How much responsibility should fall on Danny Ainge for Celtics' struggles?

From day one of the 2018-19 season, the Celtics have made it crystal clear what their priority was for this year and that was contending.

“I want to have a sustained run where we’re the real deal In the mix. Contending. And I’d like to start right now,” majority owner Wyc Grousbeck said back in October.

On paper, the Celtics appeared poised to do just that. They had arguably the deepest roster in the league with ample depth at every position. They had two former All-Stars returning to the lineup and a head coach that had continually pulled the best out of his teams for five years and running in the NBA.

Yet, as the preseason began in October, there were warning signs almost immediately that this group wasn’t going to collectively play up to the level everyone assumed it would. Stevens recognized it from the jump in the preseason after calling the team out a blowout loss to the Cavs. This kind of talk was unprecedented from Stevens after an exhibition game.

“I mean, we got a lot of work to do. It’s pretty clear. ... We’re not as good as advertised right now, so at least we know that,” Brad Stevens said back in October.

Nearly 60 games later and those same words hold true as the Celtics sit all alone in the fifth seed in the Eastern Conference, facing the prospect of playing a first-round series on the road if they can’t improve their record while playing a tough road-heavy schedule in the next two months.

There is plenty of blame to be passed around for the disappointing campaign thus far and it has to start with the players. A large chunk of the roster has played beneath expectations and several of those players have struggled to accept smaller roles after a breakout season, which comes as no surprise. Brad Stevens has failed to manage this group well at times, sticking with a starting lineup that wasn’t working for too long to start the season while also failing to hold players accountable for subpar play and effort enough all year long.

Yet, there is one party here that has a lot of the control and I feel like has escaped a lot of blame for their regular season woes and that man is Danny Ainge. The changes he has and hasn’t made to shape this roster over the past 10 months have figured prominently into this team’s struggles and in effect made a challenging job for Stevens even tougher this year. Ainge’s bets may end up paying off if this team makes a deep postseason run and/or lands a superstar this summer. However, his propensity to stand pat has left Stevens with a flawed roster to work with questionable chemistry. Here’s a look at a few decisions that have not gone great so far for Ainge.

1. The Terry Rozier situation: League sources confirmed to Bostonsportsjournal.com that the team explored moving the fourth-year guard during the summer but elected to hold pat with him after offers were not appealing enough (in their minds) to pull the trigger on a deal at the time. Rozier actually started the season out strong back in October but things quickly derailed for him once Marcus Smart was inserted into the starting five, making Rozier the defacto point guard for the second unit. Between his subpar shot selection and limited passing vision, this clearly was not a good role for Rozier for this season, despite excelling while filling in for Kyrie Irving as starting point guard last year. That fact has been crystal clear for 40-plus games now.

Yet, Brad Stevens’ alternatives have been extremely limited in terms of how to handle this situation.

There is a clear skills gap between Rozier and Brad Wanamaker and Stevens understandably does not want to risk alienating Rozier by benching him in favor of a 29-year-old rookie. Wanamaker is a respectable guard but he also lacks the athleticism/quickness to handle shifty point guards in this league, which is why he hasn't been in the league for the best decade. Other alternatives on the bench have been non-existent at the guard spot. Gordon Hayward can handle the ball some as well, but his burst obviously has not been there either this year.

If Stevens does not trust Wanamaker, Ainge should have found him an alternative he trusted by now or essentially eliminated the problem by dealing Rozier before the trade deadline, which would have opened the door for minutes for a buyout free agent to sign that is a more natural point guard (i.e. Jeremy Lin). Instead, Stevens is left with the same old problem with no clear solution on how to fix it unless he makes big changes to his rotation. Ainge had the ability to help make this situation easier for Stevens, but he declined to do so.

2. Standing pat while guys are having trouble with roles: Again, with all the behind-the-scenes and public tension that has gone on with this group, it’s been evident that there has not been full buy-in from the young guys with their reduced roles. That's not to blame the young guys. It’s easy to see why some of them are hesitant to do so after coming within one game of the NBA Finals last year. The likes of Rozier and Jaylen Brown believe they are good enough to help lead a team to the promised land and want to maximize each minute they are on the floor to show the world they can do that.

Yet, that type of attitude does not always translate into winning basketball and it’s left Stevens dealing with inconsistency and unpredictability all year long from the bench unit as he tries to get everyone to play the right way. Roles were far more defined and bought into last season and it’s been an ongoing struggle all year long for this group to come to terms with theirs now with an inflated talent pool. Once again, Stevens can only do so much here to try to get guys to play their roles. By keeping a group of players that was a mix of stars and guys playing for their next contracts that want to be stars, Ainge has created a challenging environment to say the least.

3. Hanging on to assets for too long: The NBA world is unpredictable and no one could have guessed that the 2019 Kings would emerge as a playoff hopeful, effectively squashing the chances of that 2019 choice being a lottery pick for Boston. Yet, it can’t be a surprise that so many young players (Rozier, Brown) have struggled in reduced roles in 2018-19, which has hurt their trade value in a major way as the year progressed. The allure of keeping both was understandable from a talent perspective but losing the ability to receive top value for either player has dissipated as their roles have diminished with this group, something that was expected for Rozier and shouldn’t have come as a big surprise for Brown either with Irving and Hayward returning. It’s understandable Ainge wanted to keep Brown for a potential run at Anthony Davis this summer, but the team was unwilling to put him on the table for Kawhi Leonard last year and that looks like a mistake at this moment, even if Leonard was a risk to walk away. Meanwhile, Rozier’s trade value has plummeted as the year and it would be a shock if the team gets anything of value for him in a potential sign-and-trade this summer. He’s hurt the team on the court and Ainge isn’t going to reap any benefit from keeping him through a contract year in all likelihood.

4. Why not make a win-now addition? The Celtics also could have simply made an addition without subtraction for the present. This team is deep but it’s flawed so why not use a future first round pick and an end of the bench piece (Guerschon Yabusele?) for a bench upgrade. Ainge didn’t have the expendable salary needed to make a big splash as the Sixers, Bucks and Raptors did, but he still had enough assets to get some help around the edges for a team that was by no means perfect and perhaps could have used a fresh voice in the locker room.

It’s too early obviously to say that Ainge’s decision to stand pat was the wrong one. If the Celtics shake off these regular season woes and get to the NBA Finals, he will be lauded for his patience, rightfully so. However, the team’s road to that goal has been made a lot tougher with their results over the first 60 games of the season. Ainge has knowingly put Stevens in a very tough spot and has elected to do nothing from a personnel standpoint to help him or shake things up.

Stevens isn’t the one shopping for the groceries here and his ingredients have not mixed well together all year long. Perhaps the right combination of ingredients can be found in the next 22 games or the food and vegetables ripen at the right time for the postseason run. For now, though, the meal doesn’t taste great and Ainge should take some responsibility for that.