Ainge's Next Move: This One Is Chuckle Provoking

[wayray@xxxxxxxxxxxxx]

(I can't think of a worst trade that Ainge could make that what this writer suggests.
Talk about wasting commodities...)

Danny Ainge's Next Moves By Philip Maymin for HOOPSWORLD.com Feb 11, 2004, 12:23 	

   	
Danny Ainge has remade the Celtics into the team he wants them to be: a free-agent-friendly, fan-friendly, perennial championship contender. Fans and free agents alike prefer up-tempo basketball because it gets to showcase their creativity and skills. Coaches tend to prefer a half-court offense, because that's where they can most leverage their talents with the X's and O's.
Ainge doesn't want coaches dictating every play. Rather, he'd prefer to have a combination of set plays by a good coach combined with the ability of the players to create on the floor by exploiting mismatches instantly, before the coach of the other team can spot it and order a regrouping.
In an ideal world, Ainge would want someone like Don Nelson, Rick Adelman, or Gregg Popovich. Then again, who wouldn't? But what makes these kinds of coaches special to Ainge is that they are able to create a symbiotic relationship with their players. Each player feels they are qualified to make the myriad snap decisions on the court that are required in the course of a game, yet all of them defer to the coach to lead them and get them to function as a unit. These kinds of coaches create a unity in the players because they all start to anticipate each other and nearly read each other's minds. New Nets head coach Lawrence Frank may be of this ilk; his players are already offering suggestions on defensive switches or trying to figure out new plays, and Frank encourages that. 
Other great coaches in the NBA today such as Jerry Sloan, Jeff Van Gundy, or Rick Carlisle don't approach the game that way. Instead, they prefer to run fairly simple offensive plays, but executed flawlessly. They tend to be known as strict disciplinarians and also tend to excel at teaching defense. It is not a worse type of coach; in fact, disciplinarians can lay fantastic foundations in defense and can keep even seemingly untalented teams in contention. Former Celtics coach Jim O'Brien is cut of this cloth. These coaches achieve success by minimizing the variance of the point spread, essentially driving any team they coach to a fairly stable percentage-based record. In other words, an average team will tend to be at 0.500 more often than you'd expect by throwing a coin. You would, after all, expect in a random coin toss to see ten or eleven heads in a row at times. But coaches such as these tend to experience shorter streaks and smaller margins of victory and defeat, which in turn tends to push struggling teams closer to the 0.500 mark. It is an excellent strategy for teams that would otherwise likely miss the playoffs altogether. It can even result in fairly deep playoff runs, with each series being tightly contested and likely going to the last shot of the seventh game.
The distinction between the two types of coaches is not simply offense vs. defense: far from it. For proof, look no further than the Spurs: Popovich's team is the best in the league at defense. A better expression of the contrast would be trust vs. execution. The trust coaches tend to encourage fast breaks because they believe in their players' abilities to make the right decisions at high speeds and with minimal time. The execution coaches tend to encourage set plays because they believe in their players' abilities to run it to perfection and choose the obvious options. The options of the execution coaches are always very straightforward and plain: first you look for the cutter under the basket, if he's not available, you look to the guy who set you a pick to curl around the next screener, if not, etc. In a fast break, there's a thousand choices to make. 
Sometimes, the same person can be a different kind of coach depending on the personnel he has. That is what Ainge thought O'Brien could do, and which, if he hadn't quit, O'Brien probably could have done. This highlights the importance of the General Manager in finding players that have these two key characteristics: they must be quick, and they must be smart.
Neither of these characteristics are easy to measure using game data, so it often requires intense scouting. Quickness is vital in order to leverage the intelligence: in a slow, play-running half court set, you can be Albert Einstein out there, and you're not likely to be able to do anything other than run the play. 
These characteristics lead to three things: the team chemistry improves, other free agents want to join the team to play with the smartest players in the league, and fans learn to appreciate every possession. Ainge often cites Sacramento as his model for building a contending team without having an All-Time top 50 caliber player. There are three players averaging five assists or more on that team, if you round up Brad Miller's 4.7. Every play is an interesting possession, both for the players and for the fans, because they all know that if one guy somehow finds a way to get open, he will get the ball. 
That's what Danny Ainge is looking to build with the Boston Celtics. He has tried to surround Paul Pierce with talented players who also share some closeness with him: Raef LaFrentz is a former teammate and Ricky Davis is a summer workout partner. He has given him quick and intelligent teammates he didn't know as well before, such as Jiri Welsch and Mike James. Rookie Marcus Banks is undeniably quick, but by Ainge's own admission, it will take a year or two for him to allow his intelligence to show through. 
Mike James should not be underestimated: he is thirteenth in the league with 2.89 assists-per-turnover. James is like a younger, right-handed Derek Fisher. Fisher's career assists-per-turnover ratio is 2.63. If possible, Ainge should try to hold on to Mike James. However, he may be better at coming off the bench that starting, especially since he is flexible enough to be able to play either backcourt position. 
Indeed, Ainge has made it clear that he is looking for a veteran point guard to come in and lead the team on the court, and be a mentor, at least by example, to his younger point guards.
So who does he have in mind? Of course, he would love to get a marquee tall point guard, but that won't happen. LeBron James is not about to be dealt to the Celtics; neither is Jason Kidd. What other tall or semi-tall point guards are there out there, that would potentially be dealt? They should be at least six foot three, with at least five years of NBA experience, and they should be averaging less than 24 minutes per game, or otherwise the team holding them would demand more than the Celtics can offer.
Sifting through all of the point guards in the NBA, only one name fits the bill: Antonio Daniels of the Seattle SuperSonics. Daniels is six foot four, in his seventh year as a pro, and averaging 21.3 minutes per game.
Seattle has several contracts expiring this summer, and would likely want to clear cap space even more, if they could do so without losing much in the talent that they utilize. The Celtics have the expiring contract of Chris Mills to dangle as bait, which is all the more appealing to Seattle because 80% of it is paid by insurance. However, they would obviously want to get some kind of player back in return. Besides, Chris Mills is earning a lot more than Antonio Daniels, so the salaries wouldn't even match.
If they don't care about getting back a player, and are looking simply to dump salary this year, then a package of Daniels and Jerome James for Chris Mills works: Boston gets the tall veteran point guard they need, along with the space eater Jerome James.
But more likely Seattle would like to get something back. But what?
Seattle is a three-point shooting club. Every Sonic launches them at every opportunity. What they lack is stable interior defense. What if the Celtics could offer them a three-point shooting power forward and a starting center? And what if both of those players were known by defensive-minded Jim O'Brien as being two of the better defenders he had available to him?
Those players, of course, are Walter McCarty and Mark Blount. McCarty is second in the entire NBA in three pointers per 48 minutes. Seattle is currently the second best team in overall three-point percentage. The two were made for each other. Blount is the starting center for Boston, and he has an option this summer to become a free agent. All indications are that that's what he'll do, to seek more money. 
Now, a package of Chris Mills, Walter McCarty, and Mark Blount would not match salaries with Antonio Daniels and Jerome James. Fortunately, the Sonics have yet another big man, one that is even more intriguing for the Celtics: Calvin Booth. Booth led the league three years ago with 5.71 blocks per 48 minutes, and is third in the league in that department right now. Blocks eat space more than rebounds, and besides, Chris Mihm is Boston's rebounder of the future, along with Brandon Hunter. Booth could be just the space eater that Ainge is looking for.
The trade is starting to come together. Boston sends Mills (expiring insurance-paid contract), McCarty (three-pointers and interior defense), and Blount (interior defense) to Seattle for Daniels (underappreciated tall veteran point guard) and Booth (space-eating center). 
This trade by itself clears a lot of money for Seattle immediately, and possibly some small amount more this summer as Blount seeks to increase his paycheck. As it stands, the Celtics take a hit in terms of average points, rebounds, and assists, if you tally each player's per-game averages so far this season. If this discrepancy means Seattle could be tempted to throw in a draft pick, Danny Ainge would have an amazing three picks going into the summer, and still have a great chance at making the playoffs this year.
Alternatively, instead of a draft pick, Seattle can throw in one more player: Ronald "Flip" Murray. Murray was among the league scoring leaders early in the season and was one of the main reasons the Sonics were such a surprisingly winning team when Ray Allen was sidelined with injury. He was a throw-in by Milwauke in last year's blockbuster deal at the trade deadline that sent Gary Payton and Desmond Mason to Milwaukee for Ray Allen. He is not a secret: everybody in the league would like someone with his small salary and great talent on their bench. But it would require the right deal. 
If Seattle includes Murray, then there is virtually no discrepancy on a per-game average between the two teams before and after the trade. Indeed, getting Murray may be almost as good as getting a draft pick for the Celtics. What the teams might end up doing, if a compromise is in order, is agreeing to a lottery-protected draft pick. Then the Celtics better hope Seattle makes the playoffs, because then Boston could be left with Murray, Daniels, Booth, and three draft picks going into the summer.
Not a bad trade. 
Now what about the coach? The trade deadline is more pressing right now, and, unless an opportunity presents itself sooner, Ainge will likely delay any decision about the coach until after the trade deadline has passed. But who would be a good coach for the Celtics? Who is trusting enough to be able to create the bond with his players that is needed to allow an up-tempo style, while still being strong enough to command respect? 
One remote possibility is for Ainge to continue to surround Pierce with people that make him happy. Paul Pierce says his Kansas coach Roy Williams was the best coach of all time. Williams, meanwhile, has moved on to his alma mater, the University of North Carolina. Would he move to the NBA? He says the transition to move from Kansas was so hard, if he had known it would be this difficult, he wouldn't have done it. 
But Williams is only in his early 50's. At some point, the NBA will start to look appealing. He had been approached years ago by the Lakers before they got Phil Jackson, and he turned them down at the time. At some point, he will likely say yes to the NBA. Why not with the Celtics? He would be reunited with Paul and Raef, and, though he is known as a fairly strict coach, as many college coaches are virtually required to be, given their constantly reshuffling lineups, he can also be more of a player's coach. Furthermore, the trust factor would be virtually instantaneous with Pierce. 
Getting Roy Williams to coach the Celtics, if he does it, could end up being Danny Ainge's most lasting contribution to Boston's next dynasty. Getting Williams, Daniels, and Booth could make him a local hero.
These ruminations should not be taken as a prediction; whether this trade goes down or not is beyond my control. These should all be taken simply as a solution to the riddle posed by Danny Ainge. He said he wanted a space eater and a tall veteran point guard: this is the only solution that fits those parameters. He wants the Celtics to be an up-tempo, intelligent team: if he wants to do it quickly, then he needs a coach with instant credibility and instant trust. That would mean either Roy Williams, or, perhaps even more remotely, one of Pierce's childhood heros and All-Time greats, Magic Johnson. 
Wouldn't that make for a fascinating Celtics-Pacers conference finals? Wouldn't that make for an amazing Celtics-Lakers rematch?





Philip Maymin is an editor for Basketball News Services, covering the Midwest for Hoopsworld.com.