Well Brad had never drafted higher than 27th and Danny had a stretch when he went 6-3-3. It’s like comparing a chef who shopped at 7-11 vs one who shopped at Whole Foods.

I think they both benefit from Mike Zarren

Can’t really compare them till brad has a lottery pick

Danny and Brad both do well, but Danny had some nice hits and big misses. Danny loved athletic players, and Brad can turn a 25 pick into a fringe starter. So both are great, but Danny pulled off that Tatum pick, and he will for ever be a legend just for that one.

Both are excellent

Its not like comparing Aurbach to ML Carr. They are close, Ainge has an edge due to time in the process. Brad has done a lot with very little in the arsenal.

Ainge made some great picks, some good picks, some bad picks. That’s the result of a long tenure.

There’s not nearly enough of a sample to make a real comparison.

Ainge could have drafted giannis over olynyk

Not a comparison you can make fairly. Danny has a way larger sample size with multiple lottery picks.

Since Brad become POBO, the Celtics have drafted 30th, 28th, and 27th.

Ainge has drafted a lot of quality NBA players (Tony Allen, Perkins, Avery Bradley, Nesmith, PP) and even stars ( the Jays)

He also drafted some misses (Langford, JR Giddens, Fab Melo) but yeah all GMs can’t home-run all their draft picks.

I still wish Ainge drafted Deandre Jordan over Giddens in 08 lol we needed a better backup big back then

It’s unfair to compare. Need to give Brad some more time. He also hasn’t had any high picks.

Too early to tell. Brad has never had a top-15 pick and Danny had 3 in the top-6. Danny DID nail the Jays and Smart, though. However, he missed a ton of later round firsts and not much luck in the 2nd.

Brad has been filling out our bench with picks in the mid-20’s which is always a crap shoot.

If Brad is still around to rebuild after JT retires, we’ll have a clear answer. Just gotta wait 10 years to get it.

Ainge for sure

Danny

not enough sample size or lottery picks to evaluate brad but danny has it for getting tatum and brown, back to back best players in draft.

It isn’t fair to compare the two tbh because Brad never got the chance to draft a lottery pick. We can only know for sure once Brad actually gets a crack at drafting and developing a top prospect.

Danny Ainge has done well drafting at the beginning, middle, and end of the round. He’s had second round hits. He’s orchestrated trades that netted him the prospects he really had his eye on. He’s had misses, sure, but everyone does - especially when you’ve been doing it for a very long time.

I think he had more fun scouting and developing than he had doing any other part of his job. He loved going to college games. He loved popping into AAU events. He loved chatting with parents. Guy LIVED for prospects and loved being ahead of his peers when those guys were draft eligible years later.

Brad is that same type of guy, and I think he’ll go down as one of the better ones if he sticks around long enough to REALLY leave a legacy behind.

Drafting Tatum and Brown at the spots he did makes Danny one of the best talent evaluators of this generation.

In 2016, Brown was an analytics disaster whose range was 5-15. Nobody was talking about him at 3. It was mostly Bender/Dunn/Murray/Chriss/Hield. Brown was considered a tier below that group and Danny still had the balls to take him at 3.

In 2017, Tatum was not the prospect that was getting a lot of top 3 buzz. There were a lot of Tobias Harris comparisons and it seemed like his range started at 5 behind Fultz/Ball/Jackson/Issac. Danny not only took him at 3 but had the #1 pick in a class that people were excited about and traded down to take him.

I don’t think any other GM does that and although it’s only rumor, there was a too much smoke around Danny wanting Durant over Oden which would have been the ballsiest move of all time.

Short answer, Brad has a ways to go.

It’s definitely Danny. People saying Brad hasn’t had a high pick yet are just assuming he would make the right choice. Back to back best players in the draft automatically wins when you aren’t selecting 1st and there is no consensus on who you should take. Rondo’s also not being mentioned and he was a steal.

Brad’s done nice, but it’s been so low stakes so far. The players he’s taken may or may not make it in this league and nobody would blame him if they didn’t stick around a long time.

If Danny had selected Dragan Bender and Josh Jackson, the franchise would have been set back a decade

Ainge did a tremendous job of drafting high picks. He won the 2017 & 2018 drafts by identifying who the best player was despite the hype around other guys. Remember our pick in 2018 was 1st overall. He elected to trade down and take Tatum.

Brad hasn’t had the opportunity to draft outside of the late 1st round. So time will tell.

In terms of finding diamonds in the rough, I think you could make a case that so far, Brad is better at identifying players in the late 1st and 2nd round than Ainge was. I think they were both good at that though.

Danny hit Rondo, Pritchard, Nesmith, Tony Allen, Jaylen, Jayson, Rob Williams

Danny. Brad basically took the team that he coached that was already good and added a few more players to make them unbeatable that year.

Both legendary, and both follow a similar scouting process.

Later Danny and Brad love scouting pre-college rankings. They put a lot of stock into following a players entire come-up and will often excuse maybe a poor year of college ball to get their guys.

Cenac a great recent example of a player who slid a bit after mediocre numbers in Houston but was always a highly ranked prospect. He’s looked like an absolute steal so far.

They understand the proper traits needed in the players they want for their system and they aren’t afraid to face the boos and draft a Jaylen Brown 3rd overall.

Brad never got a lottery pick yet

I think its a weird argument to say because brad hasnt picked in lottery that we cant judge…if anything picking outside the lottery and in low first rd absolutely deserves evaluation. Also, lottery picks get effed up constantly too…i think its fair to compare the two based on whatever picks they’ve made to this point (excluding this year’s draft obviously).

Brad is like the ghost whisperer for white players who fall lower in the draft or even undrafted.

Danny loves his wings except for the time when he traded up to pick a white Canadian over a Greek.

It’s not even close

Brad so far

Brad ainge was horrible at the end for the Celtics and Brad has 2 executive of the year awards already with the Celtics ainge only got one

Brad inherited Tatum and Brown obviously, but he made the series of moves that lead to Banner 18, a tough decision trading Smart, outstanding trade for White, getting Horford back in Boston, great trade moving Brogdan and Timelord for Jrue, and what I think was a great move to get Porzingas. He’s drafted well for having late round picks and I really like the Hugo, Schierman, and Cenac Jr. picks. Time will tell how good those picks were.

Ainge did amazing though and brought a title + the core of a 2nd. He is largely responsible for most of my best memories as a Celtics fan. Drafting Pierce. KG and Ray trades to win a title. Then that Nets trade for the picks. He then drafted Tatum and Brown so I credit him massively for the 2024 title. The Isaiah Thomas move was savy, I really liked watching him play here. The Kyrie trade was a good one in my opinion. He couldnt know how selfish Kyrie would get and had Kyrie been patient and a better teammate I feel Kyrie, Tatum, and Brown would have won a title together. That is a ton of talent between those 3 once JT and JB really hit their stride. I didnt love the Hayward move beyond the bad luck of his injury, but it wasnt a bad move.

Overall I have to give Ainge the edge since his moves led to building the cores of 2 championship teams. Stevens gets a big assist on the 2024 title and a ton of credit for the past decade of excellent Celtics basketball and a bunch of deep playoff runs. In time I think Stevens will surpass him. I like Stevens work more than what Ainge has done in Utah. The Jazz have been treading water and tanking for too long, they have lost any semblance of a winning culture the past 4 years. Nobody on that team has played meaningful basketball in years. Another point in Stevens favor is the coach staffs, absolutely top notch coaches who really know the game and how to help develop players. We’re lucky to have had Ainge and Stevens keeping the Celtics legendary status alive and thriving after a long rough patch post Bird era. More titles would have been nice, but 2 in my lifetime is nothing to complain about since theyve been to 2 more finals on the losing end and been a great team for the majority of my life even when they fall short.

Danny. He went against the grain drafting both jays and hit on both. Look at the guys drafted right after Jaylen brown. No banner 18 if we draft Markell fultz and/or Kris Dunn.

Brad because he had done well with his late first round picks. Danny could draft at the top but had some misses at the bottom of the first.

Danny drafted JB and, as we’ve all found out over the past few weeks, JB is really bad, so Danny is a bad drafter.

Danny made a lot more picks, Brad trades a lot more picks. In Danny’s first five drafts he picked Kendrick Perkins, Al Jefferson, Delonte, Tony Allen, Gerald Green, Ryan Gomes, Rajon Rondo, Leon Powe and Big Baby Davis, none taken in the lottery

Brad has been in charge for six drafts and has only signed 4 draftees to standard multi year roster contracts: Walsh, Hugo, Baylor, Chris Cenac

after six drafts Ainge was way ahead in value generated by his picks

Talent evaluation is a real skill that’s often understated, Danny is amazing at it, but he had perhaps the best teacher of all time in Red Auerbach… talk about a talent scout

Danny mostly gets credit for the Tatum trade down but I think you have to mark him down for the Desmond Bane trade. Yeah he was a very late pick but if we saw that potential then we sold low instead of developing a player we could’ve really used down the line.

As others I don’t think Brad had the same opportunities as Danny so it’s gonna depend how you decide who is “better.” A lot of people do the “top picks are obvious so I only give credit if low picks hit” thing but this is also a problem because low picks are often rolls of the dice and the results are greatly affected by opportunity/luck as opposed to actually scoping talent.

Brad has also had the “benefit” of trying to find back of bench guys who can contribute as opposed to the two rebuilds that Danny did. Like in hindsight it’s east to criticize Gerald Green or trading for Telfair but he was definitely shooting his shot on high risk talent (which was also how we ended up with Rondo). Once he had Ray Allen and KG his picks became more like high floor guys who might fill in the team. The Avery Bradley’s and Jared Sullinger’s of the world. To me Brad may be better as sussing out these players but it’s still hard to say.

Danny got Rondo but also took Kelly over Giannis so seems like Brad did more with less

I mean it’s hard to say since they are working with very different options

Danny had a very large sample size given he was calling the shots for almost 20 years, as a result he had a bunch more drafts and a larger range of picks

Brad’s never had more than a late first rounder or second round picks to work with

The real answer is Mike

Brad has never had a top 5 , top 10 or even a lottery pick, he has done well with what hes had and so did Danny who didnt miss on his 3 top 6 picks w the Celtics

In all the years of Danny drafting he only drafted 3 good ones imo - Rondo, JB, JT and Smart. Every other pick was terrible. Remember, he drafted Yabusele over Giannis.

Danny have archetypes he like, Brad is still trial and error.

Both draft well. However till we get a coach who can coach in game we’re FUCT