Jazz Need Exec Danny Ainge to Embrace his 'Trader Danny' Persona
Last fall, Danny Ainge joined a crowded front office with the Utah Jazz. For many fans, this came as a rather unpopular and controversial move.
Ainge spent nearly 20 years as an executive with the Boston Celtics, while only winning one championship in 2008. His body of work has been seen as less than successful by critics, considering the Celtics' high expectations as a 17-time NBA champion.
Critiques aside, though, an NBA Championship is still an NBA Championship and Ainge built that 2008 team as well as the team the Celtics are fielding in hopes of bringing home their 18th championship this week.
Ainge is a strategic tactician that crafted this young championship contender with draft capital and internal development — a strategy that small-market clubs, like the Jazz, must depend on. The Jazz have a huge summer ahead of them and the rumor mill is already running strong with so many reports of player movement across the league being linked to Utah.
Jazz fans should feel lucky they have the man that earned the nickname “Trader Danny” in their corner with one of the biggest offseasons since the beginning of the Rudy Gobert/Donovan Mitchell era. With Ainge, no one is off-limits, not even the coach.
In 2013, Ainge traded Hall-of-Fame coach Doc Rivers for a future first-round draft pick. Ainge traded fan favorite Isaiah Thomas in 2013 for Kyrie Irving, a less than popular move at the time that didn’t quite pan out. Ainge has proven again and again to leave emotion out of his dealings with the front-office experience to make the franchise-altering decisions to create contenders. Even in the face of controversy.
Utah will never be a free-agent favorite destination and therefore will need to rely on loyalty and continuity more than anything. But this strategy more recently lost the Jazz opportunities to improve.
Last summer, after a disappointing loss to the Los Angeles Clippers, the Jazz had promising pieces with strong value. We won’t ever know what teams could have or did offer the Jazz but we do know plenty of teams made moves at the fringes and built stronger rosters with transactions using players of equal or lesser value.
The Jazz need everything that Ainge brings to the table. The Jazz need to make the unpopular moves that alter a franchise and build the type of contender, like the Celtics, who are taking the stage at the NBA Finals this week.
Jazz fans need to trust Ainge because even if his tactful leadership brings only one championship to the franchise, that is one more championship than any other executive has brought home before.
Follow Andrew on Twitter @ArembaczNBA.
