Who is better at their job, Brad or Danny

[KG Living Legend]

 Ultimately I think Brad is more to talented. Ainge pulled off the great heist. Now Brad gets to capitalize on Danny's brilliance. It's a match made in heaven.

[Bucketgetter]

This exact thread has been made before, maybe even by you.

[aingeforthree]

Never seen a team setup quite like this. Young talent everywhere, 3 max guys, and golden first round picks waiting in the wings.

Doesn't happen like that. A perfect setup

[Celtics4ever]

They both excel at what they do.

[greece66]

apples and oranges

[Big333223]

It's really hard to say. I went Stevens because the C's have out-achieved their talent every year he's been here, which is remarkable.

But what Danny Ainge has done to turn this team around from the Pierce/Garnett dump just 4 years ago to now is incredible. Only missing the playoffs once, making the ECF just 3 seasons after the trade with a ton of young assets still in place. Really impressive, too.

We're quite lucky to root for the Celtics.

[IDreamCeltics]

The reason the answer is Brad is simple:

Stevens has always gotten the most out of his talent.  Danny has brought in a number of bums over the years that no other team could wring production out of.  Brad has always found a way.  Among these players are Jared Sullinger, Evan Turner, Jordan Crawford, and Jeff Green.  All of whom have been promptly demoted to bench roles or exited the league shortly after leaving the Celtics.

Ainge on the other hand has done a very good job of acquiring picks, but hasn't managed to maximize their value.  The Celtics could - and should - have either Jimmy Butler or Paul George on the team.  Instead they have Gordon Hayward who is making 12 million more than Jimmy B but is frankly an inferior player.  The Celtics desperately need a rebounder shotblocker, despite the fact that Nerlens Noel, Jusuf Nurkic, Boogie Cousins, Serge Ibaka, and many others have all changed teams for paltry trade-values. The Celtics have no proven rebounder/shotblocker entering this season and will be relying on Ante Zizic - a 21 year old Euro Big who has never played an NBA minute - to fill that role.   

[boscel33]

I think they both do their job equally well, which makes them a perfect pair.

[SHAQATTACK]

DA....made , I think 25 years from now will be looked on as THE move opin modern Celtic era ...

Hiring of Brad Stevens .

[jambr380]

Brad is a phenomenal coach and should hopefully win a championship one day, but what DA has done has been more impressive. Not only did he re-create what it meant to have a Big 3 with the KG/Allen deals (with no real help from free agency), he also completed possibly the most lopsided trade in NBA history with BKN. We do not know what will become of Brown, Tatum, BKN '18, and LAL/SAC pick, but just being able to acquire all of that for two ready to retire veterans is unprecedented. He's also done a number of other very good deals, including bringing in our very own IT.

I think we are very lucky to have both DA and Ainge, but what Ainge has done is more on a monumental scale.

[Granath]

I think both are phenoms but the edge might go to Danny.

It's easier to appreciate Brad because we see what he does on the court every game. He gets much of the press and guys seem to genuinely love playing for him. I'm not taking anything away from Brad because he's the man.

But Danny may operate at a different level. Take the Stevens hiring. Danny hired him at a time when no one was hiring college coaches. Not only did he hire him, he gave Brad a SIX YEAR contract in order to lock him up long enough to turn the team around. Most GMs would have given Brad a 3 or 4 year deal and thus it would have been a constant concern about "is he returning to college?" or "will he jump to a better team?". Danny took all that out of play by giving him the 6 year deal which gave Danny enough time to field a team that Stevens enjoys coaching, allow Brad to prove himself and then inked him to an extension. That was a pretty ballsy move.

In another example, I did an analysis of the minutes for this years' team and I don't think it's accidental that the numbers work so well.

The total minutes played last year (which would factor in any injuries last year) for the current Celtics squad, giving Tatum 20 minutes per game for 70 games (1400 minutes), is  19,744 minutes played. There's 19,680 available via math (48*5*82) and the entire Celtics team played 19,755 minutes (which includes rounding) last year.

Guys like Brown and Rozier are expected to have more minutes this year. Brown is likely to come close to 2,000 minutes this year (+500 conservatively) and Rozier should top 1,500 (+250). So now we're at 20,500 minutes played when there's only 19,680 available. And this doesn't take into account guys who are expected to contribute like Semi, Zizic and Theis.

What does all this mean? Danny has assembled a team where suffer normal injuries and not be forced to start young guys who aren't ready. But if/when those guys are ready, he can plug them into this roster and reduce the workload on his stars - saving them more for the playoffs. Odds are that at least someone like Semi, Zizic, Theis or Yabu can contribute sooner rather than later.

So he wasn't afraid to turn over the roster of a 52 win, ECF team from the back end because he knew he had the front end covered. He filled the back half of the roster with talented young guys who will earn minutes the hard way by going against a talented core every single day in practice. We'll see the cream rise to the top and we'll be stronger for it in the long run.

Either that is one major happy accident or it's a brilliant piece of planning.

Then there's trades for guys like Crowder and IT. Those weren't accidents. So while I don't always agree with Danny's moves, he's right far more often than not and sometimes he seems to operate at an entirely different level.