Aldridge on Obie and the C's

["Berry, Mark S" <berrym@xxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Here's David Aldridge's take. -- Mark







Jim O'Brien got nitpicked to death.

O'Brien's desire to coach the Boston Celtics
<http://sports.espn.go.com/nba/clubhouse?team=bos>  was chipped away,
piece by piece, trade by trade, question by incessant question. He never
was given the opportunity to stick with the same 12 players for more
than a few months during his entire three-year stay in Boston; every six
months, somebody traded half his team away. Finally, O'Brien had enough.

He actually went to Danny Ainge on Tuesday, I'm told, and said he wanted
to resign at the end of the season, that he would stick around until
then for continuity's sake, but that he wanted out. Fine, Ainge
responded, you can leave now. (Which, by the way, was the correct
response.)

There are no villains here, really. I have no problem with Ainge being
proactive. He's getting big loot to do what he thinks is right. But
there is a certain baby with the bathwater dynamic here. In being
hands-on, I think Ainge made O'Brien feel like his say in the franchise
no longer mattered, and forced a pretty good coach out the door.

In one way, maybe it's best that O'Brien quit now. He may have done
Ainge a favor. For at the end of the season, the way the Celtics were
going, I'm fairly certain Ainge would have fired him. (And let's be
frank -- by leaving now, O'Brien can walk away clean, like Jeff Van
Gundy, instead of having to explain to his next employer why he got
cashiered.) There were legitimate, honest differences of opinion on how
to play and who to play, and ultimately, the guy bringing in the players
is going to bring in players that fit the system in which he believes.
Ainge says that's not so. O'Brien was his guy; look at the contract
extension I gave him, he says. Yeah, but you also changed the team's
goals in midstream. O'Brien still thought he was coaching a playoff
team. Ainge saw a tear-down job. O'Brien was fiercely loyal -- maybe too
loyal -- to his players, but his brain only saw what had occurred on his
watch.

Let's review, shall we?

O'Brien took over in January 2001, after his longtime friend and boss
Rick Pitino resigned. If you recall, at the time Pitino took a powder,
the Celtics were a joke, 10 games under .500, with no focus, no life,
and, seemingly, no hope. But O'Brien turned it around quickly. Boston
went 24-24 the rest of the way -- playing most of the way without two
starters -- and missed the playoffs by a game. He empowered Antoine
Walker <http://sports.espn.go.com/nba/players/profile?statsId=3112>  and
Paul Pierce <http://sports.espn.go.com/nba/players/profile?statsId=3253>
to fire away, and if it wasn't aesthetically pleasing at times, it was
pretty effective.

O'Brien had the C's seven games above .500 the following season when the
Celtics rolled the dice at the trade deadline, bringing in Rodney Rogers
<http://sports.espn.go.com/nba/players/profile?statsId=1280>  and Tony
Delk <http://sports.espn.go.com/nba/players/profile?statsId=3086> . That
group went to the Eastern Conference finals, beating Rick Carlisle's
Pistons and Larry Brown's Sixers on the way, and went toe-to-toe with
the Nets before losing in six games.







Of course, we know now that then-owner Paul Gaston laid down the law the
following summer, demanding payroll be sliced to avoid being a
luxury-tax payer. So free agent Rogers went out the door, and Kenny
Anderson <http://sports.espn.go.com/nba/players/profile?statsId=393>
and Vitaly Potapenko
<http://sports.espn.go.com/nba/players/profile?statsId=3106>  were sent
packing to Seattle for Vin Baker
<http://sports.espn.go.com/nba/players/profile?statsId=1279>  and
Shammond Williams
<http://sports.espn.go.com/nba/players/profile?statsId=3277> . O'Brien
did not want that deal, did not like that deal, and soon enough, people
knew he didn't like that deal. But he coached what he had, and although
Baker gave Boston next to nothing last season, the Celtics went back to
the playoffs, upset Indiana in the first round and lost, again, to New
Jersey.

By then, Ainge had come aboard, with his own ideas about the franchise.
The first, and biggest, decision he made was that he wouldn't give
Walker a contract extension. OK, that's his call, and he has every right
to believe that Walker wasn't worth maximum dollars. Ainge then moved
Walker to Dallas for Raef LaFrentz
<http://sports.espn.go.com/nba/players/profile?statsId=3246>  and Jiri
Welsch <http://sports.espn.go.com/nba/players/profile?statsId=3614> ,
and let's be fair -- although I didn't think it was a good deal at the
time -- Welsch has looked pretty good so far. But Ainge then told the
injured LaFrentz, basically, to take the rest of the season off after
knee surgery, subtracting another body from O'Brien's limited big-man
rotation.

O'Brien, again, coached what he had, and in late November, the Celtics
seemed to have righted their boat, winning five straight. Ainge then
dealt Eric Williams
<http://sports.espn.go.com/nba/players/profile?statsId=3016>  and Tony
Battie <http://sports.espn.go.com/nba/players/profile?statsId=3176>  to
Cleveland for the talented if, um, mercurial Ricky Davis
<http://sports.espn.go.com/nba/players/profile?statsId=3264>  and Chris
Mihm <http://sports.espn.go.com/nba/players/profile?statsId=3406> . (I'm
not sure I understand Ainge's affinity for Cavaliers from last season's
17-65 squad; he's traded for four of them already.)

That was just the last poke at players with whom O'Brien had gotten
close. Which is understandable; no one thought much of any of them, and
together, they took Boston deep into the postseason for the first time
since the Bird Era. I know that general managers and team presidents
have to look at the big picture and can't afford to be sentimental. And
Ainge has told me that he thought the Celtics as currently constituted
had gone about as far as they could go -- indeed, Ainge thought they had
already peaked. And Danny is always going to be aggressive and
proactive; it's how he played, how he views the world.

But O'Brien got weary of the constant tinkering. Why are you doing this?
Why aren't you doing that? Shouldn't you try this? Let's just say that
Ainge and the Grousbecks have a much different managing style than
Gaston and Chris Wallace did. Gaston came to maybe three games a year;
as long as the spreadsheets looked good, he didn't care. Wallace shared
power with O'Brien. Gaston did not want another king with total say
after the disastrous Pitino reign, so he split the decision-making
authority between his coach and GM. Wallace could recommend, but not
force.

Ainge and the Grousbecks? They can force.

So now, Ainge will be able to hand-pick his guy, and it wouldn't
surprise me if he looked long and hard at Jerry Sichting in Minnesota or
Lionel Hollins in Memphis. (It surprised me that he wouldn't give Lester
Conner a shot at the job for the rest of the season; no slight to John
Carroll, but Conner's done a pretty good job coaching Boston's summer
league teams the last few years, and he's been the guy who took over in
regular-season games when O'Brien was ejected. You can pooh-pooh summer
ball if you want, but that's how the Nuggets figured out that Jeff
Bzdelik might know what he's doing.)

And this curious exercise in team-building will continue. There will now
be no impediment to Ainge doing everything he wants to do. Other than
Paul Pierce, everything and everyone is subject to change. Somewhere,
the Brain Doctor is smiling.