When he made the deal for Allen on draft night, the Celtics were graded as big losers by many pundits and a significant portion of the dwindling Celtic constituency.
Reached in Utah via telephone this week, Ainge defended his professional life. And put everything on Pierce.
"The gist of the criticism has been that we're wishy-washy in our plans and not consistent with our public message," Ainge acknowledged. "I don't think that's right. From the very beginning, we've tried to accumulate assets. We decided two years ago we weren't trading Paul Pierce. We were going to try to surround Paul Pierce with at least another significant player -- hopefully two -- to give him the best opportunity to win. That has been our public statement pretty consistently. I don't want just any veteran player. The fact that we were making a run at Kevin Garnett and Ray Allen is exactly what has been in our plan. So, it's very consistent with what we've been trying to do.
"We're not accommodating Paul Pierce. We're taking advantage of the Paul Pierce era. We don't want Paul Pierce to go play for another team and play like we know he's capable of playing surrounded by better players. We want Paul Pierce playing in Boston and getting that chance. We think he's that significant of a player. But kind of like Ray Allen, he's had to do a lot on his own.
"Getting the first or second pick would have made the plan easier. We could have added the pick as the possible significant other. Chances are if we had pick 1 or 2, I would have been playing golf the month before the draft.
"Everybody's been saying, 'We're too young. We've got to make a choice -- Paul or go young.' Two years ago, we thought we had the opportunity to get Chris Paul for Paul Pierce. That was something we wanted to do, but it fell through, not from our doing. Since that time, there's been nothing tempting regarding moving Paul Pierce. We made a choice to keep Paul and try to get an opportunity to win in Boston."
What about all the criticism?
