I realize this is oft-discussed, but recently I read an article from some random talking head (and I see some of the same talk here) that Ainge's drafting record has been absolutely putrid and therefore while it's nice the team is playing well, they aren't due for any kind of rise to the top unless they trade because Ainge isn't going to get anything useful out of their collection of picks.
I thought it might be worth taking another look at his picks since the 2007 failure of the ping pong balls (just imagine what people would think if he'd drafted Oden) being turned into the major coup of adding Garnett.
2008 - JR Giddens (30th), Semih Erden (60th). Giddens never did muchAfter him, there were three significant players taken in Mario Chalmers (34th), DeAndre Jordan (35th), and Goran Dragic (45th). Giddens was really terrible, and only played a total of 247 NBA minutes. But aside from that, I think it's hard to find fault in not getting much out of the 30th pick. The second round had those three successes but mostly a bunch of guys whose only difference from Giddens is they were playing more on crappy teams.
2009 - Lester Hudson (58th). There's nothing to say about this draft, they gave up their first round pick for KG, noone would ever want to undo that, and complaining about getting a dud with pick 58 is just complaining for the sake of complaining.
2010 - Avery Bradley (19th), Luke Harangody ((52nd). OK so I guess here is where evaluation of Bradley is the biggest question. Regardless, for my part, the only players taken after him that I would want are Trevor Booker (23rd) or Hassan Whiteside (33rd) and even then, when it comes down to it those guys weren't valuable when the C's needed it either. The biggest knock on Bradley is that it took him 3-4 to really develop into a useful player. And obviously Whiteside had similar issues (too bad Danny didn't also grab him off the scrap heap two years ago).
2011 - JaJuan Johnson (27th) - a draft day trade down to grab an extra 2nd round pick (The C's actually drafted MarShon Brooks at 25). The big miss was obviously Jimmy Butler (30th) and Lil' Zeke (60th), but the only other useful non fungible player taken after 27 is probably Chandler Parsons.
2012 - Jared Sullinger (21st) Fab Melo (22nd, RIP), Chris Joseph (51st). Jae Crowder (34th), Draymond Green (35th) are the only two players distinguishable as more useful than Sullinger drafted outside the top 7. Melo is an odd pick, and big reason, I think, for a lot of the questioning of Ainge's recent record.
2013 - Kelly Olynyk (13th, through trade). the Greek Freak (15th) and Rudy Gobert (27th) are the only players drafted after him that I would take ahead of Olynyk at this point. You could convince me on a couple of others, but it's a toss-up. People like to call this a huge miss, Danny jumped three spots and gave up the C's first and both seconds to specifically draft him. But even with that, he was the 13th overall pick in a weak draft.
2014 - Marcus Smart (6th), James Young (17th). Whatever you think of Marcus Smart, at this point it's hard to call him a bust. Sure, he was a disappointment of ping pong balls (and as people like to complain about here, the C's winning 2 or 3 useless games too many the previous season), but as the 6th guy taken in what was generally regarded as a 5 player draft, how bad as he been? Obviously it's too soon to tell, but I don't think any of the other guys taken 6-15 would be much better on the C's right now. Young is obviously still a project, he's as young or younger than most college seniors. Similarly, it's hard to compare to the guys drafted after him because it's just too soon.
2015 and 16 are still way too early, but I guess if you hate Rozier, Hunter, and Brown it would fuel your Ainge draft hatred.
Regardless, going through this exercise it seems that the general criticism of Ainge's drafting is that the Celtics didn't have good enough picks. I guess you could argue for a few guys instead of Brown but it's too soon for that IMO.
The other case you could make is the often cited "perfect drafting" case, where Ainge would have selected DeAndre Jordan, Jimmy Butler, and Draymond Green, but you could say that about every other GM.
The other side of course is that there is no reason to think Ainge is especially good at the draft, which I think was his green shaded rep after Jefferson and Rondo turned out so well.
Anyway, I know this is well trodden ground, I just felt the need to take another look after reading some piece of crap article about Ainge's terrible drafting, and didn't want to use the comments section. Pardon my self-indulgence.
I thought it might be worth taking another look at his picks since the 2007 failure of the ping pong balls (just imagine what people would think if he'd drafted Oden) being turned into the major coup of adding Garnett.
2008 - JR Giddens (30th), Semih Erden (60th). Giddens never did muchAfter him, there were three significant players taken in Mario Chalmers (34th), DeAndre Jordan (35th), and Goran Dragic (45th). Giddens was really terrible, and only played a total of 247 NBA minutes. But aside from that, I think it's hard to find fault in not getting much out of the 30th pick. The second round had those three successes but mostly a bunch of guys whose only difference from Giddens is they were playing more on crappy teams.
2009 - Lester Hudson (58th). There's nothing to say about this draft, they gave up their first round pick for KG, noone would ever want to undo that, and complaining about getting a dud with pick 58 is just complaining for the sake of complaining.
2010 - Avery Bradley (19th), Luke Harangody ((52nd). OK so I guess here is where evaluation of Bradley is the biggest question. Regardless, for my part, the only players taken after him that I would want are Trevor Booker (23rd) or Hassan Whiteside (33rd) and even then, when it comes down to it those guys weren't valuable when the C's needed it either. The biggest knock on Bradley is that it took him 3-4 to really develop into a useful player. And obviously Whiteside had similar issues (too bad Danny didn't also grab him off the scrap heap two years ago).
2011 - JaJuan Johnson (27th) - a draft day trade down to grab an extra 2nd round pick (The C's actually drafted MarShon Brooks at 25). The big miss was obviously Jimmy Butler (30th) and Lil' Zeke (60th), but the only other useful non fungible player taken after 27 is probably Chandler Parsons.
2012 - Jared Sullinger (21st) Fab Melo (22nd, RIP), Chris Joseph (51st). Jae Crowder (34th), Draymond Green (35th) are the only two players distinguishable as more useful than Sullinger drafted outside the top 7. Melo is an odd pick, and big reason, I think, for a lot of the questioning of Ainge's recent record.
2013 - Kelly Olynyk (13th, through trade). the Greek Freak (15th) and Rudy Gobert (27th) are the only players drafted after him that I would take ahead of Olynyk at this point. You could convince me on a couple of others, but it's a toss-up. People like to call this a huge miss, Danny jumped three spots and gave up the C's first and both seconds to specifically draft him. But even with that, he was the 13th overall pick in a weak draft.
2014 - Marcus Smart (6th), James Young (17th). Whatever you think of Marcus Smart, at this point it's hard to call him a bust. Sure, he was a disappointment of ping pong balls (and as people like to complain about here, the C's winning 2 or 3 useless games too many the previous season), but as the 6th guy taken in what was generally regarded as a 5 player draft, how bad as he been? Obviously it's too soon to tell, but I don't think any of the other guys taken 6-15 would be much better on the C's right now. Young is obviously still a project, he's as young or younger than most college seniors. Similarly, it's hard to compare to the guys drafted after him because it's just too soon.
2015 and 16 are still way too early, but I guess if you hate Rozier, Hunter, and Brown it would fuel your Ainge draft hatred.
Regardless, going through this exercise it seems that the general criticism of Ainge's drafting is that the Celtics didn't have good enough picks. I guess you could argue for a few guys instead of Brown but it's too soon for that IMO.
The other case you could make is the often cited "perfect drafting" case, where Ainge would have selected DeAndre Jordan, Jimmy Butler, and Draymond Green, but you could say that about every other GM.
The other side of course is that there is no reason to think Ainge is especially good at the draft, which I think was his green shaded rep after Jefferson and Rondo turned out so well.
Anyway, I know this is well trodden ground, I just felt the need to take another look after reading some piece of crap article about Ainge's terrible drafting, and didn't want to use the comments section. Pardon my self-indulgence.