The Danny Ainge GM Soup Kitchen.

Before I am pounced upon by a bunch of die-hard Danny Ainge fan club members (like buzzards picking at the rotting carcass of an old-fashioned thinking Celtic fan), let me first offer up some context as to the timing of this article. It’s not about Rondo and the latest trade.

I know when I write something negative about “Danny The Man”, I’ll be chewed up and spit out by some of you Ainge loyalists. That’s OK. I’m used to it.  The Danny Ainge debate regarding his tenure, and his success as the GM of the Boston Celtics, can never be a real objective debate using pure hard facts. True facts about his character and mental capacity as an NBA GM are subjective at best. In fact, there is no real objective debate to be had at this point. Subjective arguments, as we all proceed downward with another rebuilding season, is about all we have to discuss at this juncture. My subjective arguments aren’t any more or less valid than someone else firmly planted on the other side of the DA equation. Sure, we can sprinkle in a few facts here and there, but beyond those few morsels the argument gets fuzzy and often mean-spirited. Fans, no matter how invested they are in this team are not in the kitchen seeing how things are cooked up. We certainly haven’t been near anything concrete, or seen any thing like the unvarnished truth since 2003 when Danny made a reappearance on the poor streets of Boston and started giving interviews. That’s my subjective perspective anyway regarding the unnecessary doublespeak of DA. This 12 year Boston Celtic chapter is still unfolding. This fact alone makes me a bit queasy - like food poisoning. 

As stated above, the timing of this article has nothing really to do with the trading of Rajon Rondo to Dallas. My growing "Tree of Frustration" is full of the bitter fruit of dislike, animosity, and general disdain for Danny Ainge. This tree has long roots that stretch far deeper than this latest trade. Therefore this isn’t some knee-jerk reaction to Rondo being traded, or even a recent example of my frustrations boiling over of the last two seasons or so. I am in way deep with my level of disappointment and frustration with the man from BYU. 

In terms of Rondo, I honestly don’t know where the truth lies here. Did Rondo want to be traded? Did Rondo not have any intent of signing a new contract with the Celtics? Maybe he would only sign if it was for the maximum? Maybe he was wish-washy and vacillated in his conversations with Danny. Was Danny just a poor communicator with Rondo in talking thru a new contract? Did Danny make bad assumptions about what Rondo was thinking instead of asking? Did Danny just grow tired of Rondo? Who really knows? I am to the point with Mr. Big Pants Ainge that I don’t really care why something else happened with my beloved team (since 1968 by the way). I only know something else has happened once again under the guidance of this GM that fits a pattern I don’t care for one bit.

What we all know for sure is that Rondo, KG, Paul Pierce, Ray Allen and Perk are all gone. We also know for sure that there is Banner #17 hanging in Boston Garden. With the exception of Paul Pierce, Danny brought all of these winning ingredients to Boston. He also then summarily shipped every last one of them out. In almost 12 years (2003-2015). Danny helped raise this one banner. I give him props, lucky props, but nonetheless props.  I am convinced Danny has no recipe card or good notes to follow on how to make a good sustainable NBA team. If he was a General Manager of a restaurant, I would say he was miraculously able to make one winning bowl of soup worthy of being named Championship Soup of the year.

I can hear some of you yelling out already” Hey you old cranky fart, he almost made at least one more great bowl of soup the following year. You are correct. Your argument is subjectively valid. I won’t dispute it on factual terms of how close we came to another banner. It is also true many GM’s never make a Championship bowl of soup at all. I see that argument clearly as well, but I still don’t believe that makes Danny a great GM. I think he is at best a mediocre GM who got lucky once in churning thru his chaotic recipe for success. Let me explain my thoughts a bit further, using my old (and somewhat tired) analogy of cooking and Danny Ainge. 

I think in 2007 Danny had a magical Julia Child moment of "soup making" by being drunk on failure in the kitchen and thus needing a hail Mary pass to get him thru Year #5 without being fired. It only happened once (this miracle bowl of soup) and mostly by accident. I think Danny drank a whole bottle of cheap wine and decided in a drunken stupor that after 4 + years of abject failure as a GM he would swing for the fences and try to get a super ingredient from his old teammate at GM cooking school - Kevin McHale. That super ingredient was of course Kevin Garnett. KG - the hardest working man/ingredient in NBA show business for the past 20 years. Danny took his luckily found KG secret sauce, and added some extra seasoning called “Ray Allen 3-point Spice”. He then added these two new found super foods to his existing ingredients (roster) and threw them into a saucepan and suddenly a miracle happened. A bell rang and Danny got his wings or ring. 

Now keep in mind this wasn't a recipe that Julia Child and Danny had been secretly working on in detail for the first 4 years of his GM career. Rather, this was a recipe that came together in a 4th year of slurring conversations and confusing trades as he sipped and spilled green clover wine all over the parquet floor. I am sure he reflected daily on all the things he already thrown into a cooking pot that tasted and smelled like a bad batch of Campbell’s lumpy mushroom soup.  

Desperation Danny after 4 years of stumbling and fumbling, finally came upon the right ingredients to get a winning bowl of great soup! Good for him and good us fans! Banner 17 had finally arrived and I enjoyed it immensely. However, one lucky experimental crock-pot full of stuff thrown together in desperation doesn’t make for a genius chef or a great General Manager who is supposed to be running a consistent NBA caliber restaurant.

A really good GM works much differently, more eloquently, and over time creates many good recipes. One has to keep making new recipes that patrons always like eating by using slight alterations during each new season to keep it tasting fresh but yet somehow “loyal” to the basic feel of what one comes to expect when they pay their money to enjoy a real Celtic meal.

I think when one closely examines what Danny has done in 12 years as the GM, they will see he has done nothing much except mix in so many bad ingredients in so many different versions of Celtic Soup over and over again. He no longer even has a good bouillabaisse to start the process of building a good mix of something that really simmers and gets better with age. Instead, he just keeps emptying out the pot, throwing away too many things, and then adding back in too many untried ingredients. Ingredients that aren’t really NBA quality or players that have gone stale and lost their flavor.   

Every GM in the NBA is responsible for the ingredients they bring into their kitchen. Each GM will hopefully help the chef/coach make the winning taste of the season for his franchise by bringing in the right stuff to cook with. When a GM doesn’t like the taste, he brings in new ingredients/players and thus changes the quality and quantity which hopefully in turn makes for a better flavor of championship caliber food. If he doesn’t like how the ingredients are mixed together in the right amount every game day, he brings in a new chef/coach. Hopefully, the local patrons (fans) want to come and eat what GM’s and coaches are serving on a regular basis. They will keep coming back for more because they not only love the taste, and the service, but also they love the familiar ambience of their favorite restaurant, as they get their belly full. In short, a patron/fan not only seeks the taste of the whatever the soup of the season is on the menu, but also the loyalty to the tradition of the recipe itself. 

If they keep getting an ever-changing menu and the new food doesn’t taste consistently great then pretty soon you have empty seats in your restaurant. The owners will soon be looking for a new GM to fill seats and a new chef. 

I have to go a bit further far down the rabbit hole of this restaurant, soup, chef, and ingredients analogy. Please allow me the opportunity to list out for you just SOME of the ingredients that Danny has used in the past 12 years in what I consider mediocre results. Remember, these players I list below (that Danny chose himself) either proved to be either not worthy of the NBA , too old, flavorless and worn out to matter, or finally just “filler” ingredients that might have been good for the recipe had they been used with other established and proven ingredients.

PLAYERS/INGREDIENTS

Carlos Arroyo

Chris Babb

Marcus Banks

Vander Blue

Jason Collins

Jordan Crawford

Ricky Davis

Rasheed Wallace

Dan Dickau

Kenyon Dooling

Scot Pollard

Joel Anthony

Fab Melo

E’Twan Moore

Mikki Moore

Michael Olawokandi

Troy Murphy

Patrick O’Bryant

Jemaine O’Neal

Shaq “Icy Hot” O’Neal

Michael Pietrus 

Kevin Pinckney

Jumaine Jones

Kris Joseph

Nenad Kristic 

Oliver Layfeyette 

Raef “Bad Knees” Lafretnz

Marcus Landry

Stephon Marbury

Vitor Faverani 

Michael Finley

J.R. Giddens

Orien Green

Ryan Gomes

Tom Gugliotta 

Luke Harangody

Ryan Hollis

Lester Hudson

Brandon Hunter

Chris Johnson

JaJuan Johnson

Nate Robinson

Dwayne Jones

Gabe Pruitt

Theo Ratliff

Justin Reed

Greg Stiemsa 

Wally Sczerbiak

Jarvis Varnado

Michael Stewart

Von Wafer

Bill Walker

Jiri Welsch 

DT White

Sean Williams

and the list could go on……….and it will go on in 2015,16,17 or until the shelf life of Danny and his half-cooked soup has expired. I certainly don’t want to eat any more of this stuff, and yet I must eat more because I am a loyal fan. 

My point in all of this? Before the miraculous 2007-2008 drunken Julia Child moment in the Celtic kitchen, and since that one lucky moment going forward (clear through the start of 2015), Danny Ainge hasn’t been running a restaurant or an NBA team very well. He is simply throwing too many things into a cooking pot, heating it up a bit, and then adding and subtracting a nonsensical amount of crazy ingredients called players. He is acting as if he is overseeing a well run restaurant, with a great staff, a great chef, some proven recipes, and all the right ingredients cooked just long enough for damn good soup! He isn't and I don't think he ever will!!!! 

Danny Boy got lucky once using a couple of super ingredients that made him look like he was one of the best GM’s to ever run an NBA kitchen in the last 12 years. His new chef is Brad Stevens, who is trying to prove himself (fresh out of college cooking school) by trying to work in a kitchen full of new and unproven ingredients that may never mix well together to make a winning combination. 

But young little Brad’s job will be even tougher because Danny is once again loaded with draft picks and cap space. Danny will once again start the whole flawed cooking process over again. This will take years if the owners give it to him. I pray they do not.

Danny should have kept Paul Pierce and even maybe KG and Perk in the Celtic kitchen out of pure loyalty to the Celtic patrons. Paul Pierce earned the right to greet customers as they came in for a good bowl of Celtic loyalty! But oh no, Danny was instead way too busy wasting money and time on the long list of players you see listed above, many of whom had no place in the kitchen in the first place, let alone in the soup.

Danny has showed almost zero class with too many of his players over the years by publicly dangling them out over and over again as trade bait meat. Paul Pierce wanted to retire a Celtic as he stated it over and over again but he wasn’t allowed. Hey Danny!!!! if you’re going to run a restaurant for 12 years, and only have one good bowl of soup in 12 years, then for the love of all that is green, at least show some class and some Celtic loyalty to your patrons and to your core players. Better yet, just move on to a new town and open up a fast food place called Danny’s Drive Thru. 

Is it soup yet? Oh hell no!!!!! 

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