The pressure is squarely on Danny Ainge now.

[Snoopy the Celtics Beagle <snoopy@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

I'm an Obie fan.  I make no bones about it.  I think that he had the right 
idea and was constructing a playoff-caliber team.  Then Danny kept 
detonating the roster with trades that didn't pan out.

Despite the sound and fury over the other guys, the first trade was 
essentially Walker for LaFrentz.  Walker is fitting in well in Dallas, and 
Raef is out for the season.  In addition, the C's supposedly traded Walker 
because he wasn't playing the kind of team game that Ainge wanted for 
Boston.  So, we give up Eric Williams and Tony Battie for Ricky Davis.

Now, I admit that Davis is doing better than I expected.  He hustles, 
passes, and does a lot of the "little things" that you want players to 
do.  He also--occasionally--scores a lot of points.  But he's a defensive 
disaster.  We were better off with Antoine, who at least played 
defense.  No, Walker didn't believe the running game would work--but that's 
because he was right.

With Ainge's destruction of the roster now complete, the C's have no big 
men to go inside, no player like Walker to take the pressure off Pierce, 
and no one to play consistent offense or defense.  The team was forced to 
go back to shooting a barrage of threes just to try to be competitive, 
because absent Raef, Chris Mihm, and Vin Baker, there was NO inside 
presence to mention.  Blount is ok, but he drops too many passes under the 
hoop.  I get nervous when someone passes him the ball.

Obie tried.  He mostly kept the peace when Ainge kept pulling the parquet 
out from under his feet with no warning and no choices.  He wasn't one to 
air things in the press.  But you could tell he wasn't happy with this 
situation, and something finally blew--most likely Obie's temper.

I know a number of people blamed Obie for the team's current mess.  I say 
it's not his doing.  The Celtics kept putting him back at square one every 
time he made progress.

Now, Danny has everything he wants his way. Like his friend Larry, he can 
pick the coach he wants.  He's traded away the players he didn't want and 
gotten the ones he likes.  All, ostensibly, because the C's couldn't win 
this season and he wants the Celtics to win a year or so down the 
road.  Well, he has his chance--and the attendant pressure.  If the C's 
don't play well the rest of the season--an increasingly likely 
proposition--Danny will have to produce a playoff-ready team next season.

I don't think he can.  I think O'Brien had the right idea, but didn't get 
the support he needed.  The notion that players were routinely traded with 
little or no input from the coach is absurd, especially in 
midseason.  Danny is anxious to "make his mark".  well, we can certainly 
smell it way over here, the way he's been pissing on the team.

In looking at the accomplishments of Danny Ainge vs. Jim O'Brien, I have to 
say the wrong person left.

Snoopy the Celtics Beagle
Please visit the <http://www.celticsbeagle.net/>Celtics Beagle Website