Red Auerbach’s Daughter claims he wouldn’t have traded Paul Pierce and Kevin Garnett

Courtesy of Steve Lipofsky

For the last few seasons Danny Ainge has made it abundantly clear that if he was Red Auerbach he would've traded aging stars Larry Bird, Kevin McHale and Robert Parish while they still had value. Well now Red’s daughter, Randy, is reversing the roles on Ainge saying that her father wouldn’t have traded Celtic legends Paul Pierce and Kevin Garnett.

According to Ainge the story goes that Red had multiple offers for his best players in the early 90’s and shared them with him at a Christmas party. He was offered: 1) Bird to the Pacers for Chuck Person, Herb Williams and Steve Stipanovich, and 2) McHale to the Mavericks for Detlef Schrempf and Sam Perkins. Ainge claims he insisted Auerbach make these deals, but Bird denies that happened. We all know how it turned out, Red didn’t move those guys and according to Randy he wouldn’t have for this generations remaining big three saying:

“Given [Red Auberbach's] track record and philosophy of life, not in his lifetime would that have happened,” Randy Auerbach told Yahoo Sports. “He really took a lot of pride in players finishing their careers with the Celtics. That was something very important to him.

“If it was for Chris Paul, maybe. We got nothing [for Pierce and Garnett]. You don’t trade laterally, and we didn’t even get laterally. But I hope it works. Nothing would give me more pleasure than to be wrong.”

“Knowing my father, I don’t think trading them was an option,” Randy Auerbach added. “If you look at his track record, he had more players start and finish their careers with the Celtics than any other team. That’s Celtic pride.”

Some pretty resonating quotes bringing Celtic pride into the conversation. By the way things turned out, I think I agree with her. However we are in a different era of sports, the Kobe’s and Dirk’s remaining with the same franchise are the exception, not the rule. I get why he made the move but this isn’t the NFL where first round picks are worth more than gold, especially with Ainge’s spotty drafting record. Regardless, it’s cool to have such a storied franchise that we can have debates about trading different era’s superstars.

Courtesy of Green Street blog



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