More goodies from RealGM:
Danny Ainge has created a cutthroat, rather thankless environment that does not engender trust or loyalty from the front office but expects the players to sacrifice everything for the organization. The perfect example is the handling of Isaiah Thomas -- for the 2016-17 season, he was fifth in MVP voting, second team all-NBA, led the Celtics to the first seed in the East and the Eastern Conference finals while playing despite his sister dying in an automobile accident, needing dental surgery and suffering a now-debilitating hip injury during that playoff run.
What was Thomas' reward for helping the Celtics overachieve and succeed? Getting traded.
Moreover, Ainge has shown that he looks at the players and drafted and developed by Celtics as rather disposable and largely rewards the players who come from other organizations. The three highest-paid players (Gordon Hayward, Al Horford and Kyrie Irving) came via free agency or trade. Despite spending two top three picks in consecutive drafts on small forwards, the Celtics sign another small forward (Hayward) to a $30 million-per-year contract because he was Brad Stevens' top player in college. Now playing the still-recovering Hayward is problematic as he has to get minutes to justify his contract, at the expense of Jaylen Brown and Jayson Tatum.
Of course, players such as Brown and Terry Rozier are going to be resentful. In any organization, there is going to be friction if an employer passes over an employee who played a major role in the organization (Brown, Rozier) in favor of hiring a new employee (Hayward, Irving) who gets more reputation and corporate leverage. Brown and Rozier see this situation as, "We were two of main reasons we went to Game 7 of the 2018 Eastern Conference finals, yet all we see are 'Wait 'til Kyrie and Gordon come back' -- two guys who didn't even play in the playoffs -- and our names in trade rumors."