FILE – General manager Danny Ainge of the Boston Celtics speaks with the media during Boston Celtics Media Day on September 26, 2016 in Waltham, Massachusetts. Tim Bradbury/Getty Images/AFP
Boston Celtics president of basketball operations Danny Ainge has suffered a mild heart attack but is expected to make a full recovery, the NBA club announced Thursday.
Ainge, 60, suffered the heart attack on Tuesday in Milwaukee, the same night the Celtics lost 123-102 to the Bucks to leave their Eastern Conference second-round best-of-seven playoff series level at 1-1 entering game three Friday at Boston.
“He received immediate medical attention and is expected to make a full recovery. He will return to Boston shortly,” the Celtics said in a statement.
Ainge, who also suffered a mild heart attack in 2009, won two NBA titles with the Celtics as a player in 1984 and 1986, also playing for Sacramento, Portland and Phoenix in a 14-season NBA playing career as a guard.
Ainge, also a former baseball player with the Toronto Blue Jays, coached the Phoenix Suns for four seasons before resigning in 2000.
He became an executive for the Celtics in 2003 and in 2008 was named the NBA Executive of the Year as the Celtics won the league title after Ainge engineered trades for Kevin Garnett and Ray Allen to join Paul Pierce.
The team’s jump from 24-58 in 2006-07 to an NBA-best 66-16 the next season was the most dramatic one-year improvement in NBA history.