this is probably a great time to write how disappointed I’ve been in Danny Ainge lately. Not Danny Ainge, the GM. Danny Ainge, the person.
Ainge, like all basketball GMs and Dwyane Wade, is responsible for assembling professional basketball rosters. Therefore, it stands to reason that he should accept some meager share of the blame when his roster doesn’t perform up to expectations. His title is President of Basketball Operations, after all. At the very least, if he’s not going to take on any responsibility himself, he certainly shouldn’t be dispensing any to anyone else.
But that’s exactly what he’s been doing, sadly. In making the media rounds after Game 5, Ainge explicitly assigned blame for the season’s end to his players, and nobly declined to leave any for himself, the person who brought those players together.
Articles like these are riddled with quotes about how Ainge believes the Celtics lost because the players didn’t play as well as they could have. His tone, throughout, is that of a disappointed father whose son didn’t practice enough for his piano recital and missed out on a piano scholarship to a good college. It’s pretty unpleasant, actually, from someone in a position of power and responsibility like Ainge. The buck is supposed to stop with him, but Ainge is snowblowing bucks out of his office and leaving his players to deal with them.
Here’s perhaps the exemplar quote: Ainge’s response when asked if he had any explanations for the Celtics’ early exit.
“I won’t share those with you, because that would be talking about some of my players that didn’t play as well as they were capable of playing,” said Ainge.
That’s sharing plenty, Daniel. What you’re making clear, here, is that you believe player performance doesn’t reflect on you. All you do is sign the players, who you presume to be awesome, and then when they’re not as awesome as you thought they would be, it’s their fault. That is pretty slimy, even if it is the result of professional insecurity, which it probably is.
After the jump, some sub-categories of Danny faulting his players for his own mistakes.
