Ryan McDonough split off from Danny Ainge’s Celtics front office in April 2013 as the Celtics’ championship core of Kevin Garnett, Paul Pierce and Ray Allen approached the twilight of their careers. McDonough took the chance to build a team from scratch with the Phoenix Suns.
That offseason, both Ainge and McDonough remade their rosters.
Ainge traded coach Doc Rivers to the Clippers, and the aging Kevin Garnett and Paul Pierce to the playoff-hungry Brooklyn Nets for a handful of future picks and pick swaps. Ainge replaced Rivers with a college coach who’d never held a clipboard on an NBA sideline before.