Honest Ainge?
Posted by Zach Lowe on Jan 18, 2010
As the trade deadline has approached in each of the last couple years, I have thought of “The Selling of the Green,” the 1992 book about the Celtics by Harvey Araton and Filip Bondy that is part interesting look into the 1980s NBA and part anti-Celtic screed.
The reason? Because Danny Ainge comes off as one of only a half-dozen or so white members of the organization whom the authors clearly place on the “positive” side or the moral ledger. Araton and Bondy initially paint Ainge (in Danny’s first years with the team) as a whiny under-achiever awarded prized status and a hefty, undeserved contract in part because of his celebrity and in part because of his race. By the end, though, Ainge is a thoughtful veteran player willing to express his discomfort with the way the Celtics handled personnel issues with several black players—especially Gerald Henderson and Cedric Maxwell.
The reason I think of these passages (which I’ll excerpt after the jump) is that Ainge seems particularly upset with the way the Celtics (allegedly) fed false information to the press in order to hurt the public perception of a player they were getting ready to trade or release. He seems offended by the dishonesty and back-stabbing that happen, to some degree, in a lot of player-team negotiations.
I always wonder to myself: Does Danny live up to those standards now that he’s in the GM office?
Take the fallout between Red Auerbach and Cedric Maxwell, the MVP of the ’81 Finals and a near All-Star-level player during his prime. The C’s dealt Max to the Clippers for Bill Walton before the ’86 season, and the team hinted strongly in the press that they did so in part because Maxwell had not worked hard to rehab from a knee injury and had shown up to pre-season workouts out of shape. (There were also rumblings that Max’s locker-room antics—he was a fun dude, to say the least—rubbed some players the wrong way).
Here’s Ainge in “Selling of the Green” on the Max-Walton trade:
“With Cedric, that locker room stuff was an act. That freak was always ready to play. The Celtics just wanted to give Kevin [McHale] more minutes. I was upset with the excuses they used. You want to trade him, fine. But let him leave with dignity.”
A year earlier, the C’s dealt Gerald Henderson, a hero of the ’84 Finals victory over the Lakers, to the Sonics in exchange for the draft pick they eventually used to select Len Bias. The team made the trade during the pre-season in ’85, and Araton and Bondy argue the organization did so despite promising Henderson’s agent they would not deal Henderson. (The authors source this only to Henderson’s agent; they’re top-notch reporters, so I assume they tried to verify with the C’s and got nowhere).
Before the trade, Red Auerbach used the same tactic with Henderson that he used later with Maxwell—he complained publicly that Henderson was out of shape.
Ainge took issue with this, according to the authors:
“Gerald was definitely not out of shape. He was a hard worker, and that was just management’s excuse. It was a PR move by the Celtics.”
Ainge gave this statement to the authors well after the C’s dealt him to the Western Conference, but still—it’s a strong move to publicly criticize your former organization (and, though Ainge didn’t name him, Red Auerbach) like this.
Ainge also defends K.C. Jones and Dennis Johnson in the book.
I wonder whether Ainge has found it difficult to maintain his high standards of honesty in dealing with players and the media in a business that demands so much secrecy, media manipulation and bluffing. His most public recent commentary about a player during contract talks involved his criticism—and that may be a too-strong word—of Rajon Rondo’s game during this past off-season. Ainge (with some help from Doc Rivers) mentioned Rondo’s alleged stubbornness, his unreliable jump shot, his tendency to gamble on defense and some other minor stuff.
In regard to those comments, Ainge has always said he was merely giving honest answers to questions from reporters. As a journalist in my real job, I admire that. And his “criticisms” of Rajon’s game weren’t exactly ground-breaking; we all know the guy has trouble with open 18-footers.
But some people thought Ainge was perhaps too open with the media—and conveniently so, given the timing—in discussing Rondo’s limitations as a player.
Really, it’s impossible to answer these questions without intimate access to the organization. But it’s something I always watch for when the trade deadline approaches, as it is now. By all accounts, Danny handled the release of Lester Hudson in a classy way—keeping Hudson abreast of the situation and possible destinations.
In any case, just something to monitor. Happy Martin Luther King, Jr. day! Brian and Brendan will take you through the showdown with Dallas later today and tonight.
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