Danny Ainge: 'We're trying to make deals before the draft'

The transaction floodgates are ready to open around the NBA ahead of the Nov. 18 NBA Draft now that the CBA has been amended for the 2020-21 season and the Celtics are hoping to be an active participant in a busy week of moves heading into training camp on December 1st.

“We’re ready for it to begin,” Danny Ainge said of the offseason in his first public comments since the end of the season on Wednesday from the Auerbach Center. “We’re ready for the draft. We’re still trying to make some deals before the draft to improve our team. We have our list of players we’ll try to pursue in free agency (but) there’s a lot of unknown factors. Draft day, the 19th and the 20th are gonna be crazy. We’ll be resting up and ready for that battle.”

The NBA is expected to lift a freeze on trades as soon as Monday, allowing teams to maneuver ahead of draft night and free agency with their roster. The Celtics have four draft picks on Wednesday night and already have a host of young players on the roster, making it an unlikely scenario for Boston to use all the picks.

“We talk to every team in the draft and we come up with lots of different ideas of trades that we want to make,” he said. "But you’ve gotta do good deals. I say that all the time. It’s not a matter about just making deals or ‘important’ to make a deal. It’s not ideal if we add four rookies to the team that we currently have.”

While drafting four rookies has always been unlikely, the Celtics could have a host of intriguing options available to them at No. 14 or late in the first round (No. 26 and No. 30) if they struggle to consolidate the picks or move them for future selections. Publicly, the Celtics are putting on a front that they will be ready to take some, likely to signal that they won’t be squeezed by high asking prices from trade partners.

“It’s a fairly deep draft,” Ainge declared. “When we’re looking to trade players, not every rookie’s the same. Not every rookie is a 19-year-old who needs his hand held and needs a year in the G-League. Some rookies are much more mature, ready to step in and play right away at least in a certain role. When you draft a player like Semi Ojeleye or Grant Williams, they’re grown adults. Then there’s other kinds of rookies as we all know, so that matters too. Not all rookies, not all draft picks have to be kids that you have their hands held. There are many rookies that come in and are the hardest working, the most diligent. Those will be factors too if we end up using picks.”

The challenge for the Celtics this year when trying to make deals is well documented here at BSJ with both salary limitations and uncertain futures for player on the roster. Despite rumors to the contrary, Ainge signaled on Wednesday that player options will be due after the NBA Draft, which will make it unlikely Enes Kanter or Gordon Hayward will be moved on draft night unless there’s camps approve of such a deal.

Without those salaries in play, the Celtics will need to get creative to find the right fit given the challenge of salary matching and expanding deals to involve multiple teams to satisfy NBA trade rules.

“Like I always said, we are trying to do good deals, not just deals. I know there are a lot of opinions on what we should and shouldn't do but it's hard to get deals done. It's hard to get deals. I mean, there are teams out there that want to do deals, that can't match up contracts so you have to get third and fourth teams involved. A lot of times deals fall through in that scenario. This is a difficult time for every team.

“I think this quick turnaround and just a few days of big decisions to be made, I think there will be some deals done. There certainly has been a lot of talk, I just don't know which deals will or won't be done. If they won't be done, it's because teams weren't able to get them done, not because there was a lack of work and effort. We'll keep doing what we always do and see what we can do to make our team better but we don't know feel the need to have to do anything. We like our guys. People view that as overvaluing our players. We do value our guys and our team has been to the Final Four, three of the last four years with a very young core group of guys. That's not nothing. We would like to take a step and the best step right now could be player development and our young players just getting better and more experienced.”

While Ainge is trying to project the possibility of standing pat in this tone, chatter around the league signals otherwise. The team’s core may very well stay in place but there is room for significant movement at the bottom of Boston’s roster and failing to address that area was part of the reason Boston’s push towards the NBA Finals fell short. Team needs will have to be addressed via the draft, free agency and trades, but the order that will happen in remains a bit of a mystery.

“That answer could change in three days or four days if there’s anything else done before the draft,” Ainge said of where he’s focused on improving the roster. “I think that shooting is always something that I’m looking for, but you can never have too many great athletes and great defenders. Everything matters – size, length, shooting, passing, thinking, savvy – all those things matter.”

Other Notes from Ainge’s presser

On Kemba Walker’s health status being impacted by short turnaround: “I don’t know the answer to that yet, but whatever it is, we’ll be ready for that. I have all the confidence in the world that Kemba will be back, and healthy, and fresh, ready. When that is, what he’s doing right now is very important during this offseason, but we know how good of a player Kemba is and how good he can be. Last year was a very unique situation, too. And this upcoming year is very unique. But we have to put Kemba’s health at the front as a No. 1 priority going in. Regarding Kemba, we have to make sure we’ve got three more years with Kemba at least, and we’re excited about those three years. He’s a terrific player. But yeah, there could be maintenance issues during the offseason and early part of the season, but at some point, he’ll be back and ready to go.”

On his memories of Tommy Heinsohn: "Tommy was just a great friend. When I first came in as a rookie he took me under his wing. He was a guy that spent a lot of time encouraging me. It was a rough year as a rookie coming in in the middle of the year. He just gave me a lot of great insight as a mentor. I love Tommy. I used to go back I believe (NOTE: he might have said “and leave”) during the first quarter, first half of games, and sometimes I’d go these last few years, and I’d know that Tommy would be back in one of the offices. And he’d be there all alone and watching the game on TV. And I’d go in and talk with him a lot. So everywhere in between. I mean, I’ve listened on the buses, on the airplanes, to Tommy’s stories that I loved hearing. He’s a great storyteller. He has such a wealth of knowledge of Celtics history. And I just, yeah, I’m going to really miss having Tommy around. He was fun to be around. He was a guy that you knew always had your back. And he was passionate about it. He didn’t always agree with you. He didn’t always think that the Celtics were doing the right thing even though he was always in our corner on air. He was a very loyal friend and supporter of the team.”

On the possibilities of fans this season: "I have not personally. I know that organizationally, we are. We are following all the government rules and we get rules that we are supposed to follow, but that's above my paygrade. We have people that are in contact with the league and with our state government. They will give us the green light to take phases or go by phases to get fans back in. We miss our fans, we love our fans and we have the best fans in the NBA. I can't wait for them to get back but we certainly will follow all the guidelines."