Boston Celtics President Basketball operations Danny Ainge wants a quick end to the NBA lockout
Danny Ainge doesn’t want the lockout to keep running along and jeopardize the NBA season. The President of Basketball Operations for the Boston Celtics is annoyed with the lockout and wants it to end soon.
According to lockout rules imposed by NBA Commissioner David Stern, NBA officials and coaches are not to talk about NBA players during the lockout and its impact on them. Therefore it is understandable why Ainge and other NBA executives
have kept silent on the goings on since the league entered a lockout on July 1st.
Recently there was some activity in terms of negotiating between the NBA owners and players and the fans had a renewed optimism about the lockout ending before the scheduled start of the season. However an ill fated meeting between
the two sides on Tuesday means that the start of the training camps, October 3, is guaranteed to be cancelled and the chances for a timely start to the NBA season also appear slim.
Danny Ainge has a long association with the NBA. He was a player for many years; with the Boston Celtics he won the NBA World Championship in a team featuring legends such as Larry Bird and Robert Parish. Before becoming an NBA
executive, Ainge also tried his hand at coaching.
Therefore the man has a great insight into matters regarding the league and was actually a coach with the Phoenix Suns during the last lockout. Ainge remembers that it wasn’t a nice feeling sitting around and reiterated that the
lockout isn’t good for anyone.
"Everybody wants to play and everybody wants to work. It's not fun for anybody," he said during the team's annual charity golf tournament.
Ainge has been playing a lot of golf lately, but he has also been kept busy due to changes in the Boston Celtics setup. The Celtics lost Lawrence Frank, chief assistant to Doc Rivers last season, as the he was hired by the Detroit
Pistons as their new head coach.
The Celtics also have just seven players contracted for next season and Ainge has been looking at the situation and evaluating his options throughout the summer.
"We're just getting organized," Ainge said. "It gives us some time to step back and re-evaluate the entire league and European players worldwide and anticipate the draft. So, we've just been doing all the little things and getting
organized with our staff."
The Celtics could opt for going into the NBA free agency for a number of players or they could pluck some talent from abroad to fill up their roster spaces. Ainge also hasn’t ruled out re-signing the team’s many free agents.
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