Coach able to set frustration aside

Rick Pitino left the Knicks because he couldn't work with Al Bianchi. Hubie Brown once went ballistic when he learned his boss had traded a No. 1 pick for Gerald Henderson. It happens a lot.

I can remember running into Chuck Daly in New Jersey when USA Basketball was announcing the coaching staff for the first (and only) Dream Team. Shortly thereafter, the general manager of the Pistons, Jack McCloskey, briefly stopped by. After he left, Daly mumbled something unprintable about the type of players that McCloskey was getting for him.

And this is from a coach who only two years earlier had won consecutive world titles!

So, Jim, join the club.

And you know what? He has. At least publicly. (We'd always like to have those "Annie Hall"-like subtitles when O'Brien speaks.)

After looking and sounding Monday night like a wounded, betrayed man, O'Brien was much more positive yesterday, crediting a good night's sleep (he clearly didn't watch game film) and a pep talk from father-in-law Jack Ramsay. In his ESPN.com column, Ramsay wrote, "O'Brien is going about it the right way. He can't bemoan his losses." Dr. Jack then resorted to horse opera metaphors to portray O'Brien's challenge:

"Changing horses in midstream is as hard today as it was during the westward expansion of our great country," Ramsay wrote. "But the Celtics have acquired a couple of young stallions. If they can be broken properly, and gentled into the herd, the team might be better at roundup time."

The coach also sounded like the chapter chairman of the Danny Ainge Fan Club yesterday when the topic of criticism of the Celtics' hoops boss was raised.

"He came here to build a championship team, and that's all he's trying to do," O'Brien said of Ainge. "Nothing more, nothing less. Unless you have the guts to make the decisions that are unpopular maybe during the day with your coach, or with the fans, or the media, then you don't deserve to be director of basketball operations. He's not having a problem making tough decisions. Are we closer to being a better basketball team as a result of the trades he has made? Absolutely."

And think of it: four of Ainge's imports -- Ricky Davis, Chris Mihm, and Michael Stewart from Monday's trade, along with Jumaine Jones -- and played on a Cavaliers team that went 17-65 last year. And three of them are from this year's sorry squad, which is 6-18, including a spiffy 0-13 on the road. And another import, Mike James, played on last year's 25-win Miami team.

But as O'Brien reminded everyone Monday, Ainge has the final authority. And Ainge is going to use that authority to make the moves he wants to make. If the coach doesn't like it, too bad.

It's amazing, but you do hear from people around the league that Ainge is doing this for the sole purpose of eventually replacing O'Brien himself. Ainge has denied such motives repeatedly, but the story, like him biting Tree Rollins (it was the other way around), is out there and won't go away.

Time is the only judge for any of these moves. But coaches live in a different time zone (here and now) than their bosses (here and later). And coaches almost always pay when the players, supplied by the boss, don't win. O'Brien wants to win every game even as Ainge openly says he isn't the least bit interested in short-term results.

"That is not the attitude of the coaching staff or the players," O'Brien said. Ah, but is it Ainge's? "I can assure you Danny wants to win more than any of them want him to win," he said.

The coach went on, "We're building a team they're going to be very proud of. We're not walking on any court, in any game, that our guys don't expect to win or their coach doesn't expect to win."

Nonetheless, it was impossible to miss the utter frustration on the faces of the Celtics coaches and players after the deal had been announced. They felt they had just turned the corner with this particular team and that it had a realistic chance of competing for the division crown. Now, they wonder who's going to replace Eric Williams in the locker room? Who will be the late-game defenders that both Williams and Tony Battie were? (No one lamented the passing of Kedrick Brown and for good reason.)

That's all on the coach now. He said if he had known coming to camp that he'd have all these guys, he'd have been excited. But he didn't have them then. He has them now, coming in at different intervals, replacing guys he did not want to lose.

"I think this is a team that, if I can do my job, and the staff can do their job, at a high level, we're going to be a pretty good basketball team," he said.