Ainge: 'I don't see a need to bring someone else in at the moment'


Trade rumors have been flying around the Celtics for weeks, from DeMarcus Cousins, to Tyreke Evans, to Rudy Gay. But they've quieted as the team has ripped off six straight wins, four of them against quality Eastern Conference competition. Gary Washburn of the Boston Globe caught up with Celtics boss Danny Ainge to discuss the state of the team, and Ainge was pretty direct when talking about making a move. From the article (link).

I think over the next five weeks a lot will be told. I feel like we don’t have any glaring needs when we’re playing the way we’re playing. Everyone’s playing their role; whether they’re playing well all the time is not as much of a point if they are accepting a role and giving an honest day’s worth of work.

We just need to keep flexibility in case something does happen. Right now we don’t have a real need and we have players like Jason Collins and Leandro Barbosa who we really like and are hardly playing, so I don’t really see a need to bring someone else in, at least at this moment. We’re happy with our roster and we’re looking for improvement but we feel like we have plenty of bodies and Chris Wilcox should be back in not too long. I don’t think there’s any need to bring in someone right now to sit on the end of our bench.”

While I was never opposed to Ainge putting his feelers out there to see if he could improve the team (I mean that is his job after all), I do think that the best course of action at this point is to wait and see. The team is 6-1 since adding Bradley to the mix, and it would be disappointing to break the core up right as they begin hitting their stride. I've also been a big proponent of adding Kenyon Martin to the mix, but Ainge seems steadfast on holding on to the roster flexibility, and not rushing into anything. While I can see his reasoning, I do worry that as the season winds down - there may not be much of anything left on the market for the C's.

Another big reason for the recent hot streak has been the resurgence of the bench unit. Washburn also spoke to Danny about the bench's struggles to start the season, and why he think's they've played so well of late.

I’m not sure why that happens; we know that Courtney and Jeff and Jason, we know those guys are good players, we’ve seen them play, start, and succeed on good teams in the NBA.

And so there’s never been a doubt whether they’re good. The question is how do they fit into the puzzle as players in our system. Like I said a couple of weeks ago, I don’t think anybody was playing as well as they’re capable of playing, and now in the last five games I think we have a handful of guys playing as well as they’re playing over that short period of time.

With nine new players joining the team this season, including every single member of the bench, there was always going to be growing pains. It obviously took longer than anyone would have hoped, but lately the chemistry we saw in the pre-season has translated into regular season results.

Next up for the C's - a suddenly hot New Orleans team at the Garden tomorrow night. The Hornets are 5-1 since finally putting the Eric Gordon-Anthony Davis combo together after several injuries. The Celtics are looking for their first 7 game winning streak since a 14 game streak since November/December 2010.

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