Tag: Danny Ainge

Tacko Fall hit a 3-pointer in front of Danny Ainge during a workout

Celtics general manager Danny Ainge captured a video of Tacko Fall hitting a 3-pointer on the court.

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With teams preparing to resume the 2019-20 season, players have started returning to practice facilities around the NBA in an effort to get back into game shape.

All 30 training facilities in the league have opened up, with varying limitations, in recent weeks as stay-at-home orders have eased around the country. In accordance with safety protocols and health guidelines, a limited number of players can be on the court or in weight rooms.

On Thursday, Boston Celtics rookie Tacko Fall hit the gym for some work.

Celtics general manager Danny Ainge captured a small video clip of the 7-foot-5 center practicing his corner 3-pointers as part of his workout. Fall may have taken an extra step or two prior to hitting the shot, though.

Fall has been seen previously practicing his 3-pointers during practice as he continues to work on his game. His shot form has improved drastically from his time in college at UCF after working with noted specialist Drew Hanlen. He has yet to break out the jump shot during a game but he appears to be slowly adding to his bag of tricks.

As for the rest of his season, teams are petitioning the NBA to allow players signed to two-way contracts, like Fall and fellow rookie Tremont Waters, the ability to play once the season resumes on July 31 at the Walt Disney World Resort.

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Believe it or not, Danny Ainge was once happy to be dealt to the Kings

Boston Celtics team president and ex-player Danny Ainge was once excited to be traded to the Sacramento Kings.

In today’s NBA, it might raise a few eyebrows for a player to be excited about being dealt from the Boston Celtics to the Sacramento Kings given their long history of mediocrity and dysfunction.

And even in Celtics team president Danny Ainge’s heyday as a player, it might have seemed strange given he was dealt to the California franchise in 1989, not even two seasons removed from Boston’s last NBA Finals appearance in 1987.

But the writing was on the wall for those with eyes to see it, and Ainge by all accounts was one such person as the 1980s drew to a close.

Injuries to Larry Bird and Kevin McHale and the loss of Len Bias signaled tough times ahead, and the Oregon native was in no mood to play out the best remaining years of his career on a rebuilding squad.

“I just felt our team after the ’87 season was just not the same,” related Ainge to the Boston Globe’s Gary Washburn. ” … and I didn’t feel like the Celtics were going to be contender any time soon.”

Then, a pair of Celtics icons no longer with the team conferred and the seed of a trade was planted. Former Boston legend Bill Russell — now the GM of the Kings — spoke with former teammate and coach of Ainge K.C. Jones.

Soon after, plans were laid that eventually became the deal sending the Brigham Young product to Sacramento along with Brad Lohaus for Joe Kleine and Ed Pinckney.

“I think it made a lot of sense and I was excited about it,” offered Ainge. “Bill Russell was my general manager and he had talked with his good friend K.C. Jones about me. I was excited to go to Sacramento and after that first year, there was a lot to look forward to in that franchise.”

Russell had only known success as a player and a player-coach, and had quietly been a force behind the scenes in guiding renowned team president Red Auerbach make draft decisions, so there was little reason to doubt Russell’s acumen as an executive.

But then, little could have been foreseen about  what had gone sideways; a player — Ricky Berry — tragically took his own life. Pervis Ellison, the team’s No. 1 overall pick that summer’s draft, spent 48 games of his rookie season out injured, earning him the moniker “Out of Service Pervis” from Ainge.

The team would end up winning just 23 games.

The now-team president would eventually be dealt to the Portland Trail Blazers to avoid shackling the then-31-year-old guard to a rebuilding team, and he’d go on to have several more deep runs with the Blazers and later Phoenix Suns.

And while the Kings have continued their dysfunctional ways right up to the present day — as strange as it may sound — there really was a time when it sounded like a smart move to move to Sacramento.

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The Last Dance: Five Notre Dame Connections to Michael Jordan

Have you enjoyed “The Last Dance” on ESPN? Michael Jordan never played against Notre Dame but he did have more than a couple connections.

If you’re like most of sports fans in the United States you probably spent a good amount of your last five Sunday nights taking in ESPN’s documentary, “The Last Dance”.  For a kid growing up in the nineties it was a great walk down memory lane and incredibly informative for stories about Michael Jordan and the Chicago Bulls dynasty.

What connections to Notre Dame did the documentary have?  Let’s look back at just a few:

Michael Jordan’s Former Teammate Turns Notre Dame Coach:

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“The Last Dance” director Jason Hehir speaks on Celtics fandom, more

“The Last Dance” director Jason Hehir spoke with Boston Celtics team reporter Marc D’Amico on his fandom for the Cs and much more.

The Boston Celtics might not be prominent in the ESPN Michael Jordan documentary series “The Last Dance” ending tonight with the release of episodes nine and 10, but that doesn’t mean the team hasn’t had a profound impact on the creative mind who guided the series into being.

“The Last Dance” director Jason Hehir recent spoke with Boston team reporter Mark D’Amico in a video produced for the team about his personal Celtics fandom, as well as his general experiences creating the documentary with an eye to where that fandom and the documentary’s production overlapped.

Fans were very nearly without the documentary series as a means for coping with the isolation and lack of sports quarantine in this pandemic necessitates, as it wasn’t quite done.

But, Hehir and his team hunkered down and delivered, making good on delivering the full 10 episodes for fans to see; “As we tape this [interview], we just turned in Episode 10 yesterday,” related Hehir.

“We’re just wild to get this thing done, but it’s been a busy eight weeks in quarantine. I’m actually thankful that I’ve had something to do. I don’t think I’m going through quite the mental anguish that other people are, bouncing off the walls because because I’ve been laser focused every day.”

And the product he and his team created has indeed helped us have something sports-related to channel our own attention towards in the midst of a news cycle and reality that is, otherwise, inescapable.

One of the first instances of the Celtics present in the series was the golfing incident that occurred in between Games 1 and 2 of the first round of the 1986 Eastern Conference Playoffs.

It turned some contemporary heads, as more than a few older players have griped about modern NBA players being too friendly with one another — implying a lack of competitive spirit.

“It didn’t occur to me that there was going to be any sort of backlash because I know that today’s players get a lot of the criticism of [LeBron James’] banana boat and trading jerseys and how it used to be rough and tumble in the 80s and 90s. Guys wouldn’t help each other up off the floor and all that, but I think these players are human beings and and off the court, they left a lot of those things on the floor.”

Such as, by Hehir’s own admission, each other. But, any student of the game of that era will quickly realize Hehir is correct.

While the general vibe of the league was certainly less collegial than it is today, it certainly wasn’t monolithic, and that animosity was — as it is now — usually tied to specific relationships between players with history.

“Some of them carry it over; if you want to talk to the [Chicago] Bulls and the [Detroit] Pistons about that these days, I bet the Celtics and the Lakers probably have something to say about that too,” he added.

“But actually, I just thought it was funny because it speaks to how much Michael was addicted to golf even back then, that he wanted to find a place to play. I think they had two days off — Friday and Saturday — between games one and two, and he wanted to find a place to play.”

Hehir acknowledged Ainge as a pretty significant part of Jordan’s early career,facing him not only in Boston, but also later with the Portland Trail Blazers and the Phoenix Suns.

“[Ainge and MJ] had that altercation they had that fight at half court when Michael stuck his finger in his face and said, ‘Don’t touch me,” he recalled. “Danny was scrappy man.”

The 1986 team in particular was a topic of much conversation, as was the baptism of poor Rick Carlisle by Jordan — then still many years away from his coaching career and a player on Boston’s roster; “I think it was Rick Barry saying that Rick Carlisle wants his mommy,” Hehir noted.

There will evidently be more Celtics connections as well in the final two episodes, as a certain famed forward is due for an appearance.

“You haven’t seen the last of Larry [Bird], because he’s the coach of the [Indiana] Pacers in episode nine when the Bulls face the Pacers in ’98.

“I just thought it was so cool that Larry got to have a little arc in this documentary, because you see him in episode two, facing Michael, … and it was only so significant because he did it against the Celtics. It wasn’t like he just went and did this against a random [Atlanta] Hawks team, it still would have been a record — but to do it against perhaps the best team ever.”

The full interview runs for a little over a half-hour, and is filled with all kinds of details and easter eggs fans of the series will want to catch, so be sure to catch it in its entirety in the video embedded above.

We’re just hours away from the finale of the highly-anticipated series, with episodes nine and ten debuting tonight at 9pm ET.

What we’ll use to fill the basketball-sized holes in hearts afterwards remain to be seen, but until we figure that out, enjoy the last dance of “The Last Dance” this evening.

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Boston’s Danny Ainge hopeful to reopen team practice facilities soon

Boston Celtics team president is hopeful the team may be able to begin using their practice facilities as soon as next week.

Boston Celtics team president Danny Ainge is enjoying the ESPN Michael Jordan documentary series “The Last Dance” like the rest of us in the absence of sport-

But, is also itching to get back to the real thing along with us as well, according to recent comments he made on the “Lowe Post” podcast — also produced by the Worldwide Leader.

Speaking on a host of subjects, Ainge and the host Zach Lowe soon turned to the topic of restarting the NBA season.

The Celtics head honcho shared some details about where Boston is in the process of taking up the NBA on its slackening of restrictions on the use of practice facilities in municipalities that have lifted or relaxed stay-at-home orders for the pandemic.

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The league has banned use of team facilities since mid-March.

“Massachusetts has been one of the slowest in opening things up. Our next phase is, we’ll open up our facility. We’re hoping to do it next week,” began Ainge.

“It’s 1-on-1 … one coach, one player. Coaches with masks and gloves. Players in the gym, disinfect the gym. I don’t think anybody’s afraid of that. If I said we’re two or three weeks away from playing, I’m sure there would be some players that would have some trepidation.”

“I think everybody’s just really anxious to play right now. That’s what I think,” he added.

While there have been rumbles that players on teams with little to play for in terms of a postseason are understandably less keen on returning to play out the remainder of the 2019-20 regular season, Ainge hasn’t heard such opinions from his own players.

“These are the times that we play for,” he explained. “It’s almost like we just played 60 games and it doesn’t mean anything. I think that I would like to finish the season. I think most of the players, if not all the players, would like to finish the season and move on to next year.”

While there is a not-small chance the league goes directly to a postseason format of some kind, and a chance the rest of the season — playoffs and all — are canceled entirely, there has been growing optimism some sort of a finish will at least be attempted in the coming weeks and months.

But for now, all we can do is wait — and at least this weekend — watch “The Last Dance”.

Danny Ainge shuts down any idea Suns could have dealt up for Tatum

Boston Celtics team president shut down the idea Jayson Tatum could have been stolen from the team by the Suns in the draft.

According to Boston Celtics team president Danny Ainge, there was precisely zero percent chance the All-Star forward would have ended up playing for the Phoenix Suns.

This was of course in reference to comments made by Jayson Tatum in a recent episode of the “All the Smoke” podcast on which the Duke product revealed he had been leaning heavily towards wanting to be drafted by the Suns ahead of the 2017 NBA Draft.

Ainge responded — also on a podcast, this time ESPN’s “The Lowe Post” — to speculation about how close the reality Tatum described was to playing out in real life:

“Jayson was never going to end up in Phoenix, even if he didn’t come in for that second workout with us a few days before the draft in Boston,” he explained. “We were still going to take Jayson Tatum.”

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At the time, the Celtics had traded back with the Philadelphia 76ers, correctly divining they were after guard Markelle Fultz with the top overall selection.

With the Los Angeles Lakers signaling for weeks they’d be after point guard Lonzo Ball, Boston felt confident enough they’d get their man at No. 3.

They did, and while Phoenix was indeed picking fourth, it would have required a heft offer to convince the Lakers it would have been worth passing on the draft apple of their eye.

The ex-post facto conversations springing up regarding what other teams could’ve (and probably should have, if it were even possible) done doesn’t bother the Celtics president, though.

“It’s good that we have Jayson and it’s good that there are stories coming about him and how everybody else would have gotten him,” noted Ainge on the podcast, a wry grin almost audible on the recording.

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Appearing on ESPN’s The Lowe Post …

Appearing on ESPN’s The Lowe Post podcast, Celtics president of basketball operations Danny Ainge said he’s hopeful the team’s practice facility will open next week in advance of the suspended NBA season resuming in the coming months. “Massachusetts has been one of the slowest in opening things up. Our next phase is, we’ll open up our facility. We’re hoping to do it next week,” he told ESPN’s Zach Lowe. “It’s 1-on-1… one coach, one player. Coaches with masks and gloves. Players in the gym, disinfect the gym. I don’t think anybody’s afraid of that”

Ainge said he’d probably want to attend …

Ainge said he’d probably want to attend any postseason games in person but couldn’t give a clear answer without any details on the league’s specific plans. While he doesn’t believe the time is right for the league to resume play quite yet, he is confident the NBA will begin playing games again in the next couple months and is confident there will be a resumption of the season in some form.