Ainge Explains Why He Didn't Make A Minor Move For Rebounding..

[Dannys Chipotle Guy]

I understand frustration in making no moves. I really do, but I really dont understand how people have convinced themselves Danny is "stupid" or that he sucks as a GM when he has us 2nd in the East with the #1 lotto spot coming down the pipe.

[manl_lui]

Excuses, excuses, excuses.  More excuses on why you failed at your job again, Danny. 

You don't think rebounding is important?  Let's see how your overrated guards hold up in the playoffs against a good rebounding team.

These aren't excuses, their reasons. You don't have to agree with the reasons, but not even making an effort to understand his reasoning and just dismissing it as "excuses" is just lazy.

He didn't "fail at his job", because his job is not to make trades to satisfy impatient fans or to try and make the ECF.  His job is to win championships, and nothing he did yesterday moved us further away from that or made it impossible.

And he isn't saying that rebounding isn't important, he's saying that rebounding is not more important than fit in our offense.  This team is a lot better with a skilled big like Horford or Olynyk in there than a guy who's only skill is rebounding. If you can get a guy that can rebound and is skilled, go for it (Jones, maybe?). But don't sacrifice the offense for an extra 1 or 2 rebounds a game.

Nothing he said is reasonable.  Not one thing.

why don't you do his job then?

I bet I could, if it means sitting on my ass, overplaying my hand, not making any moves, drafting useless guards, continuous refusal to address team's desperate need, and standing pat when the deal isn't a steal for me.  Easiest job.

Nice gifs.  Basically what I'll be posting in 7 years when this team still in the trying-to-figure-things-out mode.

[JaylenBrown7]

omg ainge fleeced bkn, got allen and KG drafted rondo and basically got brad stevens. He knows what hes doing.

[CoachBo]

Sounds like he's parroting Stevens words from earlier this season.  It's mostly bull**** though. See how it works out for you in the playoffs when defense is tighter and rebounding wins game.   ****s.

Honest question: Do you think that you understand basketball better than Danny Ainge and Brad Stevens?

Dude, you're fighting a losing battle.
There's a sentiment among our fans who don't care about what's right or wrong, all they want is things to go their way, and if they don't, they throw a temper tantrum.

I honestly think there are some people here who would rather validate their belief that Danny is stupid than win a championship. Like, people would rather have Danny **** up a deal and ruin the position we're in than win a championship because it would mean that they were wrong.

I don't understand it. If Danny had made a move that put us in contention this year I would be ecstatic even though I was calling for him to stand pat.

Interesting.

I also believe that there are some people here more invested in Danny Ainge than they are the Celtics winning a championship.

You know, the people who create threads about the "pessimism" on this board, all the anti-singe vitriol and how much they decry said vitriol, and then hit other threads to spew their own vitriol against anyone who doesn't subscribe to the "In Danny I Trust" mantra that apparently should be a requirement to post on this board.

There's a word for that. Hmmmm. Let me see. I believe it starts with an H.

[Casperian]

Sounds like he's parroting Stevens words from earlier this season.  It's mostly bull**** though. See how it works out for you in the playoffs when defense is tighter and rebounding wins game.   ****s.

Honest question: Do you think that you understand basketball better than Danny Ainge and Brad Stevens?

Dude, you're fighting a losing battle.
There's a sentiment among our fans who don't care about what's right or wrong, all they want is things to go their way, and if they don't, they throw a temper tantrum.

I honestly think there are some people here who would rather validate their belief that Danny is stupid than win a championship. Like, people would rather have Danny **** up a deal and ruin the position we're in than win a championship because it would mean that they were wrong.

I don't understand it. If Danny had made a move that put us in contention this year I would be ecstatic even though I was calling for him to stand pat.

Interesting.

I also believe that there are some people here more invested in Danny Ainge than they are the Celtics winning a championship.

Oh, you've finally admitted it.

Good for you.

[GratefulCs]

Sounds like he's parroting Stevens words from earlier this season.  It's mostly bull**** though. See how it works out for you in the playoffs when defense is tighter and rebounding wins game.   ****s.

Honest question: Do you think that you understand basketball better than Danny Ainge and Brad Stevens?

Dude, you're fighting a losing battle.
There's a sentiment among our fans who don't care about what's right or wrong, all they want is things to go their way, and if they don't, they throw a temper tantrum.

I honestly think there are some people here who would rather validate their belief that Danny is stupid than win a championship. Like, people would rather have Danny **** up a deal and ruin the position we're in than win a championship because it would mean that they were wrong.

I don't understand it. If Danny had made a move that put us in contention this year I would be ecstatic even though I was calling for him to stand pat.

Interesting.

I also believe that there are some people here more invested in Danny Ainge than they are the Celtics winning a championship.

You know, the people who create threads about the "pessimism" on this board, all the anti-singe vitriol and how much they decry said vitriol, and then hit other threads to spew their own vitriol against anyone who doesn't subscribe to the "In Danny I Trust" mantra that apparently should be a requirement to post on this board.

There's a word for that. Hmmmm. Let me see. I believe it starts with an H.

fake news put out by the dishonest media

[GratefulCs]

Excuses, excuses, excuses.  More excuses on why you failed at your job again, Danny. 

You don't think rebounding is important?  Let's see how your overrated guards hold up in the playoffs against a good rebounding team.

These aren't excuses, their reasons. You don't have to agree with the reasons, but not even making an effort to understand his reasoning and just dismissing it as "excuses" is just lazy.

He didn't "fail at his job", because his job is not to make trades to satisfy impatient fans or to try and make the ECF.  His job is to win championships, and nothing he did yesterday moved us further away from that or made it impossible.

And he isn't saying that rebounding isn't important, he's saying that rebounding is not more important than fit in our offense.  This team is a lot better with a skilled big like Horford or Olynyk in there than a guy who's only skill is rebounding. If you can get a guy that can rebound and is skilled, go for it (Jones, maybe?). But don't sacrifice the offense for an extra 1 or 2 rebounds a game.

Nothing he said is reasonable.  Not one thing.

why don't you do his job then?

I bet I could, if it means sitting on my ass, overplaying my hand, not making any moves, drafting useless guards, continuous refusal to address team's desperate need, and standing pat when the deal isn't a steal for me.  Easiest job.

Nice gifs.  Basically what I'll be posting in 7 years when this team still in the trying-to-figure-things-out mode.

TP

[TheTruthFot18]

Excuses, excuses, excuses.  More excuses on why you failed at your job again, Danny. 

You don't think rebounding is important?  Let's see how your overrated guards hold up in the playoffs against a good rebounding team.

These aren't excuses, their reasons. You don't have to agree with the reasons, but not even making an effort to understand his reasoning and just dismissing it as "excuses" is just lazy.

He didn't "fail at his job", because his job is not to make trades to satisfy impatient fans or to try and make the ECF.  His job is to win championships, and nothing he did yesterday moved us further away from that or made it impossible.

And he isn't saying that rebounding isn't important, he's saying that rebounding is not more important than fit in our offense.  This team is a lot better with a skilled big like Horford or Olynyk in there than a guy who's only skill is rebounding. If you can get a guy that can rebound and is skilled, go for it (Jones, maybe?). But don't sacrifice the offense for an extra 1 or 2 rebounds a game.

Nothing he said is reasonable.  Not one thing.

why don't you do his job then?

I bet I could, if it means sitting on my ass, overplaying my hand, not making any moves, drafting useless guards, continuous refusal to address team's desperate need, and standing pat when the deal isn't a steal for me.  Easiest job.

Nice gifs.  Basically what I'll be posting in 7 years when this team still in the trying-to-figure-things-out mode.

Geez, if we're in trying-to-figure-things-out-mode, what are the other 27 franchises doing? It's GS and Cleveland...and everyone else. So we're all in the same boat, some are just closer to the sinking end than others, but it's still the same boat.

[PhoSita]

I don't necessarily disagree, but I guess my point is that simply improving the defensive rebounding wouldn't really move the needle that much for this team unless you're adding a guy who can also help you in the pick and roll and near the rim without sacrificing the integrity of the perimeter defense.

Worth noting that at least going by stats, the C's defensive mediocrity mostly comes from rebounding.

We are 7th in opposing eFG%, 15th in turnover% and while we're 25th in opposing free throw attempts per possession the real outlier is the defensive rebounding. We're actually good at getting other teams to take bad shots, and while we're not great at defending without fouling, it's not bad enough to make up for the shooting percentages. If we could have acquired a guy like Noel who I personally think wouldn't have made us significantly better or worse on defense than we are now I think the rebounding would have made a huge difference on our overall defense.

The question is does that kill you on the offensive end of the floor. It may well be that it does.

I think Noel would have improved the team.

I didn't really think so last year, when offense was the problem, but Noel definitely helps you defensively.  He's not a great rebounder, but even so, I think he would have helped there, too.

All of that said, trading for Noel carries a pretty significant opportunity cost, in that keeping him would more or less preclude the Celts from going after a max or near-max free agent this summer.

So if the question is, "Does Noel improve you enough this year to be worth giving up on trying to get a max-type FA this summer?" I think the answer is definitely NO.

You could also ask if acquiring Noel just as a half-season rental, in light of what it ultimately cost the Mavericks to get him, would have been worth it?  I'm more agnostic on that point, but at the end of the day I don't think Noel gets the Celts past Cleveland, possibly not even the Raptors, so I'm OK with Ainge deciding not to give up any significant assets to get him.

[rocknrollforyoursoul]

Ainge's explanation doesn't make sense. He talks about Boston's desire to "spread the floor" with its bigs, but that's on offense; Boston's biggest rebounding problem is defensive rebounding—that is, giving up too many offensive rebounds to opponents. Boston needs to be able to limit opponents to one shot per possession, which means that relying on KO and Al is a disaster.

It's not football -- you can't swap offensive and defensive players every possession.   If you want Andrew Bogut out there getting defensive rebounds, it means that he's out there not spreading the floor on offense.  Ideally the Celtics would have a power forward who can hit threes, pass, and set good screens on offense while also being capable of getting rebounds on defense.  But they aren't getting Draymond Green, and I guess they couldn't quite get JaMychal Green.  Hopefully in a couple of years that's what Yabusele turns into.  That's what they hoped Jordan Mickey would become, but it hasn't worked out.

A false dichotomy is being perpetuated—namely, that you can only have offensively skilled bigs who are bad rebounders, OR good rebounding bigs who can't spread the floor.

The truth is that a player can be both, and that such players exist, and (I'm admittedly guessing with this part) there's got to be some out there who don't cost a king's ransom.

What false dichotomy? I went on to mention players that could help, including internal solutions that didn't work.  It's not like the team doesn't know what type of players it needs, but none of them were traded yesterday.  Even Ibaka isn't that special of a rebounder.

Here's the list of bigs this season who have: a) made 35% of their 3-pointers, b) attempted at least 50 3-pointers, and c) have a defensive rebounding percentage of greater than 20%. 

http://www.basketball-reference.com/play-index/psl_finder.cgi?request=1&match=single&type=totals&per_minute_base=36&per_poss_base=100&season_start=1&season_end=-1&lg_id=NBA&age_min=0&age_max=99&is_active=Y&is_playoffs=N&height_min=0&height_max=99&year_min=2017&year_max=2017&birth_country_is=Y&as_comp=gt&pos_is_f=Y&pos_is_fc=Y&pos_is_c=Y&pos_is_cf=Y&force%3Apos_is=1&c1stat=fg3_pct&c1comp=gt&c1val=0.35&c2stat=drb_pct&c2comp=gt&c2val=0.20&c3stat=fg3a&c3comp=gt&c3val=50&c6mult=1.0&order_by=drb_pct

There are 8 of them:

Cousins
Love
Nowitzki
Embiid
Jokic
Speights
JaMychal Green
Olynyk

We've talked enough about Cousins.  It didn't happen, and it's time to move on.  Love is clearly someone the Celtics have wanted for years.  Nowitzki is 100% unavailable, as are Embiid and Jokic.  Speights wasn't getting traded yesterday.  Maybe he'd have been nice to pick up this offseason.  Perhaps the Celtics even made a run at him, and he wanted to stay out West.  Then there's JaMychal Green, who briefly popped up in a rumor but was not traded, and Olynyk, whom we already have.

There aren't a ton of options.  We've actually already got one  of them.  Who knows, maybe JaMychal Green will be someone that we target in free agency if we don't get an All-NBA player?

The problem is that some people (including Ainge, at least according to his public comments) are conflating an issue of offense and an issue of defense that are actually separate, distinct issues.

If you have a bunch of 3pt shooters spreading the floor on offense, of course you're going to get very few offensive rebounds, but there's nothing hindering those 3pt shooters (when it's their turn to play defense) from crashing the defensive boards when the opponent puts up a shot. That's Boston's problem. And that's the false dichotomy—saying that "skilled offensive bigs" can't get defensive rebounds, as though it's an either/or proposition, when it's not.

You can be a good defensive rebounder and still spread the floor on offense. Those skills aren't mutually exclusive.

Right, I said that.  And then linked to the 8 bigs that are good at both shooting 3-pointers and defensive rebounding.  Did you even read my response?  Rebounding isn't simply about effort.  It's about skill -- be it reading where the ball is going to rebound and getting in position quickly, or being long enough, strong enough, and agile enough to fend off others for the rebound. 

I'm not saying that players can't do both.  I'm saying that there are literally only a handful of them in the NBA, and most of them are franchise cornerstones.  And I listed them out for you.  Heck, you can drop my shooting requirement from 35% to 33% and the only player you're adding is Towns.  There just aren't than many bigs who can both rebound defensively and stretch the floor.  You can scream about not getting one of them, but we already have one.  Most teams have 0.

I read your post. And I don't think I'm screaming.

I'm not saying that Boston needs someone who does both at a high level, like Kevin Love. They just need to be competent. You listed 8 players, but those are like the best of the best; if there are only 8 players in the entire NBA who can adequately stretch the floor on offense and adequately rebound on defense, that's a really sad commentary on the modern NBA. And I don't think there are only 8 guys who can do a decent job at both. You don't have to be a great 3pt shooter to effectively stretch the floor. Just be solid from 18-20 feet out.

I think it's reasonable to expect guys like Horford, Amir, and KO to get more defensive rebounds than they do, and it wouldn't sacrifice their ability to stretch the floor on offense.

And when Boston's on defense, and the opponent puts up a shot, I expect all five Celtics players to be crashing the boards, but that's not what's happening.

[ThaPreacher]

Excuses, excuses, excuses.  More excuses on why you failed at your job again, Danny. 

You don't think rebounding is important?  Let's see how your overrated guards hold up in the playoffs against a good rebounding team.

How many championships have been one by a 3 Pt Shooting, poor defensive rebounding team?
We need to start examining the concept of trends vs fads.

What NBA team that won a championship lacked a superstar-or a number of them-
that played both ends of the court?

Danny has done a good job with the rebuild. But a missed lay-up is still a missed lay-up, no matter what you call it.

Let's face it we love us our Celtics too much!

[saltlover]

Ainge's explanation doesn't make sense. He talks about Boston's desire to "spread the floor" with its bigs, but that's on offense; Boston's biggest rebounding problem is defensive rebounding—that is, giving up too many offensive rebounds to opponents. Boston needs to be able to limit opponents to one shot per possession, which means that relying on KO and Al is a disaster.

It's not football -- you can't swap offensive and defensive players every possession.   If you want Andrew Bogut out there getting defensive rebounds, it means that he's out there not spreading the floor on offense.  Ideally the Celtics would have a power forward who can hit threes, pass, and set good screens on offense while also being capable of getting rebounds on defense.  But they aren't getting Draymond Green, and I guess they couldn't quite get JaMychal Green.  Hopefully in a couple of years that's what Yabusele turns into.  That's what they hoped Jordan Mickey would become, but it hasn't worked out.

A false dichotomy is being perpetuated—namely, that you can only have offensively skilled bigs who are bad rebounders, OR good rebounding bigs who can't spread the floor.

The truth is that a player can be both, and that such players exist, and (I'm admittedly guessing with this part) there's got to be some out there who don't cost a king's ransom.

What false dichotomy? I went on to mention players that could help, including internal solutions that didn't work.  It's not like the team doesn't know what type of players it needs, but none of them were traded yesterday.  Even Ibaka isn't that special of a rebounder.

Here's the list of bigs this season who have: a) made 35% of their 3-pointers, b) attempted at least 50 3-pointers, and c) have a defensive rebounding percentage of greater than 20%. 

http://www.basketball-reference.com/play-index/psl_finder.cgi?request=1&match=single&type=totals&per_minute_base=36&per_poss_base=100&season_start=1&season_end=-1&lg_id=NBA&age_min=0&age_max=99&is_active=Y&is_playoffs=N&height_min=0&height_max=99&year_min=2017&year_max=2017&birth_country_is=Y&as_comp=gt&pos_is_f=Y&pos_is_fc=Y&pos_is_c=Y&pos_is_cf=Y&force%3Apos_is=1&c1stat=fg3_pct&c1comp=gt&c1val=0.35&c2stat=drb_pct&c2comp=gt&c2val=0.20&c3stat=fg3a&c3comp=gt&c3val=50&c6mult=1.0&order_by=drb_pct

There are 8 of them:

Cousins
Love
Nowitzki
Embiid
Jokic
Speights
JaMychal Green
Olynyk

We've talked enough about Cousins.  It didn't happen, and it's time to move on.  Love is clearly someone the Celtics have wanted for years.  Nowitzki is 100% unavailable, as are Embiid and Jokic.  Speights wasn't getting traded yesterday.  Maybe he'd have been nice to pick up this offseason.  Perhaps the Celtics even made a run at him, and he wanted to stay out West.  Then there's JaMychal Green, who briefly popped up in a rumor but was not traded, and Olynyk, whom we already have.

There aren't a ton of options.  We've actually already got one  of them.  Who knows, maybe JaMychal Green will be someone that we target in free agency if we don't get an All-NBA player?

The problem is that some people (including Ainge, at least according to his public comments) are conflating an issue of offense and an issue of defense that are actually separate, distinct issues.

If you have a bunch of 3pt shooters spreading the floor on offense, of course you're going to get very few offensive rebounds, but there's nothing hindering those 3pt shooters (when it's their turn to play defense) from crashing the defensive boards when the opponent puts up a shot. That's Boston's problem. And that's the false dichotomy—saying that "skilled offensive bigs" can't get defensive rebounds, as though it's an either/or proposition, when it's not.

You can be a good defensive rebounder and still spread the floor on offense. Those skills aren't mutually exclusive.

Right, I said that.  And then linked to the 8 bigs that are good at both shooting 3-pointers and defensive rebounding.  Did you even read my response?  Rebounding isn't simply about effort.  It's about skill -- be it reading where the ball is going to rebound and getting in position quickly, or being long enough, strong enough, and agile enough to fend off others for the rebound. 

I'm not saying that players can't do both.  I'm saying that there are literally only a handful of them in the NBA, and most of them are franchise cornerstones.  And I listed them out for you.  Heck, you can drop my shooting requirement from 35% to 33% and the only player you're adding is Towns.  There just aren't than many bigs who can both rebound defensively and stretch the floor.  You can scream about not getting one of them, but we already have one.  Most teams have 0.

I read your post. And I don't think I'm screaming.

I'm not saying that Boston needs someone who does both at a high level, like Kevin Love. They just need to be competent. You listed 8 players, but those are like the best of the best; if there are only 8 players in the entire NBA who can adequately stretch the floor on offense and adequately rebound on defense, that's a really sad commentary on the modern NBA. And I don't think there are only 8 guys who can do a decent job at both. You don't have to be a great 3pt shooter to effectively stretch the floor. Just be solid from 18-20 feet out.

I think it's reasonable to expect guys like Horford, Amir, and KO to get more defensive rebounds than they do, and it wouldn't sacrifice their ability to stretch the floor on offense.

And when Boston's on defense, and the opponent puts up a shot, I expect all five Celtics players to be crashing the boards, but that's not what's happening.

Please define competent.  It will help me see if there are more examples.  Also, you do need to be able to shoot 3s in the Celtics offense.  18-footers are nice, but that's not what this team is looking for. 

Anyway, what do you consider competent 3-point shooting?  I picked 35% originally because that's slightly below average, but still means that a player is shooting efficiently.  Competent defensive rebounding?  I went with 20% because it's a round number, and that gets you to the about the top 60 in the league.  I'm leaving passing out of this, although I do think that's important too.  And there aren't many great stats out there for setting screens, unfortunately.

[BitterJim]

Sounds like he's parroting Stevens words from earlier this season.  It's mostly bull**** though. See how it works out for you in the playoffs when defense is tighter and rebounding wins game.   ****s.

Honest question: Do you think that you understand basketball better than Danny Ainge and Brad Stevens?

Dude, you're fighting a losing battle.
There's a sentiment among our fans who don't care about what's right or wrong, all they want is things to go their way, and if they don't, they throw a temper tantrum.

I honestly think there are some people here who would rather validate their belief that Danny is stupid than win a championship. Like, people would rather have Danny **** up a deal and ruin the position we're in than win a championship because it would mean that they were wrong.

I don't understand it. If Danny had made a move that put us in contention this year I would be ecstatic even though I was calling for him to stand pat.

Interesting.

I also believe that there are some people here more invested in Danny Ainge than they are the Celtics winning a championship.

You know, the people who create threads about the "pessimism" on this board, all the anti-singe vitriol and how much they decry said vitriol, and then hit other threads to spew their own vitriol against anyone who doesn't subscribe to the "In Danny I Trust" mantra that apparently should be a requirement to post on this board.

There's a word for that. Hmmmm. Let me see. I believe it starts with an H.

If you read the actual arguments people made instead of the crazy straw men you tend to attribute to people, and stopped assuming that everyone who has ever agreed with Ainge is stupid and have arrived at their conclusions through blind faith rather than actual thought (even though they may have different opinions than you, and may be forming different opinions on things based off the same info as you), you may actually realize that no one actually thinks that (well, almost no one).

Or you can continue to willfully ignore posters' actual arguments and just try to zing one liners at people and never be part of any meaningful discussions.  You may find people are a lot more agreeable when you treat them like actual reasonable people and counter them with well reasoned arguments and data instead of just labeling them as "anti-improvement folks" or "Green Teamers" and saying condescending things like "bless your heart" because someone had the audacity to disagree with you (or, of course you could just try and play the victim card again, like a hypocrite)

PS: I think I figured out that word you were trying to think of

[tankcity!]

What do any of the reasons you guys are bringing up have  anything to do with throwing 2 2nd round picks for Noel? You're giving up nothing, what are you even losing at this point? You can trade for George and then resign Noel.

I do agree with some, people on this board really do make excuses for Ainge. He's a great GM, but everyone makes mistake. He clearly did, because they didn't have to give much. If they care so much about spacing, then don't play Amir Johnson and Tyler Zeller. That point right there is what you guys that are backing Ainge are missing....Noel can take those minutes and then you don't have to resign him because you didn't give anything up.

Pretty simple, Ainge messed up. If Noel turns out to be great for Dallas, I wonder what the excuse will be then.

I love Ainge by the way, and it's awesome he ignores fans. Stay the patient route, but you can also make similar trades to the IT one. Noel was a perfect example of that.

[tankcity!]

Excuses, excuses, excuses.  More excuses on why you failed at your job again, Danny. 

You don't think rebounding is important?  Let's see how your overrated guards hold up in the playoffs against a good rebounding team.

These aren't excuses, their reasons. You don't have to agree with the reasons, but not even making an effort to understand his reasoning and just dismissing it as "excuses" is just lazy.

He didn't "fail at his job", because his job is not to make trades to satisfy impatient fans or to try and make the ECF.  His job is to win championships, and nothing he did yesterday moved us further away from that or made it impossible.

And he isn't saying that rebounding isn't important, he's saying that rebounding is not more important than fit in our offense.  This team is a lot better with a skilled big like Horford or Olynyk in there than a guy who's only skill is rebounding. If you can get a guy that can rebound and is skilled, go for it (Jones, maybe?). But don't sacrifice the offense for an extra 1 or 2 rebounds a game.

Nothing he said is reasonable.  Not one thing.

why don't you do his job then?

I bet I could, if it means sitting on my ass, overplaying my hand, not making any moves, drafting useless guards, continuous refusal to address team's desperate need, and standing pat when the deal isn't a steal for me.  Easiest job.

Thank god you're not GM. We'd be the Brooklyn Nets. Trade everything for one shot at a ring, lol. This is basketball. I'm really sorry that you have to wait a little bit. Unfortunately in basketball, there are a lot more dynasty's and much harder to win a ring so you have to be patient. Please keep whining though, maybe one day Ainge will here you.