The Boston Celtics have won more NBA titles than any other team, but none since 1986.

BOSTON (AP) – The best thing that can be said about Danny Ainge’s first year running the Boston Celtics is that it’s almost over.

Already on his third coach, with just three players remaining from the roster he inherited last May, Ainge may finally have turned the corner in his efforts to build a team resembling the one he played on in the 1980s. No, they’re not ready to win a championship yet, but at least Ainge is done tearing things apart and ready to start rebuilding.

“We’re all on the same page,” the former Celtics guard said last week after hiring Doc Rivers as the new coach. “That’s a great feeling that I have today that I haven’t had since I’ve been here.”

The Celtics have won a record 16 NBA titles, but their last was in 1986 with Ainge supplementing the trio of Larry Bird, Robert Parish and Kevin McHale. Since then, the team has spent most of its time in the NBA’s no-man’s land: Good enough to make the playoffs but not good enough to contend for banner No. 17.

That’s why Ainge was brought in last year in the middle of the conference semifinals and installed as the executive director of basketball operations. Even before the Celtics were swept by the New Jersey Nets, Ainge conceded that they weren’t championship material and promised a bold makeover.

He started by trading Antoine Walker – one of the team’s two stars – to the Dallas Mavericks nine days before the start of the season. The Celtics were hovering around .500 in mid-December when Ainge shipped Eric Williams and Tony Battie – favorites of coach Jim O’Brien – to the Cleveland Cavaliers for talented but troublesome guard Ricky Davis.

O’Brien soon had enough and quit a month later. John Carroll, an assistant originally brought in by Rick Pitino, took over on an interim basis and lost 12 of his first 13 games. He turned things around in time to grab the eighth and final playoff berth in the East but was let go the day after the first-round sweep by Indiana.

“The Celtics are going through a lot of changes, more than any team should have to go through in one year,” center Raef LaFrentz said at the news conference to introduce Rivers. “I think the waters are calming down and now we can get back to work.”

Ainge had wondered aloud about the wisdom of leaving the draft lottery for an almost certain first-round exit – a prophecy that came to pass – but fans had no such ambivalence. Going up against a Red Sox-Yankees series in New York, the Celtics failed to sell out either of their playoff games and TV ratings were lower than NASCAR – not the race, but the pre-race show.

“The Celtics fans are knowledgeable fans,” Ainge said. “We need to give them a product to watch.”

The next step is adding some stability to a team that Ainge has called “dysfunctional.” Reminded that most of the tumult originated with him, he said, “I do take responsibility.”

“It’s still a player’s job to play,” he added. “Some adversity that was unexpected, they reacted well in a lot of ways. Others, (that’s) not so.”

Ainge hopes that a large part of the solution will be a better relationship with Rivers, the first coach that has been of his own choosing. The Celtics also have three first-round draft picks this summer, giving Ainge a chance to reshape the team’s future in one stroke.

And, having pared their obligation to Vin Baker from about $40 million to $16 million over the next three years, the Celtics will have the salary cap space to sign free agents, too.

“I feel terrific today that we have a nucleus of young players and draft picks. Settling Vin Baker is huge,” owner Wyc Grousbeck said after Rivers was hired. “The situation is attractive enough that we could go out and get the best coach available. This is a new day for the Celtics.”

Rivers evidently thought so, too.

“If you like basketball, I don’t know how you can say no’ to this opportunity,” he said. “You can’t say no’ to the Boston Celtics.”