It’s definitely easier to say: “He should have drafted Player X over Y” because we know who Danny took and exactly who was still available.
So I’m going to take the easy answer (even though I don’t blame him, talent evaluation is tough, for every Deandre Jordan we can probably show a dozen late first round/2nd round 7-foot busts).
But everything else, it’s really tough to know the alternatives to what Danny actually did.
Not trading Ray for Mayo is tough, because I don’t think any of us are quite sure what happened there, who pulled out, etc. Also, who knows, we trade for Mayo but then he leaves as a FA at the end of the year anyway (because he doesn’t want to come off the bench behind Bradley), so we still end up with nothing, then everybody would be saying we should have kept Ray, we drove him to sign with the Heat!
And everybody always says Doc called Ray and told him he was traded, but according to Ray Allen’s version, that’s not what happened and he was never explicitly told he was traded. Although I know there are other credible versions out there too, it's still tough to know what really happened.
http://espn.go.com/boston/nba/story/_/id/8552139/ray-allen-left-boston-celtics-no-trade-clause-tableThe team was in San Francisco on their West Coast swing when Allen got a call from Ainge at around 12:15 p.m., the afternoon of the trade deadline.
"Danny told me he had a deal on the table for me to go to Memphis for O.J. Mayo and he asked me what I thought," Allen said. "I told him I didn't like it. I told him I didn't want to leave Boston. He said, 'I hope you understand my position.' I said, 'I know you have to build this team for the future, but I'm not happy about it.'"
Allen called his family and instructed them to pack their things. Instead, 45 minutes later Ainge called back to say the deal was off.
And for people who say he didn’t sign/acquire a backup, well I always wonder who we should he have signed/traded for? And who would we have traded to make it happen? A better 2008 off season, and I the C’s still don't win it all in 2009 (because I assume KG still gets injured). No bench player is going to make us overcome that. In any trade we probably would have sent out our 2010 (Bradley) or 2012 (Sullinger or Melo) draft pick, or maybe we get lucky and trade the 2011 pick (JJJ), but then do we get Courtney Lee…
A big part of the problem in 2008 though was he waited too long to settle the Posey situation, the other realistic signable options were already off the table. Who else could we have gotten? Matt Barnes maybe? Sasha Vujacic? Ricky Davis? Pietrus was available at the start but already gone, same with James Jones, that’s about it. Though I remember hearing the C’s offered the full mid level to Corey Maggette, that was always a pipe dream.
(I based who was available off of this, though no idea if accurate/complete)
http://nbaweblog.com/suns/archive/2008/07/02/2008-nba-free-agents-signings-trades-amp-player-movement-updated-regularly.aspxWe should have re-signed Tony Allen, easy to say now, but I always thought TA would still be the same knucklehead we had here should the C’s have kept him. Going to Memphis helped him break out. Staying with the C’s I doubt that happens, doubt he gets the chance to be All-Defense here. Just like I'm sure there's fans in Golden State saying we should have kept Jeremy Lin. But had they kept him, he'd probably still be riding their bench and nobody would have ever heard of him.