Danny Ainge Is Pulling Off An All Time Boondoggle As A Jazz Executive And You Kind Of Have To Respect It
Chris Gardner. Getty Images.What we have here folks is a real life Office Space situation on our hands
I have to be honest, I love it. What a boondoggle Ainge has going on that's so great you have to respect it. I imagine he's not working for free for the Jazz, chances are he's making a decent living, and he basically doesn't have to do any of the annoying shit that his job entails and only wants to do the fun stuff. Tell me that isn't everyone's dream? Think of your own life and your own job. Maybe your life is comprised of bullshit tedious tasks that drive you to the brink of insanity. It doesn't matter what the job is, everyone has that shit. It clearly even exists in the world of basketball operations which is a job every basketball fan has wanted at some point in their lives. That's why I respect the hell out of this boondoggle. The Jazz want his basketball and roster building mind? OK, but only on the condition that he doesn't have to do anything else but weigh in and make the big time decisions. Not a bad life if you can get it.
Think of how this shit works with pretty much any other team. When a franchise underachieves and loses in the first round for the 3rd time in 4 years, usually the head honcho has to face the media and talk about it. They have to answer the tough questions of what happened, how he plans to fix it, a sort of facing of the music if you will.
I love that Ainge was basically like "fuck that, wake me when it's time to trade Rudy Gobert. Good luck!". It's not like he built this current roster so why should it be his problem to talk about why they stunk? Oh, because he took the job of being the ultimate decision maker? Grow up.
It must be awesome to have all the power and none of the responsibility. Nobody likes doing the day to day grunt work of any job, and I imagine running a basketball department has a shit ton of grunt work. It's partially how he got burned out while running the Celts. I almost feel like he went with this idea thinking there was no way the Jazz would say yes, but then they did and he was stuck. Who wouldn't accept a full time salary for only part time work? That's what makes this such a great boondoggle. Let's say the Jazz decide this is a terrible idea and that a basketball department needs everyone, including the head decision maker, to be 10 toes down and actively involved. You don't think another franchise will be interested in Ainge if he wants another job? He literally cannot lose no matter what happens. What a life.
I'm just so fascinated to see what happens next. On one hand, Ainge is known by Trader Danny for a reason. Guy made a billion trades as the decision maker in Boston. At the same time, he was also Hoarder Danny. There were plenty of times he refused to trade players/picks to the point where you could argue it was actually hurting his team. My thought there is those were guys that he picked, so he was stubborn about it. I feel confident that he doesn't give a shit about any of these Jazz players and will get back to his Trader Danny ways. I would tell Jazz fans to just trust that version because you can't really find too many trades Ainge lost. Even the Kyrie trade which ended up being a disaster was still a good value return at the time (even though I was correct in saying the Celts would be no better w/ Kyrie. No, I didn't forget). More often than not an Ainge trade works out, so there's always that!
I'm sure this will annoy some Jazz fans, but whatever. Don't lose in the first round and this isn't an issue.
P.S.
It dawned on me after watching that video that there could be some stoolies who clicked on this blog who have no idea what Office Space is seeing as how it came out in 1999 which is a cool 23 years ago. God that's depressing. I'll never forget I had a buddy growing up (shoutout Connor Dow) who could recite every single line in this movie without missing a beat from start to finish. That's how many times we used to watch this movie back in the early 2000s. To this day it's a must watch whenever I come across it on TV. Nothing was more accurate than this movie when I got my first cube job out of college and the ensuing 9 years before I was fortunate enough to hop onto the pirate ship full time. Looking back, I think that's what makes it so awesome, yet as kids we had no idea at the time what office life was like. Everything from the case of the Monday's, to staring at your desk to make it seem like you're working, to TPS reports, it's all so spot on and has obviously aged like a fine wine. If you've somehow never seen it, I just gave you your Friday night plans.