Celtics' Ainge suffers mild heart attack, expected to make full recovery
Boston Celtics president of basketball operations Danny Ainge suffered a mild heart attack in Milwaukee on Tuesday night, the team announced Thursday.
The 60-year-old, who also suffered a mild heart attack in 2009, received immediate medical attention and is expected to recover fully.
Ainge is expected to return to Boston on Thursday evening, sources told The Athletic's Shams Charania, who adds that the executive is walking around and feeling much better.
"He's resting well and feels better," head coach Brad Stevens said Thursday, according to NBC Sports' Chris Forsberg. "Obviously, always scary but he's got a good support network. Expect a full recovery and he's feeling good. So that's all positive."
A Celtics legend, Ainge has held his current position with the club since May 2003. He played the majority of his 14 NBA seasons in Boston, winning a pair of NBA championships in six Finals appearances.
Ainge made his lone All-Star appearance with the Celtics in the 1987-88 season and retired as one of three players in NBA history to make 1,000 or more career 3-pointers. He finished his career ranked sixth in NBA postseason history with 172 triples made.
He was named the NBA Executive of the Year in 2008, due in large part to engineering offseason trades for stars Kevin Garnett and Ray Allen, who formed a Big Three with Celtics mainstay Paul Pierce.
After leading Boston to a 66-16 regular-season record, a 42-win improvement from the previous season and the most dramatic single-season turnaround in league history, the trio helped deliver the franchise its 17th NBA title and first since 1986.
Ainge also masterminded one of the most lopsided trades in NBA history, dealing the aging Garnett and Pierce to the Brooklyn Nets in 2013 in a nine-player blockbuster that sent three first-round picks - and the right to swap another - Boston's way.
The Celtics drafted young stars Jaylen Brown and Jayson Tatum with two of those picks and dealt another to acquire Kyrie Irving.