Former Boston Celtics GM Danny Ainge sure knows how to trade a superstar who has never spent time outside of Beantown, or in 2022, Salt Lake City. After trading away Paul Pierce in the infamous Billy King blockbuster with the Brooklyn Nets nine years ago, he followed that up in his second act with the Jazz this past summer by pulling off two blockbuster deals with historic hauls coming back to his team in return.
Donovan Mitchell yielded three unprotected future first-round picks and the rights to two pick swaps to go along with Lauri Markkanen, recent first-round lottery-pick Ochai Agbaji, and former 24 PPG-scorer Collin Sexton.
Ainge had previously mined maximum value in the Rudy Gobert trade, netting four future first-round picks, a pick swap, Malik Beasley, Patrick Beverley (since flipped for Talen Horton Tucker), Leandro Bolmaro, recent first-rounder Walker Kessler, and Jarred Vanderbilt.
Did Ainge change the game? League executives are telling Heavy’s Steve Bulpett that he may have in fact changed the game, questioning whether those trades were real or just a VR simulation from somebody’s NBA 2K MyLeague (in so many words):
"“Those trades aren’t real. I mean, I guess they ARE real because they [expletive] happened, but whoa … It’s going to be interesting to see how fast things get back to normal after this — if they do.”"
Danny Ainge has regained his trade touch after losing it at the end of his Boston Celtics tenure
The 2021 NBA trade deadline was an usual L for Danny Ainge, losing out on the Daniel Theis trade in a big way, then trading away two second-round picks for one postseason win with Evan Fournier and a sizeable TPE created from the Frenchman’s ill-fated (for NY) sign-and-trade to the Knicks that ultimately wasn’t used.
It was clearly time for him to stop running the team he made the biggest name for himself as a player with and step away from the game. Six months later, he is rejuvenated and is once again proudly ‘Trader Danny.’
If the game has changed forever, and the price for stars is now insurmountable in many cases because of what he has done, Ainge may have assisted his former mentee Brad Stevens, who runs a team in no need for a blockbuster trade (barring injuries) and can force the issue at the 2024 trade deadline and demand serious assets if Jaylen Brown asks out — which isn’t likely now but could change in the future for unforeseen reasons.