Danny Ainge admits that the Celtics weren’t good enough.

But where that sends the Celtics’ president and general manager this offseason is unclear, at best.

During a media Zoom conference on Thursday, Ainge wouldn’t get specific, but admitted, “We’ve got some work to do. No question about it. I’m not overreacting to a tough loss to a good opponent. I’m just saying that there’s some things we tried to do, we’d like to do, at the trade deadline, that we weren’t able to do, and there’s some things I’d like to be able to do now, this offseason, to make our team better. But we have a lot to do.”

Ainge also said that though he pursued several deals at the trade deadline, he was unable to make something work for a team that fell short of the NBA finals in a manner that exposed several weaknesses.

“We tried to do some things at the trade deadline. We tried very hard,” he said. “I think it’s a fair assessment of our team that we weren’t as strong as we needed to be. I think that we had plenty of depth to get through an Eastern Conference finals, assuming we don’t have Gordon (Hayward) and Kemba (Walker) banged up and Romeo Langford out.

“So, I don’t think we would have done anything different. But I think it’s a misconception we didn’t make a strong effort to improve our team,” said Ainge. “And two things, in hindsight, it’s a little bit different, too. Had you known you were going to have a training camp in between the trade deadline and before the season, that’s probably a better question. If you knew you could bring someone in and have an entire training camp with them before they restarted the playoffs, but I still think the answer would be the same.

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“There’s a few guys we were chasing, a few guys we thought we could add to the roster that could really help us, and we weren’t able to get those deals done.”

Ainge touched on a wide range of subjects, from Walker playing on a balky knee to upcoming plans for Jayson Tatum’s contract.

WALKER’S POOR POSTSEASON

Ainge said he doesn’t know of any plans by Walker for left knee surgery, but that the injury was bad enough to curtail the point guard’s effectiveness.

“He was definitely not himself. In fairness to Kemba, he doesn’t want to say that. He doesn’t say that to our coaches, he doesn’t say that to you, the media, he doesn’t say that to me,” said Ainge. “I haven’t heard one excuse from him. But watching the games, even the games we won, even the games where he played well, I could tell he wasn’t the same physically as he was in October, November, December.

“So we’re going to try to get that Kemba back. And I know Kemba wants to be back 100%, and playing his best basketball,” he said. “Even not his best, he still averaged 19 or 20 points per game in the playoffs, he still is a really good player. But he’s not what he was. There’s nothing more frustrating for an athlete to be on the biggest stage in the world in your sport and not be able to be yourself. I’ve been there before as a player. It’s not fun. It’s stressful. And Gordon and Kemba were trying to do that. I know everybody is banged up a little bit this time of year. I’m just saying those guys were, they were limited on what they could from what we are used to seeing in them.

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“Probably over the next week to two weeks we will have a full plan for Kemba in the offseason, regardless of what the medical tests come back and everything else. There’s no surgery needed or anything else that I’m aware of at this time.”

WILLIAMS TAKES STEP FORWARD

Ainge talked up the ability of all his big men, including Robert Williams.

“I think that this is Robert’s second year and he spent a lot of time injured, which has limited his development, unfortunately,” he said. “Feel like he’s getting healthy, we feel that his time in the bubble was huge. Just being around the coaches and having fewer distractions, he was really improving. I thought he played really well in a lot of the games. So, yeah, we’re very excited about Robert’s future and what he can be.

“But, yeah, it is hard to find franchise bigs. That’s always been the case. There’s a lot of big guys, and a lot of big guys that can play. Daniel (Theis), Robert and Enes (Kanter) outplayed opposing big men often throughout the course of this year. I’m grateful for them. But (Bam) Adebayo was good. Adebayo might have been the biggest difference in this playoff series. He’s a terrific player.”

TATUM EXTENSION

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The Celtics would love to sign Jayson Tatum to a supermax contract extension now, but the NBA has to get its calendar in order. “I can’t have those conversations yet with Jayson, or Gordon, or Enes, or anybody,” Ainge said of players with upcoming contract decisions. “We’ll have to wait until the rules allow us to have those conversations. Jayson knows how much we like him. We have a good relationship. Jayson likes it here, so I’m confident that we’ll be able to work something out this summer – this offseason, I should say.”

Though the salary cap line is still unknown, any improvements the Celtics make will be with the luxury tax in play.

“We’re anticipating being in the tax next year,” said Ainge. “We’re prepared for that for the last couple of years as we’ve built this team, so we’re prepared to do that.”

CHEMISTRY IS FINE

As explosive as it might have seemed at the time, Ainge took the postgame locker room imbroglio after Game 2 of the Eastern Conference finals in stride.

“We had an incident that happened in the Eastern Conference finals that put some of that in question of all of the games the entire year, including two playoff-round wins, into question,” he said. “I would just say, I personally have been around a long time, as you guys can tell, and I wouldn’t overreact to those. I think our chemistry for sure was enhanced this year. Our team was enhanced by the great chemistry and great culture that was created here.

“I would say that the entire year, I had heard nothing from our players or our coaches through Game 1 of the Eastern Conference finals. I never heard anything but how positive a culture it was and what a great team we had and it was such a joy to be around, what a joy it is to watch this team play. I thought the same way. I really liked being around the team.”

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