Celtics president of basketball operations Danny Ainge isn’t in attendance this week at the draft combine in Chicago, but he’s recovering well after suffering a mild heart attack earlier this month, his son Austin Ainge tells Adam Himmelsbach of The Boston Globe.
“He’s back at it,” said the younger Ainge, who is also the team’s director of player personnel. “He’s doing great. He’s been texting me 100 times a day. He loves his job, and he wants to continue doing it.”
It’s unclear when Danny might start traveling again, and Austin acknowledges that there was some discussion about whether his father should step back from his role for health reasons. However, according to Austin, doctors have said that the Celtics’ longtime head of basketball operations is “healthy and doing great” after the scare.
“He’s doing well and he’s very motivated,” Austin said. “Pretty much life back to normal. It didn’t take him long to turn into 60-year-old Dennis the Menace again.”
Here’s more on the Celtics:
- Several NBA executives, team officials, and scouts spoke to A. Sherrod Blakely of NBC Sports Boston, weighing in with their opinions on what Kyrie Irving will do as a free agent this summer. Blakeley relays a number of comments from those sources, noting that they run the gamut. One Eastern Conference GM who believes Irving will leave the Celtics said that Kyrie “could care less about” the money he’d be giving up by joining a new team. Conversely, a Western Conference front-office official argues that Kyrie is “playing all of you guys right now” and that he’ll end up re-signing with Boston.
- Unlike those execs, Celtics owner Wyc Grousbeck didn’t have much to say about Irving this week. As Darren Hartwell of NBC Sports Boston relays, Grousbeck essentially declined comment when asked about Kyrie’s future during an appearance on 98.5 The Sports Hub in Boston.
- Chris Forsberg of NBC Sports Boston takes a deep dive into what the Celtics’ offseason might look like if Irving heads elsewhere.
- After interviewing for the Cavaliers’ and Lakers’ head coaching jobs, J.B. Bickerstaff met with Celtics head coach Brad Stevens at the draft combine in Chicago, reports Marc Berman of The New York Post (via Twitter). Boston appears to be eyeing Bickerstaff as a potential assistant after losing Micah Shrewsberry to Purdue.
Once Boston accepts he’s opting out they will do a three way trade with NY and NO. (Probably a few smaller deals to work round the CBA)
NY gets Kyrie and AD.
The Celts get Jrue
NO gets some combination of Knicks and Celts assets
Crappy deal for Boston but Kyrie is walking anyway & Jrue is a decent fit. Getting Kyrie at his contract number gives the knicks a little more flexibility so it’s worth it to them to overpay a little and Kyrie gets to resign with his bird rights next year so less money this year is repaid.
NO can start clean instead of rebuilding around a giant deal for Jrue.
2 dallas number 1 picks, this year NY #1, Ntilikina, Smith, Knox, Trier and Thomas from NY to NO
A Boston #1 this year and a future number one in addition to Rozier and Brown.
That would give NO 5 first round picks and 5 recent 1st round picks.
10 first round picks for one year of AD and 3 years of a maxed out player. (Jrue) That actually feels like an overpay when the Knicks have to max both guys in order to keep.
Why would the celtics get involved in a deal that would send 2 superstars to a rival team? Also, why would they take on an overpaid average starting guard and nothing else? You are delusional if you think this is realistic in any world. The celtics could let Kyrie walk and save millions and millions and go get someone like kemba or of Holiday’s B tier for cheap
They are both going there anyway and Jrue replaces Kyrie at PG.
Someone like Kemba? You think players that good grow on tree? :)
Do you mean Jrue I have never played defense in my life ? And with Boogie and Anthony Davis and Rondo I can’t make it out of the first round.
This conversation is for people who already know who Jrue is.
Irving is not opting in and S&Ts are no longer much of a thing.
so u think the celtics, who went to the eastern conference finals without kyrie, will trade him AND AD to a division rival? for jrue holiday? lmaoooo
I think they are probably mature enough to make money on an event that is going to happen one way or the other.
You couldn’t do that?
Bro Celtics don’t have AD, so how you think they are trading him. He’ll they don’t even have Kyrie anymore he is opting out in a swift way. The trade is illogical though for sure.
Or, Boston says bye to Irving, forgets about AD, and works on convincing Rozier to come back. They keep all their great assets, and they wait to see who’s available next February.
After all, there’s a great player who’s surprisingly available every season right around the trade deadline…
What great assets? People keeps talking about C’s great assets, but they do not have any, Rozier a good back up, Smart a bit less, JB can make a decent starter, JT might (with time & much progression) become one day a star… Memphis pick won’t be much, their picks this year amount to nothing.
Some assets yes… great not at all!
I’m guessing you didn’t watch last year’s playoffs?
I’m guessing your obsessed with a tiny sample size of young guys getting lucky. This year the entire Celtics core REGRESSED!
Regressed!! If you were 20/21 years old and your new role was to stand in the corner and watch Kyrie pound the ball into the floor as the 24 second clock ticked away you may regress as well. Back to 2017/18 and build from there.
Yeah.. Spend another year with an even worse team. That’s good stuff.
At least the Knicks wouldn’t get any benefit though!
LOL
Deleted some reply threads here because they devolved into name-calling. Emac22, I think some of the confusion here stemmed from your first line (“Once Boston accepts he’s opting out”) and the subsequent pivot to opting in instead. His motivation for doing so is unclear when the Knicks have the cap room to sign him outright (counting on a bigger deal the following year seems risky given his injury history).
The motivation is that he wants to join a winning team and leaving the knicks with a few extra mil in cap space to load up this year while also getting him bird rights next year is a win win.
I agree there is some extra risk but I think it’s really small. Leaving the extra money he could get with bird rights on the table (from Boston) is locking in a lot of risk so you are really just exposing yourself to different risk if you trust the Knicks to max you out and get insurance for the year of waiting.
I understand I might have made it sound a little confusing in terms of Boston realizing that he isn’t going to stay (is opting out for sure) and thus realizes they can either just let him go or participate in a trade of some sort that gets them something….but I don’t honestly believe some folks had any interest in understanding what I said and in fact made efforts to pretend not to understand when I explained it.
But thanks for the input! Honestly.
Fair take. I guess I’m just more skeptical that he’d play for such a substantially lower salary in 2019/20 ($21.3MM vs. the $32.7MM he could get in free agency) in the middle of his prime. As I mentioned in a since-deleted thread, it’s not entirely unheard of. But when guys do it, it’s usually because the team they want to go to doesn’t have the cap room to sign them outright (like in the Chris Paul-to-Houston scenario).
In theory, there could be a number of different scenarios in play if Kyrie leaves Boston. Signing a four-year contract is the one we talk about the most, but opting in and signing a long-term deal with Bird Rights in 2020, like you suggest, is another possibility. So is signing a 1+1 contract (that way he’d get the raise to $32.7MM next season), then signing a long-term deal with Non-Bird/Early Bird rights in 2020 or 2021.
Kyrie is anything but predictable though, so who knows.
If you were him and dead set on going home to play in ny, would you opt in if it means the difference in adding KD and AD instead of just KD?
If the money mattered that much he would have to stay in Boston. Obviously he is willing to lose money to be happier. opting in at least allows the possibility of getting it all back.
If it was me I would opt in expecting that AD and KD would help me not only win the title but very possibly get myself a superman deal and end up ahead dollar wise.
I never saw the pivotal phrase “opt in” until Luke’s post.
Irving can get KD & AD on the Knicks with him (if they want) without him sacrificing $11.4MM in an opt-in, as there is a way that all 3 maxes can fit in NY. There would not be much room for anyone else. Of course all the Knicks have to do for the other 12 spots on the roster is to get players started as Knicks, then they have the bird rights to go over the cap and keep them when Irving goes max, so temporarily taking a lower salary makes some sense.
But any of the big3 can do that anyway, without involving the Celts or an opt-in. Irving would have to want to do the Celts a favor on his way out to opt in, and his new team (NYK) a disfavor in that they would have to give up assets to Boston for Irving. Not a good start in the big apple!
There is no reason for the Pels to contribute to Boston’s cause. They can deal separately with Boston if they want. So I don’t see the utility of an Irving opt-in.
Boston fans don’t like the idea of losing Irving for nothing! But there’s nothing to do.
Really who would want Kyrie the cancer. He isn’t a game changer. He has proved that already. He just runs his mouth all the time and then doesn’t come thru when it counts. Just call him Melo 2. “ Look at me I am The greatest “. At what ruining a franchise?
Rozier is restricted- he has no choice. Bring him back . Rozier and Smart in the backcourt, Tatum and Brown, and Horford. Hayward 6th man. Next year Horford is up- opens a spot for a top free agent. The following year Hayward leaving gives us another top free agent spot. Also the Memphis pick comes in to play. 2 years of patience . Use the draft picks to fill out roster. This is the no diva plan.
It’s the no title plan too but that might be unavoidable.
The only thing I know about Jrue is he sucks. And your evaluation of NBA talent is terrible.
Jrue doesn’t suck. He’s had a PER abkuve 17 for the last 5 years. That’s above average, he may not be worth his contract, but he definitely doesn’t “suck”
The second Irving leaves ;the Celtics become a team again. Davis is a lot like Kyrie. Doesn’t make anyone better!! Leads the league in X-Rays. And has been a loser since he got in the league.
Sign and trade makes since for Boston and Kyrie. Ainge isn’t going to allow Irving to walk out the door and leave the Celtics with no compensation.