Interesting tidbits about Ainge

[se7en]

bc867 says,

"Fired because he was a small ball coach?!? On the Suns, it's a prerequisite! Guards move to Forward. Small Forwards move to Power Forward. And the only way a Power Forward can stay in the game is if he won't embarass the team too much covering Center. It didn't start with Danny Ainge . . . and it didn't end with him!"

I said LOUSY small ball coach. As in he sucked. As someone else mentioned how many games can you possibly win when you constantly play 3 guards, 2 of whom (KJ and Nash) are only 6 feet tall. And the one athletic big player you have (Dice) you sit him on the bench the entire 4th quarter of every game? HELLOOOOOOOO.

Oh wait, didn't Ainge play the 4 guard line up of KJ, Nash, Kidd and Chapman? Skiles and FJ were never that BAD with their small ball lineups. Ainge was consistently bad with line ups like that.

So who was the 5th player in that 4 guard line up. I can't remember. It know it wasn't anyone near 7 feet tall.

 

[se7en]

brian in mesa says,

"From what I remember (articles, tv interviews, etc) Dice wasn't upset because he wasn't getting minutes...it was over how he was being used when in the games. In Denver he had been used more as a low-post player. He was upset that he couldn't do the same here."

It was a combination of reasons. I remember Dice's complaint being that Ainge would always sit him during the 4th quarter. But yes it gets back to my point of how ainge was a complete failure at utilizing his talents. People can complain about FJ and the way he uses Jake. But jake was injured all season. But really FJ gave Amare plenty of minutes. So I don't really see the comparison here to Ainge and his failures.

I mean really, when a coach goes to a 4 guard lineup and leaves a talent like Dice sitting on the bench down the stretch of 4th quarters... well the guy has got to go.

 

[cly2tw]

Not playing Dice adequately was solely a business decision to keep down his bargaining position for contract extension. They didn't want to give him the 100m contract Howard got the year before. They'd have played him much more had they known of the new CBA. Dice explicitly complained about this point.

To a lesser extent, that's partially the reason they were reluctant to play JAKE this season. I don't buy that Ainge and FJ could play anyone the way they liked with no concern to the financial needs fo the team. These are actually sound business decisions with risk as in Dice's case.

 

[Errntknght]

Come on guys, Ainge was not fired for his mishandling of McDyess... I thought he should have been but he wasn't. Heck, we had Googs for at least one season before the season Ainge quit and Googs came after Dice split. Ainge was in bad shape psychologically the summer before he quit and during training camp - it was evident from the weird things he was saying to the press. Very likely he would have liked to spend more time with his family but I'm sure he was under intense pressure from management to take the team deeper into the playoffs.

My favorite theory even before he quit was that JC and BC were having a squabble over the head coach job with BC wanting Skiles to take over immediately and JC wanting to give Danny another season. You may remember that discontent surfaced a few days before Ainge quit and it was JC who told the press that Ainge was going to remain the head coach while Danny's boss, BC, said nothing in support of him. And you know Skiles was not the kind of person that JC would ever want in charge, so he had to be BC's boy.