Surprise, surprise, Danny Ainge tops his own sabermetrics system

The Utah Jazz have the best executive in basketball according to science.

Science, it can’t be refuted. Usually. Sometimes. So challenging the standard is what science is all about, so it can be refuted and is, quite often. Yet, this time, we feel confident in saying with all certainty that science can’t refute this; the Utah Jazz have the best executive in the league.

After decades with the Boston Celtics, Danny Ainge left Boston in quest of a new challenge and landed in Salt Lake City. Instantly the Jazz were turned over and given a new coat of paint. New uniforms came in to make the error, and several big names were traded away; namely Donovan Mitchell and Rudy Gobert.

This was done to get the Jazz over the hump, eventually. New rookie talent was brought in and other young players like Lauri Markkanen were given huge roles on the team. And it seems to be paying off as the Jazz may already be a playoff-caliber team in 2023-2024

So it’s no surprise that Yahoo’s Ben Rohrbach named Ainge the top executive in the league. And before you ask, no, we don’t think the fact that Rohrbach named his scientific method “The Danny Ainge System” had anything to do with it.

The article highlights the biggest draft picks, trades, and free agent signings that the exec has made throughout his career, and shockingly most of Ainge’s came in Boston. Yet, some of his moves in Utah were included, and we have questions.

For trades, Rudy Gobert has already netted the Jazz’s top guy a home run (top-tier move) but the Donovan Mitchell trade got a “BB” (baseball jargon for a “walk”). And in this situation, a “BB” is a lateral, or unknown return. This is baffling, as Mitchell’s trade is already paying off huge dividends for the Jazz with Lauri Markkanen’s All-Star outing.

One would argue that his all-star ascension is more impressive than Walker Kessler, the key piece of the Gobert trade. So why the Gobert trade is considered a home run, but the Mitchell isn’t, when they happened at just about the same time is baffling.