THE CRITICISM BEGINS: Ryan, Holley On Bad Danny Ainge

[wayray@xxxxxxxxxxxxx]

Actually the criticism began yesterday on WEEI, when there were people wishing
Larry Bird, not Ainge was in charge, and the Celtics have taken a big step
back...

Ryan bemoans Ricky Davis, and yet Davis has been nothing but a model citizen.
I'm not a big Ricky Davis fan, reminds me of a Walker scoring irrelevancy towards
winning and would deal him off for frontcourt help, but geesh the guy's behaved 
himself and played unselfishly.

And then there's the Lama....

BOB RYAN 
This clash act couldn't go on
By Bob Ryan, Globe Columnist, 1/28/2004
The only surprise is that it took 43 days. Jim O'Brien has been a Spiritually Dead Coach Walking since Dec. 15.
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That was the day Celtics basketball honcho Danny Ainge traded Eric Williams, Tony Battie, and Kedrick Brown and stuck O'Brien with Ricky Davis and Michael (Yogi) Stewart. Chris Mihm was not a problem. O'Brien could have lived with Mihm.
You know what trading Williams was? That was Ainge plunging a dagger in O'Brien's heart. Williams was his favorite Celtic player, the solid veteran who simply "gets it" in a way that some -- no, most -- never do. And do you know what inflicting Davis on the Celtics was? That was Ainge making O'Brien pledge allegiance to what he could only feel was the basketball version of the antichrist.
I will not soon forget the funereal atmosphere at the FleetCenter that December night. The entire coaching staff was morose. The team had just won five games in succession and morale was at a season high. This is the hope-springs-eternal Atlantic Division, remember, and the staff truly believed their team was finally jelling and would have a serious chance to unseat the Nets. And then, in their eyes and minds, it was gone. Poof. They were left with the chilling realization: Does he really want us to coach Ricky Davis?
O'Brien tried it for six weeks, but yesterday he stopped kidding himself. He was no longer comfortable working for a boss with whom he seemed to be at cross purposes, and so he did the honorable thing. He offered his resignation. I wouldn't think Danny tried very hard to talk him out of it.
There are many words to describe the current state of the Celtics, but the one that leaps out at me is "chaotic." There have been some noted lows in franchise history, but few have been lower than this.
It's not the record. They've had worse 46-game records, but that's not the point. It's the feel of the entire enterprise. There is a growing sense that the organization is adrift, that Ainge is trying to move too fast and that while he may know his basketball, he is a little weak in the people department. How could he not know what O'Brien had come to represent to this franchise?
Doesn't he understand? O'Brien was the only source of stability in the organization, and now he is gone.
Let's go back three years to the departure of Rick Pitino. When O'Brien was named to succeed him, people shrugged and said, "Who cares?" He had been the loyal lieutenant, barking out things on the sideline, but he had kept such a low public profile that no one had any sense that he could be a leader. And yet the team responded, and improved, instantaneously. For one thing, the Celtics began winning on the road as soon as O'Brien took over, a phenomenon that continues to this very day. You could win a lot of bar bets by asking people, "What is the only team in the NBA with a losing record at home and a .500 record on the road?" Around here, we know the answer.
O'Brien commanded respect in the locker room from the moment he took over. He impressed the players by being smart, dogged, and sincere. His innate integrity was evident to everyone. It was a team of mismatched parts that never had an inside game, but he guided it within two games of the NBA Finals two years ago and past the vastly more talented Indiana Pacers one year ago. It is an article of faith that the outcome of that Indiana-Boston series would have been reversed had the coaches been switched.
A lot of people, myself included, were aesthetically offended by the bombs-away, 3-point-shot approach to offense O'Brien championed, but I never doubted that he had arrived at the decision to play that way only after a great deal of thought. He simply concluded that going over to the 3 gave his team the best chance to win. In a better world, he'd have a guy he could give the basketball to on the low box and ask him to score, but until that day came . . .
The Antoine Walker trade shook things up, but I don't think O'Brien really objected to it, and by Dec. 15, he and his team seemed to have things figured out. But trading Williams and Battie, two players for whom O'Brien had a strong we've-been-in-the-trenches-together feeling, was more than just annoying. It was personally offensive. It was Ainge saying, "I don't care what you've built, or what kind of relationship you have with your players, or, frankly, about this year. I've got a plan, and if you don't like it, too bad."
And I doubt O'Brien needed to hear from Ainge that one reason he made the trade was his confidence that O'Brien could coach anybody. O'Brien didn't want to coach just anybody, and he surely didn't want to coach Davis, a player for whom defense and hard work are alien concepts.
You've got to wonder whether Wyc Grousbeck and Steve Pagliuca would like to have a do-over and forget the whole thing. They have jumped into the NBA, at great expense, a good 15 years too late, and now they are presiding over a certified disaster of a franchise.
The team isn't remotely close to winning that 17th title. The average game is an eyesore. The ticket prices have excluded the average fan, and the ones who can get in are blasted out by the idiotic noise that infests every NBA arena. The team's best player is having an increasingly horrible year (Paul Pierce has no business in this year's All-Star Game). And the only reason things weren't any worse was Jim O'Brien.
But it's no longer his worry. It's John Carroll's. And Danny Ainge's. And let's not forget Wyc and Steve, who might as well be lighting matches to thousand-dollar bills. I'll bet Jim O'Brien is feeling better than he has in, well, let's just say six weeks.
Bob Ryan is a Globe columnist. His e-mail address is ryan@xxxxxxxxxx

MICHAEL HOLLEY 
Ainge's vision seems blurry
His grand plan hard to discern
By Michael Holley, Globe Columnist, 1/28/2004
Odd couples have worked well together in the past, but the Jim O'Brien-Danny Ainge union was doomed from the beginning. Are you really surprised that this shotgun marriage ended in less than a year?
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It may have been a shock to hear that the head coach of the Celtics resigned during the same week the Patriots were preparing for the Super Bowl. It may have been stunning to learn that the resignation took place after 46 games, with the Celtics positioned as one of the "top" six teams in the flimsy, see-through Eastern Conference.
But a surprise for basketball reasons? Not if you've been paying attention.
Ainge arrived in Boston awkwardly, in the middle of a playoff series the Celtics lost to the Nets. His connection with O'Brien was just as wobbly and unnatural.
As a television analyst, Ainge said he hated the way the Celtics played. And he hated the way Antoine Walker played. And he felt the Celtics, who were two wins away from the NBA Finals in 2002, overachieved and weren't a legitimate contending team.
O'Brien didn't hate the way his team played; he believed their 3-point shooting style was necessary. Walker didn't repulse him; O'Brien considered the former cocaptain to be a valuable player and friend. He had few negative things to say about the '02 Celtics; he actually liked them very much.
Ainge and O'Brien would have been great contrasting costars in a reality show. They may have even been a good radio team -- with disagreement as the shtick -- on morning drive. They were never going to see pro basketball the same way, and that was obvious at least once a month.
(Call me cynical, but I never believed that O'Brien's contract extension was a sign that Ainge loved him.)
Remember the time Ainge said he believed in developing young players at the expense of a win or two? O'Brien countered by saying he believed in winning all games and giving time to those who deserved it.
Remember Kedrick Brown in the starting lineup? O'Brien didn't play the swingman for two seasons, presumably because he didn't think he could do the job. Ainge comes aboard and suddenly Brown is part of the plan.
Come on.
Remember part of the logic in the Walker trade? Not only did Ainge say that Walker had a "grasp" on the organization (whatever that means), he also believed that some of Walker's production could be replaced by Vin Baker.
Baker is a thoughtful and kind man who also happens to be a recovering alcoholic. Outside of basketball, anyone with a heart is rooting for him to do well. But if you're the executive of an NBA team, how can you trade a proven 20-point scorer with no off-court issues and plan to replace him with someone who is struggling to overcome a serious addiction?
There are lots of unanswered questions in the Ainge Era of Boston basketball.
It's still not clear why he unnecessarily blew up a competitive team in the pathetic East. Indiana is the best team in the conference now, and the Celtics handled the Pacers in last season's playoffs (you can blame Isiah Thomas all you want; the Celtics won the series in six games). The '02 Celtics beat Detroit in five games, and the Pistons are the second-best team in the conference. New Jersey treats Boston like an intramural team, but that disparity would have shrunk considerably if ownership/Ainge had been willing to spend money on a mid-level exception player in the offseason.
It's still not clear where Ainge is going with his master plan. On one hand, he indicates that Walker's strong personality and dominance of the ball was impairing the growth of the team. On the other hand -- in the middle of a five-game winning streak, no less -- he goes out and trades for Ricky Davis, a talented kid who isn't yet 25 but already is on Team No. 4.
How can you trade Walker and bring in Davis, whose defining moment remains purposely missing a shot so he could try to cop a triple double? How can you concede in the East? How can you acquire four players (Davis, Chris Mihm, Jumaine Jones, Michael Stewart) from last season's Cavaliers, a team that won 17 games?
The last time a Celtics coach resigned in January, he did himself and the organization a favor. Rick Pitino was stressed, exhausted, and not getting through to his players. This time it's the opposite. O'Brien was a good coach here, one who took whatever was given to him and made something respectable out of it.
I was never wild about the free rein he gave Walker on the perimeter, but only a fool would quibble with the coach's results. He was honest, he was impeccably prepared, and his players respected his consistent, no-flash style.
He should be applauded for keeping his composure through a lot of unintentional sabotaging of his work. He had to deal with the Baker trade that he didn't want. He had to keep his team together when Baker's problems became known. He had to coach under a boss who comes from a different basketball school -- even if we don't know what that school is yet. He had to watch his boss push the reset button after he had developed enough chemistry for the Celtics to win five in a row.
He's gone now, and the Celtics are going to miss him.
This team is one piece closer to being Ainge's, now that he will be able to hire a coach who thinks the way he does. If the early days of Ainge's leadership indicate what is to come, the future is nothing to look forward to.
Michael Holley is a Globe columnist. His e-mail address is holley@xxxxxxxxxx