Ainge's green years

["Stephen Beauregard" <sb@xxxxxxxxxxxx>]

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Ainge's green years

He grew up quickly once with the Celtics

By John Powers, Globe Staff, 5/11/2003

ven before Friday's official announcement, before he tried (unsuccessfully) to
separate Red Auerbach's cigar from its matches, Danny Ainge was wearing a
Celtic warmup jacket all around town. ''He's bleeding green, even before the
press conference,'' marveled chief executive Wyc Grousbeck.



For those who've labored on Walter Brown's mismatched parquet, Hibernian
hemophilia seems to be a lifetime condition.

''As I've gone on to play on great teams in Portland and Phoenix with great
players,'' Ainge mused, upon returning to Boston, ''it's amazing to me as I've
traveled around the country that I'm still associated as being a Celtic.''

This time, though, No. 44 (at 44) will be running the show as the club's
executive director of basketball operations, which Auerbach once handled as a
side job.

''Danny has always started at the top -- without working his way up,'' cracked
Jerry Colangelo, the Suns chairman and CEO, when he got word of Ainge's abrupt
ascendancy. ''And now he gets an opportunity at the top again.''

Wasn't that how the man arrived here 22 years ago? Right from playing a
light-hitting third base for the Toronto Blue Jays (''He couldn't hit the
curveball,'' observes Bill Fitch, who was coaching the Celtics then) to a
place on a team that had just won its 14th NBA title.

Ainge didn't figure to be available now and he certainly wasn't available
then, when it took a nasty dispute and a half-million-dollar payoff to get him
garbed in green. The difference, two decades later, is in the welcome.

Ainge got a savior-style ovation from the Fleet faithful when he was
introduced during Game 3 of the playoff series with the Nets. When he turned
up in the autumn of 1981, most of his teammates viewed the baby-faced guard as
an intruder.

''Danny came in with a silver spoon and some people were envious of him,''
recalls Cedric Maxwell, who was a forward on the title team. ''They felt he
hadn't worked the route to get here. A lot of guys were close-minded -- and I
was one of them. We had won the championship together and we were a closely
knit family.''

And here came Ainge, six weeks into the season and itching to get his hands on
a basketball. He had always been a hyperactive GameBoy, a high school
All-American in three sports (football, too), who ran in all-comers track
meets for fun and was hooked on golf. And he had only one speed: all ahead
full. ''With Danny it was: Get out of the way, I'm coming!'' says K.C. Jones,
who coached Ainge on the 1984 and 1986 championship teams.

When Brigham Young stunned Notre Dame at the buzzer in the 1981 NCAA Regional
finals, it was Ainge's end-to-end, beat-the-clock layup that did it.

''I always said Danny was a smart ballplayer, but that was the single dumbest
mistake he ever made -- particularly when I made the shot before it,''
chuckles then-Irish star Kelly Tripucka, now a TV analyst for the Nets. ''The
worst part is, I've had to watch it every March for the last 22 years.''

Every roundball junkie in America saw Ainge's daring dash.

''That was probably the defining moment of his college career,'' says M.L.
Carr, who played with Ainge for four years on the Celtics. ''Everybody noticed
that.''

Most notably Auerbach, who promptly set about convincing Ainge that he was
wasting his time fielding grounders in Ontario.

''I might never have played basketball if it weren't for Red drafting me,''
Ainge says. ''Logically, baseball was the right sport. I was already in the
major leagues at a young age and had a contract . . . until I was drafted by
Red -- and that changed everything.''

Had he not already gone off to the Blue Jays, Ainge likely would have been
drafted higher than 31st, where the Celtics grabbed him with their third
pick.

''All of a sudden, he was a great baseball player in the eyes of Toronto,''
remembers Auerbach, who ended up losing the rights battle to the Blue Jays in
federal court. ''Alan Dershowitz said, `Appeal it, I'll represent you for
nothing.' I said, `Naw, we'll pay the bums off and we'll get him anyway.' So
we paid them off.''

Possibly no franchise ever paid more for a 12th man -- roughly $1,000 a minute
during Ainge's initial season.

''He jumped right from baseball to a club that had three guards that were all
going to play minutes ahead of him,'' says Fitch, who had Tiny Archibald,
Gerald Henderson, and Chris Ford in line ahead of Ainge. ''So there was no
rush to get him in the lineup.''

Ainge got 10 minutes a game as a rookie and he labored mightily to earn them,
as his coach rode him mercilessly in practice.

''I don't think I was as hard on Danny as Danny did,'' Fitch muses. ''The
thing that was tough on Danny was that he had to wait his turn at bat. But
when he got it . . .''

His big chance came when Boston traded Henderson after the 1984 title and
Ainge stepped in as a starter. He'd always had the attitude.

''Danny played with an air of confidence which bordered on cockiness, sort of
like Larry Bird,'' says Carr. ''And that's good.''

It was Carr who'd given Ainge a bit of sage career advice when he'd first
arrived: ''I told him, Danny, Jerry West and Pete Maravich didn't get into the
Hall of Fame by passing the ball.''

When the Celtics made their 1986 title run, it was Ainge who made the
difference in the opening series with the Bulls, launching shots from the
perimeter while the big men were being tied up inside and playing the
in-your-face, under-your-skin defense that made him the league's most despised
pest. ''I know there'll be 16,000 people booing me whenever I touch the
ball,'' he acknowledged during the final series with the Rockets.

The irrepressible prankster in the dressing room was a cold-blooded assassin
on the floor.

''Danny had a flair for joking and having fun,'' says Jones. ''But when it was
game time, he went out there to kill.''

It was Ainge's personality, as much as his skills, that kept him in the league
for another six years after he was traded to Sacramento in 1989.

''Danny always had that competitive fire,'' says Celtics forward Grant Long,
who played seven seasons against Ainge. ''That was his staple. That's why
teams kept picking him up and picking him up.''

Along the way, Ainge was picking up the multiple and varied credentials for
running the operations side of an NBA franchise. He's been a benchwarming
rook, a role player, and a starter with two championship rings. He's been
traded twice and he's been a free agent. He's been an assistant coach, then
the head man. And he's worn a TV analyst's headset.

''Danny will have a sensitivity for the players and the coaches,'' says Carr,
who also went on to become the Celtics' basketball operations director.
''They'll understand that he's been there, been through it. There's a point of
reference. Danny's had a chance to play and coach and now he's running it. The
only thing left would be to own it.''

Though Ainge was something of a rotisserie GM during his TV days, some
observers were startled at the idea of him sitting in a blue suit on the upper
floors above Causeway Street.

''I was surprised,'' says Jones. ''But it was a pleasant surprise.''

If anything, Ainge figured, he might get a job building a franchise from
scratch. He said he wasn't sure why the Celtics' new owners called him.

''Maybe 'cause Red told them,'' Ainge shrugged. ''I don't know.''

He has no illusions about the challenge ahead, certainly not after sitting
through Friday night's brutal loss to New Jersey, with the Fleet faithful
hooting and Antoine Walker jawing with a season ticket-holder. During the past
half-century, the Celtics have been world-beaters and they have been
wretched.

What they are now is just slightly above average. Ainge has signed on to a
franchise that is going sideways. ''If it was easy,'' Ainge says, ''anyone
could do the job.''

When Ainge donned the warmup jacket again, he was coming back to the place
where he proclaimed, finally, his sporting identity.

''The Boston Celtics, their tradition, was what brought me to basketball,'' he
said, ''and I'll be forever grateful for that.''

He may have been away nearly twice as long as he was here, but when Ainge made
his homecoming last week, he needed no nametag.

''They chose the right guy,'' declared Nets guard Jason Kidd, who played for
Ainge in Phoenix. ''He understands the game. He's won championships.''

The last one for the Celtics has Ainge's name on it. If he has his way, the
next one will, too. But it was more than the prospect of Flag 17 that has the
man bleeding green again.

''One of the reasons I came back was to finally beat Red at racquetball,''
Ainge confessed. ''And I think I can do that now.''

Thanks,

Steve
sb@maine.rr.com

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