Danny Ainge: One of Greatest Multi-Sport Athletes of All-Time
From Hall of Fame Magazine:
In 1981, Ainge won the John R. Wooden Award as top player in NCAA basketball while at BYU. He made it to the big leagues as a member of the Toronto Blue Jays, where a .220 batting average in 665 at bats during three years convinced him he should rethink his original decision not to play in the NBA. The Celtics wily GM Red Auerbach - who had drafted him # 1 - bought out his Blue Jay contract from a willing seller. Ainge joined the Celts the next fall and became a stalwart on Celtic teams, which would win the NBA championship in 1984 and 1986. Perhaps Ainge’s greatest accomplishment as a Celtic would come some 20 years later, when as Executive Director of Basketball Operations for the Celtics, he engineered the trade that brought Kevin Garnett to Boston, where Garnett would lead the Celtics to the 2008 NBA Championship.
