That "mess" that Ainge built won a championship. I'm not comparing him to Vlade to make him look bad, it's just that it's a competitive league. The goal is to win a championship right? If Papagiannis and Richardson weren't going to be help us get there we cut them loose. Fair enough. Shouldn't the same standard apply to the GM? Vlade knows this, he played in the league.
Other people might be trying to make this a one-sided thing but I've acknowledged when Vlade made moves that I liked. I was on-board with signing Koufos, Rondo, Butler and Belinelli. That season was sunk when he didn't fire George Karl in December and waited until the whole thing imploded. I was also on board with the George Hill signing (though I'm not sure why we couldn't have just brought Collison back for half that amount) -- but salary dumping a player you just gave a multi-year deal to less than a year later strikes me as particularly foolish. So does buying out Matt Barnes less than a year after giving him a 12 million dollar deal.
You could always say "let's just wait and see" and sound like the reasonable one but there's a point at which that just becomes an excuse. First it was the (many) coaches' fault then it was the Maloofs' fault then it was PeteD and Chris' fault. Vlade has had three years and we've gotten worse every year. Every player on our roster is somebody Vlade brought in. This isn't a Sam Hinkie situation where Vlade is going to walk out the door having acquired two future Hall of Fame players and a load of future picks. Whoever comes in next is now going to have to clean up the mess that Vlade made.
Boston is more or less like a second home town to me. I just think comparing them - their history, the fact that they had a super team assemble themselves and Ainge was just there, not to mention his buddy was the GM for the team that made the trade to put it together - to Sacramento, which is basically an NBA dump except for a 6 year stretch, doesn't work.
Then throw in malicious, meddling ownership followed by horrific incompetence and it takes a few years to right the ship. Vlade made some rookie mistakes. I think he's recovered pretty nicely. People raved about his offseason last year. Why are we killing the guy over the crap he did his first season? He even gave his own timeline which most GMs would never do, so why not see that out? It's one more season, for what that's worth.
Hey, I can turn around this giant cluster-f or I'm out in 4 seasons? That's swag, even if it's misguided. I like it.
I'm not convinced the next guy will do any better.