NBA Notebook | Danny Ainge named NBA top executive

BOSTON — Danny Ainge, who engineered the trades for Kevin Garnett and Ray Allen that helped the Boston Celtics post the biggest turnaround in league history, was given the Sporting News NBA Executive of the Year award before Wednesday night's playoff game.

"What he did off the court with this team, it made a lot of players and a lot of teams in the NBA aware that the Celtics were serious," Allen said before Game 5 of the Eastern Conference semifinal against the Cleveland Cavaliers. Boston won 96-89.

In the voting by general managers and other executives from all 30 teams, Ainge received 18 of the 47 votes. Los Angeles Lakers general manager Mitch Kupchak had 14 votes and New Orleans Hornets general manager Jeff Bower had 12.

The Celtics went 24-58 in 2006-07, but bad luck in the lottery left them with the No. 5 overall pick in a draft that was said to have just two superstars. So Ainge dealt the pick to the Sonics in a package for Allen, then used the acquisition of that All-Star to persuade Garnett to accept a trade.

With those two and Paul Pierce forming a new Big Three, Boston won 66 games in the regular season to earn home-court advantage throughout the playoffs.

Ainge also improved the bench. Even after it was obvious that Boston would coast to one of the NBA's best records, Ainge acquired backup point guard Sam Cassell and backup center P.J. Brown.

Notes

• Kelvin Sampson, the former Indiana and Washington State coach, was one of four assistants hired by Milwaukee Bucks coach Scott Skiles. Sampson resigned as Hoosiers coach Feb. 22 and accepted a $750,000 buyout after an NCAA report charged him with five major NCAA rules violations.

• Rick Carlisle was introduced as the Dallas Mavericks' new coach. "When you play with Jason Kidd, you have to open it up," Carlisle said. "Our wing guys are going to have to get conditioned to really run. The thing Jason Kidd does better than probably any point guard in the league is push the ball ahead."

• The manslaughter case against former New Jersey Nets star Jayson Williams returned to court as his attorneys argued in front of a three-judge panel in Hackensack, N.J., that prosecutors must divulge all details about a racial slur used by an investigator in the case.