Danny Ainge Is Back! This Time To Help Run The Utah Jazz

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Welcome back Danny! I know there were rumors that he might be up next in Portland since they just fired their GM, but instead he's now part of the Jazz braintrust. Good for him really. He touched on his future last week

and as long as his health is all good, why shouldn't he get back into the league. He only has 40 years of experience, has built a title team and has done pretty well in the draft despite what Twitter trolls will want you to believe. Ainge certainly isn't perfect and it's not like he never makes mistakes, but the truth is the Jazz need to start getting over the hump here soon. All that regular season success has translated to a total of zero (0) games past the second round. Ainge has lived it and knows what it takes both as a player and an executive. 

Naturally, people who care about his former place of employment are now doing the "See! He didn't resign, he was fired!!" routine. OK? Or, it's possible that whatever he needed to experience away from the game happened and now he was ready for the right opportunity/role. None of us outside of the Celts ownership group, Brad, Ainge and his family know what really went down, and I'm not sure why it matters at this point? It's a weird fixation even after all this time.

What I personally care about is who Danny is going to gift wrap Brad moving forward. That's the playbook. A former Celts executive joins a team and then gifts the Celts one of their best players for pennies on the dollar. If you've seen it once you've seen it a thousand times

Boston Globe. Getty Images.

Fernando Medina. Getty Images.

I suppose if I had to choose, I could get behind adding Jaylen's good friend Donovan Mitchell to the team. We all know how much Ainge loves Marcus Smart. Just something to keep in your back pocket, that's all. There's also this really good point

Love when a good plan looks like it's starting to come together.

I'm also interested to see how the NBA media landscape handles Ainge now that he's not in Boston. Will he be crushed for not trading his best players when there are offers out there? Especially if they lose in the 2nd round again? Will we get the quarterly "Almost Ainge" hit pieces that are just recycled year after year? Only time will tell. 

My only advice to Jazz fans is now that Ainge is part of the team, you're going to have to get used to the Jazz being mentioned in every potential trade rumor for any potential player for as long as he has this job. That's how it works. 99% of them are hot air, but you're going to see the Jazz listed as potential suitors. For this to happen ahead of the trade deadline is perfect. Now "sources" can get back to their favorite tradition of putting an Ainge team in every single trade rumor. It grows old after a while, but you just have to have fun with it.