Let’s not go over the top, here, Danny Ainge

Boston Celtics boss Danny Ainge is still trying to defend the trade that added Jeff Green to the C's and sent Kendrick Perkins away from his team last February. In a radio interview with WEEI recently, he called Green the team's "most efficient offensive player throughout the playoffs," and he really should just stop.

In February, Ainge made a trade that shocked us all, sending Kendrick Perkins and Nate Robinson to the Oklahoma City Thunder for Jeff Green and an eventual and heavily protected first-round pick from the Los Angeles Clippers. And though the C's won six of seven games following the trade, they sputtered to a 10-9 finish following that run. They swept the New York Knicks to start the playoffs, but two of those games should not have been as close as they were. And last week, the Celtics saw their season end in Miami.

Everyone, as a result, points to the Perkins deal. And they shouldn't. But Ainge shouldn't be defending it like this. Because Green is only the team's "most efficient offensive player throughout the playoffs" if you ignore all the times he gave the ball to the other team.

Because Green had a turnover rate of 16.5, which means that in all the possessions he used up (possessions that ended with him doing something tangible on a box score level, like taking a shot, getting to the line, creating an assist, or turning the ball over), he turned it over on 16.5 percent of those chances. Now, that wouldn't rank amongst the league's worst for stone-handed big men, but it's not far off. And amongst wings and/or perimeter players? That's pretty terrible.

So while Jeff was nice to hit for 44 percent of his 3-pointers during the postseason, his overall efficiency (using PER, a metric that has a hard time gauging defensive aptitude mainly because defensive work is almost completely ignored by your typical box score) went down during the postseason. He earned a subpar 12.9 PER for both Oklahoma City and Boston during the regular season, and managed a barely-rotation-worthy PER of 10 during the playoffs. Even when you hit 44 percent of your threes, that isn't good.

The bigger problem here is that, save for this caveat from Ainge, he's more or less hit the nail on the head better than most of your typical NBA followers. Read the quotes that preceded his take on Jeff Green, regarding his take on The Green:

"I would say I don't believe that the trade was the reason why we are done today. I think our offense failed us in the last few games. We weren't able to score. Our defense was terrific. We were missing shots 10 feet from the pin, and couldn't make a birdie putt and they are knocking them in from the sand trap. Our offense, we had good shots from Ray, from Paul, from Delonte [West], from Jeff, from KG. Our best offensive players had good looks at the basket.

We went into a slump in the last four minutes of the game, very quality looks, a couple of unforced turnovers. Whatever the reason may be I don't believe…I believe the injuries especially to Rajon and then the fact that Delonte was far less than 100%, although he played well. I think those were more factors to our lack of execution down the stretch of games in the last couple of games. Kendrick wasn't someone who really helped our offense. He has never been that type of player. He's been a player that's helped our defense. Our defense was not the problem."

He's completely and utterly spot on. There's no doubt that trading Kendrick Perkins without a viable backup in Shaquille O'Neal should have hurt the Celtics, but the trade did not. Glen Davis was no help as a reserve, but Jermaine O'Neal was just as good if not better than Perkins was in his finest moments as a side-to-side defender, and the Celtic defense remained just as stout. The team just couldn't shoot straight. And, in the clutch moments of needed potential wins, it couldn't pass or dribble straight.

There's no doubt that the Green trade hurt Boston's chemistry, even if Perkins played just 12 games with Boston this season as he recovered from a knee injury. Celtics coach Doc Rivers was taken aback by the deal, as we all were, but then he gathered his group and won six of seven games following the trade. I think Ainge is with me in not blaming Jeff Green nor the loss of Kendrick Perkins for the way Glen Davis couldn't shoot from 18 feet nor the very un-Celtic-like way his team lost composure offensively down the stretch against Miami.

Still, you don't have to take it this far. There's no way a player with a 10 PER was your "most efficient player throughout the playoffs." Jeff Green is not the reason the Celtics lost in the second round, but he certainly wasn't that big a reason should they happened to have won. Nobody should be blaming him, but let's not overstate his importance.

Bill Russell Dolph Schayes Bill Sharman John Stockton Isiah Thomas