In backcourt or front office, Ainge always a straight shooter

["Stephen Beauregard" <sb@xxxxxxxxxxxx>]

The direct approach
In backcourt or front office, Ainge always a straight shooter
By Jackie MacMullan, Globe Staff, 10/28/2003

WALTHAM -- Dick Motta, notorious for his hard-line approach, had just been
hired to turn around the 7-21 Sacramento Kings. It was Jan. 4, 1990, the day
he was officially named coach, and he gathered his players to tell them a
thing or two. "The first thing he said was, `You better play my way,' "
recalls Jerry Reynolds, who was removed as coach and bumped upstairs to the
front office. "He told them, `If you do everything I say, and listen to me,
then you'll get what I have' -- and then he held up his championship ring."

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The room was respectfully silent, but only for a matter of seconds. That's how
long it took Kings guard Danny Ainge to chime in.

"Hey coach," Ainge said. "They really better listen to me. I've got two
rings."

"And he wonders why Motta traded him," chuckles Reynolds.

Danny Ainge, the Celtics' new director of basketball operations, has
undoubtedly been called many things in the wake of his decision to trade team
cocaptain Antoine Walker to Dallas a week before the season starts, but nobody
has branded him reticent, hesitant, or indecisive.

His unwavering confidence and penchant for speaking his mind (even when a
little diplomacy would suffice) have defined him in the infancy of his front
office reign. When the media asked him why he traded Walker, he -- gasp! --
told them the real reason. It may have been easier, and more appropriate, to
extol Walker's virtues and chalk up his departure with the generic (and
usually deceptive) mantra of "going in a different direction."

But no. Ainge explained that he wasn't crazy about Walker's shot selection. He
wondered aloud about Walker's conditioning. He declared the player's "grasp"
on the team had evolved into a negative. Naturally, Walker reacted adversely,
and Ainge has been scolded for making comments that will be sure to come back
and haunt him, particularly on Dec. 17, the day the Celtics play Dallas for
the first time.

"I don't see it that way," says Ainge. "I was traded from Boston once. I had
to leave friends, a great team, but at the same time, I was looking for new
challenges. I had the date we played them circled, too. I scored 37 points,
but I wasn't motivated by bitterness or hatred. I had to show my big
brothers."

Two of those "big brothers" -- Kevin McHale and Larry Bird -- are also running
teams in the NBA. They, too, are known for their candor.

"Danny is going to tell you what he thinks -- maybe to a fault," says McHale,
the Timberwolves general manager. "What you see is what you get. If you don't
like the answer, then don't ask the question."

"Sometimes, I regret things," Ainge concedes. "Sometimes, I pick up the paper
in the morning and say, `Dang, did I say that? I probably shouldn't have.' But
then I don't worry about it anymore. I move on."

Misses and hits He was a brash kid of 22 when he joined the Celtics in 1981,
extricating himself from his baseball contract only after the Toronto Blue
Jays sued the Celtics to block them from signing him. He oozed charisma, and
his seasoned teammates waited expectantly to see if the hype surrounding this
kid was warranted.

"I laugh when I hear Danny say Antoine takes too many shots," says a gleeful
Bird, now president of the Indiana Pacers. "Look who's talking. Danny was a
gunner. I remember [former Celtics coach] Bill Fitch telling him, `You're
shooting about the same percentage as your batting average.'

"M.L. Carr told everybody Danny was another Jerry West. After a few days of
Danny missing all those shots, I turned to M.L. and said, `Hey, I thought
Jerry West scored a lot of points.' "

"I remember Max [Cedric Maxwell] sitting there counting out loud, `1 for 10, 2
for 12, 3 for 17 . . .,' " Ainge said. "At the end of practice, Fitch pulled
me aside and said, `It's not as easy as you thought, is it?' I didn't say
anything, but I was thinking it was easy. I was used to being double- and
triple-teamed in college, and now, all of a sudden only one guy was guarding
me. Sure, I was missing, but I knew that would change."

As Ainge continued to put up shots and deflect the jabs of his teammates, Bird
and McHale took note of the kid's perseverance and toughness.

"He was struggling big-time," says Bird, "but he kept shooting. We'd get on
his case, but it didn't bother him. He had plenty of confidence. He just had
to get over the first three months and settle in. Once he did, Danny became a
hell of a player."

In his inaugural Celtics season, Ainge averaged just 4 points a game and shot
35.7 percent. He never came close to shooting that badly again.

"I had a hard time," Ainge acknowledges. "I thought I was a better player than
Chris Ford and Gerald Henderson. But I wasn't playing, and my anxiety started
building up. They were calling me `Danny Ain't.' For the first time in my
life, I wasn't getting it done."

He put himself through a grueling offseason, and won Fitch over upon his
return. He became a starter on a 1982-83 Celtics team roiling with turmoil.
They were swept by the Milwaukee Bucks in the playoffs, and Fitch was fired.

Ainge and his family retreated to Disney World for a week, where he carried
his son Austin on his shoulders all through the park. Soon thereafter, he
awoke at 2 a.m. in excruciating pain, drove himself to an Orlando emergency
room, and was injected with a pain-killer. It wasn't until a week later, when
he went to Provo, Utah, to conduct his summer basketball camp, that he
realized he was in trouble.

"I pull up to take my first shot since the season ended," says Ainge, "and my
shoulder blade goes flying out to the side. I couldn't shoot at all."

Ainge consulted with various specialists. He was diagnosed with "winging of
the scapula." He had nerve damage in the shoulder, probably sustained during
his collision with Tree Rollins toward the end of the previous season (just
before the famous "Tree Bites Man" altercation). He would need nearly nine
months to recover. But the pain was minimal, and Ainge said he could play
through it; team doctor Thomas Silva concurred.

"So about halfway through the season, [general manager] Jan Volk calls me in,"
Ainge says. "He says he and Red [Auerbach] had been watching me, and they
wanted to know why I was shooting so many shots lefthanded. I told him, `Jan,
it's because of my injury.'

"He said, `Oh. Dr. Silva said that was all in your imagination.' "

Volk remembers Ainge's injury, and the team's decision to keep it quiet, but
he disputes Ainge's version of the conversation in his office.

"At no time did I doubt that injury was real," said Volk. "Nor do I remember
Dr. Silva doubting that."

By summer, Ainge's shoulder had healed. He played in the San Diego Summer
League and was named MVP. Henderson was traded. Ainge was again the starter.

"I always knew Danny was the kind of player I liked," says former coach K.C.
Jones. "He feared nothing. He was the most determined guy I had."

`Coach on the floor' The brief period of doubt became a blip on the radar
screen. Ainge was an integral part of the 1986 championship team. He became a
reliable and feared 3-point threat. He also began to grow older. The big
brothers were aging, too.

During the 1988-89 season, Ainge lost his starting job to young guard Brian
Shaw.

"One night, we're heading to the Capital Centre [in Landover, Md.], and our
bus gets a flat tire," says Volk. "We quickly called for a van to begin
transporting the players to the arena.

"The van arrives, and Danny starts yelling, `OK, all starters, get in the
van!' Someone had to grab him and tell him, `Hey, Danny, you're not a starter
anymore.' He forgot."

Later that season, Ainge was traded to Sacramento, where he started and
averaged 20 points a game.

"One day Danny comes up to me," says Reynolds. "He said, `Coach, I figured out
what's wrong with our team.' I said, `Great, Danny, please enlighten me.' He
said, `Well, I'm the best player on the team. We'll never win consistently
with me as the best player.'

"I liked his frankness. I'm not sure if I coached him or if he coached me. The
thing about Danny was, he was always right. He was challenging. I had to kick
him out of practice a few times. He would start taking that `coach on the
floor' idea a little too far."

"That's a bit of a fabrication," Ainge protests. "I remember being pulled out
of drills, but kicked out of practice? I don't think so. Did I have an
opinion? Yes. Did I do whatever I wanted? No. Did I have fun? Sure. The game
is supposed to be fun."

Friendly advice If the Walker deal doesn't pan out, nobody will be smiling in
these parts. The dividends -- Raef LaFrentz, Jiri Welsch, and a draft pick --
are unknown commodities.

"It's a risky deal," says Bird. "But Danny has a vision of how things should
go, and I don't think his vision is to get into the first round of the
playoffs. He wants to win the whole thing.

"Some GMs would never consider doing what he's just done. No way. But whether
it's a good deal or not, you have to take some chances. Danny is bright. He
understands the game. There's no question in my mind he's going to do well.

"The only thing he's got to do is get rid of that swami he's got, that
mind-reader. Tell him to do his own thinking."

Bird is referring to Jon Niednagel, the "brain doctor" who studies brain
patterns of players to discern certain characteristics. Ainge, one of the
biggest proponents of his work, hired Niednagel as a consultant with the
Celtics.

"Tell Larry that his coach [Rick Carlisle] calls Jon all the time," Ainge
retorts. "Jon was at my house, and Carlisle talked to him for an hour on his
cell. Larry has more scouts than I have -- twice as many. I'll take my swami
over his whole scouting staff.

"Larry thinks his own way. I think my own way, too. The swami had nothing to
do with the Antoine Walker trade. He's my consultant -- and Rick's, too."

Ainge has already talked twice with Bird about potential deals. He talks to
McHale almost every week. The message from Minnesota is the same every time.

"I've told Danny this before," McHale says. "The biggest thing is he's got to
be patient. In the beginning, you want to do this deal and that deal, but over
the long haul you realize you shouldn't pull the trigger unless you are
really, really happy with it."

Does McHale think Ainge pulled the trigger too soon on Walker?

"I can't say that," he says. "I don't know the particulars of everything. I do
know it's hard to make changes."

Does Danny Ainge need to change the way he does business? Does he need to hold
his tongue when asked for the unvarnished truth?

"Once in a while, you need to hold certain stuff in," says Reynolds. "Like I
told Danny, `You know, it is possible to have an unspoken thought.' "

Ainge understands this, but sometimes he can't help but let the words come
tumbling out. There will be days when it costs him. There will be days it
benefits him. He doesn't care either way. When you've got two championship
rings to back you up, you tend to trust yourself.

Thanks,

Steve
sb@xxxxxxxxxxxx