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‘Relieved’ Danny Ainge defended Brad Stevens in a radio interview
Ainge told the Toucher and Rich Show on 98.5 The Sports Hub he will help with the transition between himself and his successor.
Danny Ainge reportedly knew he was planning to step down as the Celtics’ president of basketball operations for months — long before one of his team’s most trying seasons in recent memory ended in defeat.
After all that time of keeping his intentions under wraps, Ainge told the 98.5 The Sports Hub’s Toucher and Rich Show Thursday morning he was “relieved” to make things official after the Celtics’ first-round exit.
“The only people that really knew were my family and the people in the organization that needed to know,” he said. “But anyway, I woke up refreshed today and glad that I’m moving on to something different.”
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His players, he said, didn’t start to find out until the night before following the loss when he broke the news to a handful of Celtics who remained in Brooklyn after the Game 5 loss.
“They were just caught off-guard,” Ainge said. “They were just surprised that any of this was happening. We just talked through it. They’ll be fine.”
Ainge said the groundwork for the Celtics’ organizational shakeup had been laid long before. He said he’d begun considering stepping down well before the reported meeting with owners Wyc Grousbeck and Steve Pagliuca around the trade deadline but that he didn’t make his thoughts known until then.
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“[Wyc] tried to talk me out of it. He tried to get me to stay,” Ainge said. “I talked to ‘Pags,’ I talked to [Irving Grousbeck]. They tried to get me to stay but just basically said, ‘We’re grateful for what you’ve done. You have the right to do what you want.'”
He then said he told Stevens about a week later as he worked with ownership quietly on his succession plan. Not long after, ownership — specifically Wyc Grousbeck — broached the subject with Stevens about replacing Ainge himself.
“I think Wyc just has a trust of Brad — an understanding of how smart and hard-working he is, how much he knows about basketball. I think that excited Wyc that Brad could be that president of basketball operations,” he explained.
When asked if there had been talks about Stevens either stepping away from the job himself or the Celtics moving on, Ainge flatly denied the notion: “If Wyc didn’t want Brad as president, Brad would be our coach still for as long as he wanted to be coach.”
The departing basketball ops president said he will help with the transition between himself and Stevens for as long as it takes. But he also reiterated he will not “butt in” as Stevens leads the charge to find the next Celtics head coach and doesn’t want to “hover” when he feels he’s not needed anymore.
“The way he is, he wants to be great at whatever he does. And I don’t think it’s a coincidence that you’re talking about a guy that has jumped to the head of the class in NCAA basketball, has taken a very young team with injuries to the conference finals three years…I don’t think those are coincidences with Brad. I think Brad — he’s very, very underrated.
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“This year has been a bad year, and we all know that. It’s just not because of Brad. That’s the biggest thing. People are always looking for a scapegoat. I don’t think it’s necessarily anybody’s fault, it’s everybody’s fault…We’re talking about a guy who knows what he’s doing.”
“I think he’s a star, I really do. I think he’s a star in the making, and I think he’s going to do a fantastic job. I’m excited for him.”
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