Celtics president of basketball operations Danny Ainge joined Toucher & Rich this morning. As may be expected, the first topic was Kevin McHale:
According to Ainge, he and Kevin talk “all the time,” and Kevin was shocked by his dismissal yesterday. Without questioning Houston’s decision, Ainge added, “I think he’s a very under-the-radar coach. Every organization in the league could use Kevin McHale.”
He also confirmed yesterday’s “job offer”: “He knows he has a standing offer to work with the Celtics. He could do anything in an organization.” However, he revealed that he hadn’t offered any specific job, “I was just worried about him, but he knows how much I’d love for him to come [here]. We’ve been talking about working together for 30 years now.”
Asked about what happened in Houston, Danny hedged a bit, but also said, “sometimes it’s a needed change and other times there’s just somebody who needs to take the fall.”
When asked if he agreed with that idea that you can’t fire the players so sometimes you have to fire the coach, Ainge was a bit more emphatic, “I’ve never subscribed to that. I’ve always believed in being 100% behind the coach. A coach has no chance if the players sense that they can go somewhere else to vent their frustrations. They need to have that communication directly with the coach.”
Full audio here, including a discussion of last night’s game.