There are plenty of teams around the league with team presidents and general managers who are, for all intents and purposes, invisible to the casual fan; not so to Boston Celtics head honcho Danny Ainge.
A former player who won two titles with the Celtics in the 1980s, Ainge has been the primary force behind ending the longest stretch of non-contention in the league’s winningest franchise’s history.
In the years between Ainge being dealt away from the Celtics as a player in 1989 and his arrival as president of basketball operations in 2003, Boston rarely made the postseason — and when it did, rarely advanced very far.
Since then, the Celtics have only missed the postseason three times — two of those seasons coming near the start of Ainge’s tenure in Boston. He’s won a championship in 2008, made the NBA Finals in 2010, and the Eastern Conference Finals five other occasions.
Now entering his 17th year at the helm of the Celtics, Ainge has cemented himself in the Mount Rushmore of Celtics executives with his performance in the role of team president — not that legend Red Auerbach left a lot of room for competition.
Congratulations, Danny!
