In 1983, the Boston Celtics were just a few years into the Larry Bird era. Red Auerbach had surrounded him with Robert Parish, Kevin McHale, Dennis Johnson and Danny Ainge.
Ainge had an odd reputation as a player. People respected his talent - he had dribbled through the entire Notre Dame defense to upset the Irish in the NCAA tournament when he was at BYU and he had briefly also played professional baseball and was one of the last guys to play two sports professionally in the same calendar year (Bo Jackson and Dion Sanders may have been the final two).