It’s tempting to say that the next 3 1/2 weeks are the most important stretch of Danny Ainge’s tenure as the man making the basketball decisions for the Celtics. It’s tempting, but it’s wrong.

The most important time in Ainge’s career as an executive happened in the summer of 2007 when he traded half his roster for Ray Allen and Kevin Garnett, delivering not only a championship but also four-plus seasons of relevant basketball in Boston. Those were Ainge’s signature moves and required years of planning, solid drafting and an immense amount of timing and luck to pull off.

Ainge doesn’t have years before the March 15 trade deadline, but he’s been planning for it -- and the summer -- ever since the Celtics hung that 17th championship banner.

It began when he decided not to go four years for James Posey and continued when he decided three years was too long for Tony Allen and two years was just right for Ray Allen. There was the Kendrick Perkins trade, of course, the Glen Davis sign-and-trade, and the decision to not sign anyone for longer than one year during the abbreviated offseason.

It’s been said before, but it’s worth repeating again because the calls are getting louder for Ainge to do something -- anything -- after the depleted Celtics were blown out by the Mavericks, 89-73, on Monday night. They have lost four straight and 6-of-7 to fall below .500, scuttling what had been a modest revival.

But here it is again: Ainge doesn’t have to blow up the Celtics because he already did. He’s dragged as much as he can out of this run while timing almost everything to end when the extension Garnett signed upon his arrival is completed. He will have ample cap space, two All-Stars including a 25-year-old point guard, a respected coach locked up on a long-term contract and at least two picks in what will be a loaded draft.

There are teams who spend years wandering in the NBA abyss trying to get themselves into this position with half the assets that Ainge will possess if he simply lets the season play out and does nothing at the trade deadline. The twist was the Celtics were able to put themselves in this position while remaining a contender. Those days appear to be over, but if the price to be paid is one season of inconsistent at best, and awful performances at worst, then that’s the cost of doing business in this league.

That doesn’t mean the rebuilding process will be easy or seamless. The free agent market beyond Dwight Howard is thinner than JaJuan Johnson. As Ainge himself has said repeatedly, there are no quick fixes.

It may take years (plural) before the Celtics are a contending team again, but we’re also not likely to see a return to the dark ages like the franchise experienced in the post Larry Bird-era. Cap space offers flexibility and options when none existed before and Ainge has said repeatedly he won’t spend it in an ill-timed panic.

"Danny is always going to look for trades,” Doc Rivers said to reporters in Dallas. “But, having said that, I don’t think Danny is going to do anything crazy.”

That’s been the company line ever since last season ended. Ainge isn’t going to make a move just because this current team is barely staying afloat. He’s not going to repeat the mistakes of colleagues like Detroit’s Joe Dumars who turned his cap space into Ben Gordon and Charlie Villanueva in a doomed attempt to stay competitive.

Having said that, would Ainge trade anyone on the roster? Obviously.

As the calendar turns to March and players who were signed in the offseason become eligible for trades, the calls will heat up and there undoubtedly will be offers. Ainge has four viable assets in Garnett, Allen, Paul Pierce and Rajon Rondo.

If he can make a deal that makes the Celtics better and speed up the rebuilding process, it’s more than an even bet that he’ll pull the trigger. Sentimentality has never been part of Ainge’s method.

Of the four, Allen is probably the easiest to deal. He’s in the last year of a reasonable contract and has retained his shooting ability, which is always an in-demand skill. Pierce may have the most value as a plug-and-play All-Star. Garnett might be the toughest simply because of his $21 million salary.

That leaves Rondo and he’s the toughest nut to crack for many reasons. His name has popped up more than the others because he’s the youngest and in the second season of one of the best five-year contracts in the league.

As always, Rondo has been an enigma. He has been both occasionally brilliant and disturbingly passive and it’s hard to make the case that he and the Big Three work as well together as they once did. That’s certainly not all his fault, but his two-game suspension for throwing a ball at a referee couldn’t have come at a worse time. If you were looking for signs that he was ready to take over leadership duties for this team, that wasn’t it.

However, talented point guards like Rondo are the second-most precious commodity in basketball after skilled big men, especially in this day and age of stricter defensive rules. This is Ainge’s true dilemma. The decision to blow it up has already been made. The real question is how he intends to rebuild. The next 3 1/2 weeks will begin to provide an answer.