The Minnesota Timberwolves came, saw, and conquered the impenetrable NBA vault known as Danny Ainge. Ainge is no longer with the Boston Celtics, a team where he built his magician-like NBA reputation for being a wizard in the NBA trade market. It was Ainge who led to the blockbuster trade with the very same Minnesota Timberwolves for beloved and legendary Kevin Garnett.
He bought Garnett for pennies on the dollar, played him for six seasons, and then traded him away to the desperate Brooklyn Nets for dollars on the pennies. Buy low, sell high, the mantra of anyone who dabbles their portfolio in Wall Street’s New York Stock Exchange.
Of course, as much as his reputation as a wheeler dealer skyrocketed from those two trades, it also had another more sinister effect. Ainge was not the first phone number that NBA teams GMs rang in pursuit of a mutually beneficial deal. By the time he fleeced the Brooklyn Nets, teams would ring him in an emergency, if at all. Dealmaking involves both NBA teams walking away believing that they were the winners. And in many ways, they should be. Players’ roles and fits are different for each NBA team.
The Minnesota Timberwolves pursuit of All-Star center Rudy Gobert has gotten mixed reviews. Some love the trade and call it inspired. Others believe the Timberwolves surrendered far too many unprotected first-round NBA draft picks. At the time, the Jazz declined offers for their other valued player, Donovan Mitchell.
The Utah Jazz tried to be coy, but ultimately the Jazz admitted that the team would pursue a rebuild and consented to consider offers for Mitchell. The biggest challenge to that is the fact that Danny Ainge believes that he must win each exchange. Sometimes, teams must take one step back in order to take two steps forward.
That will never happen with Ainge at the helm of an NBA team.
And just as trade talks heated up for the Jazz to deal Donovan Mitchell to the New York Knicks, it all went cold once more.
New York’s Leon Rose set a Monday night deadline with Utah to reach an agreement on a trade for Mitchell – or the Knicks would commit to the Barrett extension, sources said. Knicks, Jazz closed gap on deal points in recent days on a Mitchell trade, but neither would go further.
— Adrian Wojnarowski (@wojespn) August 30, 2022
It feels like a plot twist to a great whodunnit thriller, doesn’t it? The Minnesota Timberwolves, the team that was fleeced by GM Danny Ainge in the Kevin Garnett, may have learned from that trade and punked Ainge in this round.
How well Gobert fits in the Timberwolves system remains to be seen. But in the meantime, Ainge’s asking price for Donovan Mitchell is now so inflated that nobody can reach his asking price.
Ainge has to win each trade, and right now he feels that he has a winning hand in Mitchell. But nobody is willing to sit down at his table any longer.
Perhaps the Minnesota Timberwolves have exacted the best revenge possible. By trading for Gobert, the Timberwolves may have set Ainge up to end his NBA career through his own fatal character flaw.
EDITOR’s NOTE: As if on queue, just hours after publication, a second blockbuster trade by the Utah Jazz was reported, this time sending Donovan Mitchell to the Cleveland Cavaliers for three players, three first-round picks, and two first-round pick swaps.
The Cavaliers have acquired Donovan Mitchell in a trade, per @wojespn.
— FanSided (@FanSided) September 1, 2022
The Jazz are trading Mitchell to the Cavs for Lauri Markkanen, Ochair Agbaji, Collin Sexton, three unprotected first-round picks and two pick swaps. pic.twitter.com/L9LJBVpFY9
In the end, the assertion is correct. Danny Ainge, in order to make the deal, took less for Donovan Mitchell than for Rudy Gobert.