Ainge Hopes Celtics In Position To Make Big Moves This Offseason
BOSTON (CBS) -- There may or may not be a superstar available this NBA offseason, but if there is one out there, Danny Ainge says the Celtics have the opportunity to pounce.
Armed with a slew of future draft picks and a hefty amount of cap space this summer, the Celtics president of basketball operations said he is in a good position to take advantage of any opportunity that comes the team's way, whether that be on the free agent market or via a trade.
"What we've tried to do is put ourselves in the game -- to have those options and to have some opportunities to make big moves," Ainge said in an interview on the team's website. "So I guess that if they're big moves that we like, we do them. If they're big moves that we're not in love with, then we hold off and we wait. Those are the challenging ones. Some of them are very easy to determine; some are very challenging and take a lot of investigation and thought, debate and discussion on our side. But I think you can't just determine that you're going to wait or you're going to do it -- it all depends on those opportunities."
Ainge looks back to the 2007 offseason, when he had the pieces in place to pull of separate trades for Ray Allen and Kevin Garnett, moves that propelled the Celtics to their 17th NBA Championship in franchise history. But Ainge warns fans that it has to be the right move for the team, and not just a move to make a move.
"When KG and Ray became available to us, we were in the game and we had an opportunity to do something quick and something special. When James Harden became available [in 2012], we weren't," said Ainge. "We didn't have the assets, we didn't have the opportunity to get in that game. So just because we have assets, just because we have young players, just because we have draft picks and we have cap space, it means that if there's one of those situations that comes available, it just means that we have an opportunity.
"It doesn't mean that there's any guarantee that something like that will happen," he added. "So we want to stay in the game until we can do something significant."
He's not promising any fireworks like owner Wyc Grousbeck was hoping for last offseason, but Ainge and the Celtics are in a much better position to light the fuse this time around.
