Good news for frustrated Boston Celtics enthusiasts who think Danny Ainge deserves to no longer be the team’s general manager and that Brad Stevens deserves to be released from his main training duties: he was granted his wish, but with a twist. After the Brooklyn Nets finished their season, the Celtics announced that Ainge would be leaving the position of team president and that Stevens would take his place. It was an abrupt end for Ainge, one of the ultimate vital control figures in Celtics history, but the effects of recent seasons have warned that it might have been his time.

Ainge’s legacy as a Celtics executive was consolidated when he traded for Kevin Garnett and Ray Allen in 2007. The move paid instant dividends for the Celtics, who temporarily won banner 17 the following season and have arguably replaced the league-wide landscape by defining the model. of the NBA’s fashionable super team. When he traded the elderly Paul Pierce and Garnett to the Brooklyn Nets for 3 first-round draft picks, he committed a heist that helped his team seamlessly move from the New Big Three era to its current incarnation, which has reached the Eastern Conference. Maximum of finals in recent years.

It’s something that sounds like a poetic irony that Ainge’s final season with the team ended in a loss to the Nets’ big three of Kevin Durant, James Harden and Kyrie Irving. Ainge, after all, used one of the Nets’ picks in the deal. with the Cleveland Cavaliers who earned Irving. Ainge Irving, the key player on the Celtics’ upcoming championship team. Instead, he left to form his own super team in Brooklyn. Ainge won the war in trade, but if the Nets won an NBA Finals before the Celtics, it would feel like he had lost a war.

Irving’s fiasco wasn’t the only major setback that happened under Ainge’s watch, but his search for The New Orleans Pelicans’ Anthony Davis was necessarily crushed by Davis’ side, making it very clear that if the middle didn’t re-sign with the Celtics. Meanwhile, in the more than two seasons, the team has been unable to retain Al Horford and Gordon Hayward and has never figured out a way to update them on the roster. This series of close failures, more than anything else, explains why Ainge’s announcement isn’t quite a surprise.

In recent years, Ainge has earned a reputation as someone who was unwilling to make primary moves with his company’s assets. In the end, it was unfair. After all, one of his first vital resolutions was the Antoine Walker industry. In dealing with Garnett, he was willing to compose tactics with Al Jefferson, a debatable resolution at the time. Irving’s package included beloved point guard Isaiah Thomas, a resolution that encouraged a reaction that continues even though injury problems prevented him from returning to being the same player he was from Celtic.

Although criticized for his writing ability, Ainge hit harder than he failed. His shocking resolve to give up the 2017 draft, jumping markelle Fultz and deciding on Jayson Tatum, may become one of the most significant draft moves in franchise history. He also controlled rajon Rondo to win as a component of a draft day contract and, most recently, selected Jaylen Brown, Marcus Smart and Robert Williams. replacing him as general manager. ” I think the good news related to who we hire,” Stevens said of his long-term replacement, “doesn’t have to take Doc Rivers’ place like I did, and they don’t have to occupy Danny Ainge’s shoes now like me. “

Of all accounts, it was Ainge’s resolution to retire and it was nothing the Celtics pushed for. That said, there’s a feeling here that it was time for the two sides to separate. 18 years is a long time in professional sports and while Ainge’s time in Boston has been commendable, his recent review blew him up in the face. It’s not all about Ainge, there’s an explanation as to why wondering what this team would have been like if Hayward hadn’t suffered an end-of-season injury in his first game as Celtic, but it may be a scenario where a reshuffle of the head office can be beneficial.