Ainge says he took a long-range shot

It's like there's a nightly referendum on the trade, which is, of course, ridiculous.

"I've always known how fans are," says the Celtics' executive director of basketball operations. "And I even anticipated player agents, coaches, and owners to be a little bit that way. Coaches live in the moment through their players. Our owners are new, but they are experienced business people. I know that if you haven't been through this you look at this thing as if you're on a daily roller coaster."

Ainge also knew Antoine Walker would thrive in Dallas. He would be playing for the NBA coach most tolerant of idiosyncratic personal games (Don Nelson is the man who made Manute Bol into a 3-point shooter, remember), and he would be playing with a number of accomplished teammates. It was a great situation for him.

But that's a Dallas issue. The Mavericks are happy, and that's fine. You always want the other team to be pleased with the deal. You never know when you'll be trying to do more business with them.

What matters here is that a great many people are profoundly unhappy with the Celtics, and with their front-office leader. A 10-12 record isn't good enough, with or without Walker. We haven't even hit the quarter mark of Ainge's first season, and there are people who think he doesn't know what he's doing.

One problem is that a lot of people have misinterpreted what went on here two years ago. They don't seem to understand that the 2001-02 Celtics were not a great team. They see a team that was up, 2-1, in the Eastern Conference finals after that huge comeback win in Game 3 and somehow think that club was close to a championship, rather than a team that was two games away from a four-game humiliation at the hands of the Lakers, and which was never really that good to begin with.

"I thought Jim O'Brien did a masterful job that season," Ainge maintains. "Even with Rodney Rogers and Kenny Anderson, that team severely overachieved. In my mind, that was not a team that was built to be a true contender. It wasn't like you'd say, `All we have to do is keep this team together and we'll be there, year in and year out.' And last year's team also overachieved."

Before the Celtics can ever think about being at the Lakers' or Kings' level, they need to catch up to the better teams in the East. That's where Danny's head is right now. His team is not really on the same talent level as Indiana, Detroit, or New Jersey, let alone the league's true elite. "They've each got a boatload of talent," he says. "My motivation right now is to get to that level." And Antoine Walker was not the long-term solution to the problem, especially if he was pulling down an unwarranted maximum contract that would have adversely affected the salary cap.

Ainge gets paid to be realistic. He must think long term because the Celtics are not close. They took their big shot at getting to the Finals two years ago, and the team he took over was already on the decline. The Walker trade was a step in a long-term process.

This team has a 35/38-win look to it. If the planets get aligned in their favor, they could be a .500 team. What's laughable and sad is that such a team has a chance to make the playoffs in the East. (The Celtics would be in today, believe it or not.) Whether they do or don't, they will be what they are, and that is a team whose next championship is not imminent.

So Ainge lives for glimmers and glimpses, both individually and collectively, of better days to come. You can take the following at face value or leave it, but he insists, "I really feel better about some of our losses than some of our wins.

"I was much happier after a couple of our losses than I was over that Denver win. I know it was our highest point total of the year, but it wasn't great basketball. But I really felt good about the win in Utah because we did a lot of good things with Paul [Pierce] having an off night. That was very important. I get upset when I hear this business about it being `his' team. I don't want it to be `his' team. I want basketball to be played. I want our young players to develop, learning how to play the game the right way."

Here's another one you can believe or not believe, according to your personal level of cynicism: Danny Ainge is quite happy with both his own role and with his coach.

"I can take any of the criticism that comes my way, whether it's about the Antoine trade or anything else," he says, "but there is one thing that does bother me. The speculation about Jim O'Brien's job being in jeopardy is ludicrous. We come from different basketball backgrounds, but we see the game much the same way. I enjoy talking with him and bouncing things off him. I think we complement each other. I feel I've got a fantastic college professor of basketball here. What we're both trying to do is tweak the curriculum."

Ainge knows that people have simply assumed that if things went poorly, he would leave the front office and sit on the bench himself. They assume that because NBA history has taught them this is a classic scenario, particularly when the executive in question is as young as Ainge (44). He knows that no matter what he says, some people won't believe him, but he says it, anyway.

"I am not going to coach," he reiterates.

He knows the way it will be all year. If the Celtics win a game, then the trade wasn't so bad. If the Mavericks win a game, and Antoine has some numbers, then the trade was a horror. If the Celtics win 41, then people will say they would have won 45/50/Whatever with Antoine. If the Mavericks lose, and Antoine goes 4 for 19 and throws four passes to Mark Cuban, no one will call up Danny to say, "Thanks."

The Antoine trade was about salary cap management and the reluctance to give Antoine a maximum contract to which he felt, in Ainge's words, "entitled." He believes that neither Antoine and Paul Pierce nor Antoine and Vinny Baker were a "great fit." He still thinks he's going to get something out of Raef LaFrentz, even if it isn't this year. He believes he's got something in Jiri Welsch. He's got a first-rounder coming. He will wait for Marcus Banks to develop. And he will go to his grave believing that the team he inherited -- the Antoine-led team -- was never really very good (and was only as good as it was thanks to the coach).

He's thinking years. That's years; not minutes, quarters, halves, games, weeks, or months. Years. That's the reality of the Boston Celtics.

Bob Ryan is a Globe columnist. His e-mail address is ryan@globe.com.