Danny Ainge happy he didn’t trade for 6x All-Star while running Boston Celtics
Danny Ainge recently revealed a trade he didn’t have on the table using Jaylen Brown and Jayson Tatum as the primary trade chips, and a trade he did have on the table during his time as general manager of the Boston Celtics.
The much-publicized Anthony Davis offer with the Pelicans was never on the table, but Jimmy Butler, then a member of the Bulls, was on the table for Ainge to acquire using his best assets. Ainge told Underdog Fantasy’s Rob Perez as much (h/t Boston.com).
Ainge told Perez that he was happy that the deal never went through given how Tatum and Brown have turned out:
"“There was a situation where I could have given away both of those picks to get Jimmy Butler. That criticism is fair, hoarding your picks to get Jimmy Butler. I just thought it was too rich at the time.”“Thank goodness [I didn’t make that trade], we were lucky. It turned out to be Jaylen Brown and Jayson Tatum. Anthony Davis, no. Jimmy Butler, yeah. That was fair criticism, but you never know how those are going to work out. Jimmy was really good, and we liked him and we wanted him. And I was still mad I didn’t draft Jimmy Butler.”"
The Boston Celtics struck out on the one star they did trade for
The Boston Celtics were not only linked to Davis and Butler, but Kawhi Leonard, while Leonard was on the Spurs, and Paul George, while George was on the Pacers, were also linked to the Cs at one point or another. None of those deals went down circa 2017-2019, but the one deal that did go down is now considered a strikeout in retrospect.
Of course, the Houdini is referring to the infamous Kyrie Irving trade, which robbed the team of knowing what it had in Terry Rozier and prolonged the uprising of Tatum and Brown with the mercurial point guard overdribbling the Celtics out of the playoffs the one year he was healthy in the postseason.
Even with Ainge no longer in charge, Boston is still refraining from making splashy moves for polarizing superstars — hence why Kevin Durant ended up with the Suns at the 2023 trade deadline and not the Celtics in the summer of 2022.