With the NBA and NHL drafts recently completed, the baseball draft just three weeks in the past and the Patriots set to head to training camp next month with a host of key draft picks on defense, now seems as good a time as any to play a little game:
If you were going grocery shopping and wanted someone to push the cart, who among Boston's four general managers would you chose for the job? You can only have one. Who is the best at picking them.
It's a tough call, because for the time ever (I think) all four GMs are worthy of discussion. And at least three -- Bill Belichick, Theo Epstein and Danny Ainge -- are among the very best at what they do. As hard as it is to chose one over the other, we'll give it a shot below.
Keep in mind, this ranking only involves drafting ability. We're not addressing trades, salary cap management or other aspects of the job. This is purely about walking into a high school gym or a college athletic facility and judging who can play and who can't.
Here's how I'd currently rank them:
1. Ainge
Surprised? Don't blame you. He's got one ring with the Celtics while Bill Belichick has three and Theo Epstein has two. Ainge wins this battle despite a roomier trophy case, primarily because I think it’s harder to build a champion in the NBA than it is in any other league. And the way he did it is nearly impossible.
Consider this: Since 1980, a grand total of seven NBA franchises have won the championship. Think of that. Seven teams in nearly 30 years. And virtually all were led by singular talents. If you had Larry, Magic, Isiah, Michael, Hakeem, Duncan, Shaq, D Wade or Kobe, you won. If you didn't, you didn't. It's the nature of the beast in the NBA -- the best players almost always win, and there are only a handful of them to go around. And the salary cap has only made it tougher. One bad deal can kill you for years. Drafting high every year means nothing. If you're a bad team in cold-weather city, star players won't come to you. Assembling a collection of good-but-not-great talent that plays well together isn't nearly enough. The 2001 Patriots don't happen in the NBA. For the most part, you have to be fortunate enough to be picking high in the lottery the year a franchise player is available in the draft. That's how most NBA champions other than the Lakers have been built.
What Ainge has done is rare. Yes, the Celts bottomed-out with 24 wins the year before they won the championship -- but this team was not built with lottery magic. It was built through excellent draft picks in the teens and lower over a period of five years, picks that yielded players who are either contributing to the current mix or were dealt for the stars who really made it happen.
Al Jefferson (picked at No. 15), Ryan Gomes (No. 50) and Gerald Green (No. 18)20helped get you Kevin Garnett. Delonte West (No. 24) helped get you Ray Allen. Rajon Rondo (No. 21, as part of a draft day deal with Phoenix), Kendrick Perkins (No. 27, as part of a draft day trade with Memphis), Glen Davis (No. 35, as part of the Allen trade) and Leon Powe (No. 49, as part of a trade with Denver) stayed to become key parts of the equation.
Notice that none of the above-mentioned players came high in the first round. In fact, Ainge has had just two single-digit picks with which to build with: The No. 5 pick in 2007 (Jeff Green) was used to land Allen. The No. 7 pick in 2006 (Randy Foye) was shipped to Portland for a pile of garbage (Theo Ratliff, Sebastian Telfair). The rest of Ainge’s selections came from back in the pack. Jefferson. Gomes. West. Rondo. Perkins. Davis Powe. There are teams who have been drafting in the top 10 for a decade and haven't pulled in that many useful players/trading chips.
This isn't to say that Ainge hasn't whiffed. Of course he has. Green was a bust, as was Marcus Banks (taken at No. 13, in the Memphis trade).
Ainge has also had some incredible luck. Had the ping pong balls spat out in a different combination a few years ago, the C's would have had Greg Oden and not Garnett. And, of course, it's good to have friends in the right places. Thank you,
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