Danny Ainge On The Celtics’ Offseason

Celtics President of Basketball Operations Danny Ainge recently sat down with Dan Roche of WBZ-TV on his radio show to discuss the team’s offseason plans.  The entire transcript is a must-read, and we’ll pass along a few highlights:

On the Celtics’ overall philosophy this offseason:

“Ownership would like to see something happen faster and I know my coaches and players want to see something faster. I’ve been in their positions and I get it, I want to see something faster too. But I have to protect us from doing something irrational from doing something that gets us a little bit better.”

On the No.3 overall pick: 

“I can’t talk about any players in particular, but a player that is going to take time to develop or a player who may not come to the NBA for a year or two, if we feel he’s the best player we have to take him. We can’t let a player slip by us just because it doesn’t fulfill our immediate satisfaction, or the objective for the fans to see someone exciting. We have to pick the best player under any circumstance. There are too many examples of really good players that fans haven’t been excited about. When Kristaps Porzingis was drafted by New York, fans were booing all over the place and we didn’t understand. When I was in Phoenix and we drafted Steve Nash, we were booed.”

On adding a rim protector: 

“I’m always leery of saying what we need because you don’t just go find a good rim protector, because you lose something. We were the fourth-best defense in the NBA without a rim protector. Sometimes you get a rim protector and it hurts your offense. We have some good players, but I think we have to add a few more.”