YouTube Gold: Danny Ainge Gets Revenge
This had to hurt
Danny Ainge was a vastly underrated athlete. At BYU, he was National Player of the Year and also played pro baseball on the side.
When he got to the NBA, Ainge was a Celtic from 1981-1989 and then moved on to Sacramento, Portland and finally Phoenix from 1992-1995.
Someone like Christian Laettner, and also somewhat unfairly like Laettner, Ainge was often perceived as a dirty player. For instance, he got into a fight with Tree Rollins at one point and Rollins bit him.
In the popular imagination though, Ainge was the biter. That’s just how it was for him.
That’s not to say that he didn't do some bad things at times. For instance, take this game against Houston.
Mario Elie was getting in Ainge’s face and, after a Houston score, Ainge took the ball out...and just drilled Elie in the face with it. The announcer wonders if he did it on purpose, but since Ainge played baseball and had a decent arm, we’d have to say...yeah. It wasn’t an accident.