Tag: 2021 boston celtics

Boston’s Ainge doesn’t regret standing pat at the trade deadline

Boston Celtics team president Danny Ainge shared he had no regrets not making a deal at the trade deadline in light of missing the Finals.

Watching a team that isn’t the Boston Celtics represent the Eastern Conference in the NBA Finals is never a joy for Celtics fans.

And when the opponent is the Los Angeles Lakers, it’s even worse for most.

Throw in the East team that advanced — in this case, the Miami Heat — getting stomped in Game 1 of the Finals, and it’s hard not to wonder if there was something more Boston could have done to make itself a more complete contender at the February trade deadline.

And in his end-of-season press conference, that exact question was posed to team president Danny Ainge, who pushed back at the question a bit.

“We tried,” he explained. “We tried to do some things at trade deadline, and we tried very hard. I don’t think it would be anything different.”

“It makes a fair assessment of our team that we weren’t as strong as we needed to be. I think that we had plenty of depth to get through these two Conference Finals, assuming that we don’t have Gordon [Hayward] and Kemba [Walker] banged up and Romeo Langford out.”

This seemed a bit generous on Ainge’s part, given that while Walker and Hayward’s health were undoubtedly a factor in limiting what the Celtics were able to accomplish in the postseason, Langford — despite his promising flashes — was not by any reasonable estimation.

“I don’t think we would have done anything different, but I think it’s a shame,” he added.

And it’s not clear there was much else to do, given you have to find a deal that makes sense at the deadline, and not just shuffle the deck for the appearance of activity.

“We didn’t make a strong effort to try to improve our team,” admitted the Celtics president, perhaps hinting their may have been a deal or two that would have required an otherwise-outrageous price that might have looked different had the landscape of the postseason been clearer.

“In hindsight, it’s a little bit different;” added Ainge.

“I think that had you [known you] were going to have a training camp in-between the trade deadline, and before the season, that’s probably a better question. If you knew you could bring someone in, have an entire training camp with them before they started started playoffs, [maybe things might have been different].”

Could this be a reference to the Heat, who clearly benefited greatly from having time to integrate big changes to their roster made at the trade deadline.

“I still think the answer would be the same,” observed Ainge. “There was a few guys we were chasing … that we were trying to add to a roster that can really help us.”

“We weren’t able to get those deals done,” he noted.

Boston’s plans for the offseason were a natural bridge in the exchanges, with several such questions fielded by the Celtics president.

“I won’t tell you specifics, but we’ve got some work to do, no question about it,” said Ainge. “And I’m not overreacting to a tough loss to a good opponent. I’m just saying that there’s some things we tried to do. We’d like to do in the at the trade deadline that we weren’t able to do and, and I think the things I’d like to do now this offseason to make our team better.”

“But we have a lot to do,” he added.

If they want to make the most of their talented young wings in Jaylen Brown and Jayson Tatum, we wholeheartedly agree.

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