hugepatsfan wrote:darrendaye wrote:Curmudgeon wrote:I don't think Ainge and Stevens have the same vision at all. Ainge hoarded assets in his hunt for white whales. Stevens is willing to spend assets to put the best team on the floor.
There is literally zero chance that Ainge would have made the Derrick White deal. Zero.
The team circumstance was a bit different, but, I would throw out the IT trade as a possible discussion point here.
I get what you mean, but the particulars there are really worlds apart. At that point, we had an absolute treasure chest of 1st round picks. He gave up a very late pick (believe it was CLE's that we got for the Zeller salary dump back when Lebron was there and they were sure to pick late). In the hierarchy of our assets between all of the picks (our own and others) and then players on the roster who had value, that pick was honestly probably like the 15th most valuable piece we had. Stevens has made moves off a roster without nearly the same kind of tradable players or treasure chest of picks. For him to have moved each of our last 1st rounders for non-stars is a MAJOR philosophical shift from Ainge.
If you look through history, basically all the championships are won by top 20-30 players in the game. Not top 20-30 at a given time, I mean the whole history of the game. Go look up every team that's won since the 80s. Then go look up any top whatever all time players list. Other than the 03-04 Pistons team, who's won without a guy that's generally among the top 20-30 all time on any list. Probably the only other one you'll find is Giannis last year just because he's still building a resume towards that kind of ranking.
Ainge was obsessed with hoarding his chips so he could pounce if a guy who had already proven himself to be that caliber of player. KG trade for example. Stevens on the other hand, seems to be willing to hope that Tatum develops into that guy or at least the kind of guy who can recruit someone like that to BOS at a discount the way other teams do. And in the meantime, he's happy to just put the best team he can around Tatum (and Brown to a lesser degree) and try to facilitate that growth. Basically, he's not obsessed with the one big move that wins it all. He's happy for just organic team building and maybe getting some luck one year to make a real run even if improbable.
Oh, I agree on all points. I threw out the example since it also involved giving up a pick, but, also you might argue it was done as a life-jacket for inexperienced and somewhat struggling at the time coaches. Now by the deadline this year the team had already flipped a switch prior to the deal. But they were also playing a soft part of their schedule and consistency remains an unknown until we see what happens the rest of the way this season and postseason.
