Can Danny?

The Boston Celtics are contenders once again.  The team has more excitement around it today than it has in years.  So did Danny's plan come to fruition, was he right all along?  Not really.  In fact, it was his utter failure that helped the Celtics get to where they are today.  If it wasn't for the last two years' lottery picks, the Celtics would never have been able to position themselves as they have.

That being said, Danny Ainge definitely deserves credit for cleaning up his past mistakes.  The Raef/Roy for Ratliff/Telfair deal looked like an absolute disaster but dumping that one year of Raef's contract might have made all the difference.  And if Danny hadn't traded for Ray Allen, KG probably wouldn't have changed his stance on not wanting to come to Boston.  If it wasn't for Ray, we would have drafted Yi Jianlian and I can't see how that would have made KG any more enamored with Beantown.

In the end, Danny reminds me a bit of Erick Strickland.  People often lauded Strickland for his clutch play; he made a big steal or hit a much needed jumper whenever the game was close.  What always bothered me though was that the whole reason the game was close to begin with was because Strickland had made a couple of dumb passes earlier or forced some bad shots.  He came through in the clutch but if it wasn't for him, the C's wouldn't have needed one clutch play to save them.  Ainge has definitely come through in the end but he made his fair share of mistakes along the way. It might not have gone exactly as planned but Danny's gotten the team back near the top.

Now it all comes down to the owners.  The job is most certainly not done.  The Celtics have one of the weakest benches in the NBA.  Of course, veterans would probably be more than happy to come to play alongside KG, Pierce, and Ray Allen so recruiting them shouldn't be too hard.  The question is whether or not the owners will be willing to pay.  I don't expect Wyc and Co. to become Paul Allen or Mark Cuban but going into the luxury tax a little bit shouldn't hurt that much.  The money they make from the playoffs and jersey sales will likely make up for any extra expenditures.  And so many teams are under the cap now that the payout is only a mere 1.9 million, hardly an amount that dissuade an owner from going after a title.   

Danny Ainge had made his mistakes, learned from them, and landed himself into a position to take advantage of opportunities.  Be it a brilliant gamplan or blind luck, the Celtics are relevent again and that's all that really matters.  (Unless you're a huge Al Jefferson fan in which case this entire deal is a disaster but I'm willing to go along with the KG deal)

 Kudos to Danny.  Now let's fill up the roster and make a run at banner 17.