BOSTON -- It certainly didn't take Danny Ainge long. Less than a week on the job, he's already decided -- and said so, publicly -- that he has "no intention" of trading Antoine Walker and that he wants Jim O'Brien back for next year and beyond.

Geez, Chris Wallace could have done that.

Ainge, the Celtics' new hoop el jefe, has made a few things clear as to his vision of next year's Celtics team. He wants them to be better conditioned and more athletic. He wants better 3-point shooters. He wants a more up-tempo style. He wants a point guard who really is a point guard. He wants the current players to improve. He wants to make sure that if there is an untapped talent on the team, it's not overlooked. He even cited ex-Celtics like Joe Johnson and Chauncey Billups as players who have gone elsewhere and prospered.

	New Celtics GM Danny Ainge needs to find a true point guard.

Good luck, Danny.

Ainge has walked into a tough situation, but, as he noted, "If it was easy, anyone could do it." But he is inheriting a 44-win team in the NBA's Consolation Bracket with no salary cap room and little, if any, luxury tax flexibility. He does have two first-round picks, although, at Nos. 16 and 20, it's debatable what he can get and how much those fellows can help. This isn't the NFL where you could package the picks and move into the top 10. He still has Vin Baker on his roster along with no legitimate starting center or point guard.

What does he have? He has Paul Pierce, who is fast becoming one of the league's pure, unadulterated, volume scorers. And he has the quirky Walker, a power forward (without the power) who has led the league in 3-point attempts in each of the last two years while not even being among the top 50 in 3-point percentage. Both have been on the Eastern Conference All-Star team in each of the last two seasons.

And he has a coach who indulges such excesses as long as his guys do more than pay lip service to the concept of defense. It's not the most solid alliance, but O'Brien has coaxed 49 and 44 wins out of the Celtics in each of his first two full seasons. He more than anyone else has a read on the internal dynamics of the team as well as the personalities, having been here since 1997.

Keeping O'Brien around is a wise move because O'Brien may be the only coach on the planet who can deal successfully with this group. It would be hard to imagine O'Brien topping Ainge's list of potential coaches for just any team. It would be harder to imagine O'Brien not topping Ainge's list of potential coaches for this particular Celtics team. There's a relationship there that should be preserved, mainly because it has worked.

Ainge has shown that he is not a man with an agenda, that he didn't take the job so he could move in and make changes by bringing in his own people. He deserves credit for that -- as long as his bosses don't try to make him get O'Brien on the cheap. That won't work and it would be as good as telling O'Brien he wasn't wanted. It could also lead to a player insurrection.

Ainge also took a roundabout shot at O'Brien regarding Johnson, the team's No. 1 pick (10th overall) in 2001 who lasted half a season before being traded to the Suns. "If we're drafting Joe Johnson and we don't like to play him in Boston, but he explodes in Phoenix, we have to evaluate what we're doing," he told the Boston Globe. "It doesn't do me any good to go draft a player, if the coach isn't going to put him on the court and give him a chance to develop. If we're drafting players that aren't being developed or maybe we're drafting the wrong players, or maybe we're drafting the right players that aren't being developed properly ... either way it's bad."

As for not trading Walker, Ainge either a) painted himself into a corner or b) really has no plans to even inquire about Walker's value. Maybe he already has. He frequently chats with former teammate Kevin McHale, who isn't exactly chairman of the Walker Fan Club. Ainge saw a lot of the Celtics in his former gig at TNT and he saw too much of them in the Eastern Conference finals against New Jersey.

There's also the chance that Ainge recognizes that Walker's value and worth to the Celtics far exceeds his value or worth to another team. Walker has evolved in Boston from an enfant terrible to an almost gray eminence. He is the unquestioned locker room leader and O'Brien frequently offers up unsolicited praise for Walker's leadership abilities. That's a hard quality to find and harder still to replicate.

	The real judgment call will come when the team decides what to do with Walker down the road. He has two years left on his contract, a maximum deal. He has an opt-out clause after the 2003-04 season. Would he exercise it if he feels he's getting lowballed by the team?

Ainge may well have decided that Walker, warts and all, is worth having around. The real judgment call will come when the team decides what to do with Walker down the road. He has two years left on his contract, a maximum deal. He has an opt-out clause after the 2003-04 season. Would he exercise it if he feels he's getting lowballed by the team? It'd be hard to leave $14.6 million on the table in the hopes of getting that and more back in an increasingly tight market.

But that can wait. Ainge needs to find a point guard. The Celtics masqueraded four guys in that position this past season and then came unglued against Jason Kidd. It would help to get a big man who could produce in the post. That was supposed to be Baker. It could still be Baker, if the positive accounts of his rehab are to be believed. But that is asking a lot.

Ainge has little latitude in free agency. With seven players under contract next season for more than $52 million, he pretty much has been told that the mid-level exception is off limits. But that is going to be a tough sell to ticket holders, who've been asked to fork over huge increases for next season with the understating that the extra bucks will go towards personnel, not to the owners' wallets. We'll see.

For now, Ainge is doing what he always wanted to do. He feels it is the right place, the right time, the right price and the right thing for him to do. He's always been honest, sometimes to a fault, and he generally -- but not always (Luc Longley, for instance) -- has sound ideas about the game and the people who play it.

All the Celtics fans' hope is that he is allowed to do his thing and that will be enough for him -- and them. He asks to be judged by his deeds, not his words. While we're still waiting, the early signs appear to be encouraging.

Peter May, who covers the NBA for the Boston Globe, is a regular contributor to ESPN.com.