Danny Ainge nearly passed on Jayson Tatum to trade for Paul George

Boston Celtics budding superstar Jayson tatum very nearly could have been passed over by team president Danny Ainge to trade for Paul George in 2017.

Boston Celtics team president Danny Ainge nearly passed on All-Star forward Jayson Tatum in the 2017 NBA Draft, reports The Ringer’s Kevin O’Connor.

The Duke product very nearly went elsewhere so Ainge could assemble a package in the hopes of dealing for now-Los Angeles Clipper Paul George instead, but by Tatum’s second workout, the Celtics president had changed his mind.

If you breathed a mental sigh of relief after reading this, you’re far from alone.

While it was obviously impossible to know if Tatum would reach his current skill level — never mind looking like he still has room to grow — the St. Louis native was long a prized prospect just the same.

The Celtics had had plenty of players in for draft interviews that spring — some, like Tatum and eventual top pick Markelle Fultz, more than once.

“Everybody says the right things in draft interviews,” Ainge explained. “I knew what Jayson wanted, but I didn’t know to what extent he would go to become great. Every player wants to be great, but not all of them are willing to do what it takes.”

Tatum’s scouting revealed he dealt well with pressure from coaches — he did play for Duke’s Mike Krzyzewski, after all — and had an excellent motor for self-improvement with a good personal support network.

Fultz, however, had more mixed reviews.

Some of his bigger knocks were a lack of comparable support and a general sense of immaturity. When he shot poorly at his second workout with Boston, Ainge began to look into trading back in the draft with the intention of assembling a trade package of prospects to deal for George, then still with the Indiana Pacers.

Them Tatum wowed the Celtics in his second workout.

He hit from all over the court, downing 90 % of his treys, both off the catch and dribble.

“We just felt that Jayson had a chance to be a very, very good player that would fit well into our culture,” offered Ainge.

“What I love about Jayson is he is driven to become great,” he continued. “You can work on all sorts of technical things, but if a player doesn’t have that mental edge to become great—to have that determination of figuring out the things that you aren’t doing well—it’s not going to happen.”

“And you know, Jayson has really high expectations of himself and really high goals for his life in basketball, and that’s what I appreciate the most,” added the Celtics president.

Thankfully for Boston (and Celtics fans), the feint to trade back succeeded, and the rest is history. That it has worked out as well as it has has elevated Ainge’s drafting ability to near-legendary levels, at least when talking lottery picks.

And while there’s no guarantee that the Pacers would have gone for whatever players Ainge had drafted, it seems likely that even if they had, the team’s championship window wouldn’t be any further open this season, and certainly not for as many in the future.

While there isn’t much point in lamenting teams which never came to be, it’s never bad to appreciate the ones that did over those which might have come to fruition.

And when you have such young stars who are only starting to rise into the heavens playing for Boston, it may hard to avoid.