The Boston Celtics are embarking on the most important offseason the franchise has faced in quite some time as new ownership is coming in, Jayson Tatum is rehabbing a torn Achilles, and cost-cutting measures need to be made.
What Brad Stevens and the rest of the brain trust did not anticipate was losing a key member of the front office just weeks before the NBA Draft. That is what happened, though, as assistant general manager Austin Ainge has elected to rejoin his father, Danny, and take on the role of president of basketball operations.
Austin Ainge Leaving Celtics Complicates Pivotal Offseason
According to Adam Himmelsbach of The Boston Globe, the younger Ainge's move back to Utah came together rather quickly. Despite the loss, vice president of basketball operations Mike Zarren is confident that those who remain in Boston are more than capable of getting the job done.
“We’ve got a great team here of people who are certainly capable of doing the draft, and it’s not like we don’t know Austin’s opinion on the players in this draft,” Zarren said. “We’ve been working together all year on these guys. So, we’ll be well-placed to execute the draft and free agency, even though we’ll miss [Ainge].”
To Zarren's point, Ainge had been part of all the legwork that had been put in for this year's draft, which will help them bridge this gap while the franchise looks to find a replacement to fill the new vacancy in the front office.
Ainge worked in several roles for Boston during his 17 years with the franchise. In the end, he had his fingerprints all over the roster that won the 2024 NBA Finals. If that is the last memory that Celtics fans have of his time with the organization, then it was a job well done by Ainge.