them, `Relax on that stuff,' but they can't. Danny will be good at
adding perspective there. He'll be able to say, `I know how you feel. I've
been there. But you can only control what you can control.' ''

McHale said one of the biggest shocks he experienced when he moved to the
front office was how shallow the talent pool is compared with the 1980s, when
he was in his prime.

''You better learn to make do with what you have,'' McHale said. ''The days of
having Magic [Johnson], [James] Worthy, Kareem [Abdul-Jabbar], and [Byron]
Scott on one team are over. Those days are gone. There are 30 teams in this
league, and there is not one kind of every player to go around. The league is
watered down, and the sooner you accept that, the better.''

The ultimate challenge for Ainge, McHale predicts, will be to upgrade Boston
from a playoff team to a really good playoff team.

''That's what's really hard,'' said McHale, whose Timberwolves have never
gotten out of the first round. ''You've got to find a way to improve yourself
without sacrificing what you already have.

''I reminded Danny of when we played. At that time, Milwaukee was the third-
or fourth-best team in the league behind us, the Lakers, and Philadelphia.
They destroyed the team they had by trying to catch us and Philadelphia. By
the time they were done, the team they tore apart was much more competitive
than the one they ended up with.''

Ainge has always been a man of strong faith, and strong convictions. That,
said McHale, could end up being his strongest quality.

''You get to a point where you realize you've got to stick to what you believe
in,'' he said. ''Sometimes it means saying, `This guy is going to be a player
in two or three years.' You might be right, but man, it's hard to wait to find
out.

''There's one other thing Danny knows how to do. He has six kids. He has got a
good feeling for letting everyone know where they stand, and what their role
is. It's important that players -- and coaches -- always know where they
stand, good or bad. Believe me, that's when everyone functions better.''

The Celtics are already facing salary cap penalties, are saddled with Vin
Baker's bloated contract, and have two late first-round picks that will not
yield help where they need it most -- point guard and center. It remains to be
seen whether this new ownership will give their new head of basketball
operations the right to spend its midlevel exception, which could lure a
helpful, albeit unspectacular, free agent (Juwan Howard? Travis Best?), but
further compound the team's luxury tax woes.

We should find out shortly if these turn out to be Danny Ainge's very real, as
opposed to hypothetical, headaches.

''I think he'd be great,'' said his friend in Minnesota. ''But, like I told
him, at the end of the day, it's up to the owner. It's his money, and he can
spend it any way he wants.''

Thanks,

Steve
sb@maine.rr.com

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