Boston Celtics President and former Phoenix Suns coach and player Danny Ainge had a mild heart attack and is expected to fully recover.
The 60-year-old executive received immediate medical attention Tuesday night in Milwaukee, the team said in a statement Thursday. The Celtics were facing the Bucks in the second round of the playoffs.
Ainge, who also had a mild heart attack in 2009, was scheduled to return to Boston. Game 3 of the best-of-seven series is Friday night in Boston.
Ainge was an All-Star in 1988 and won two championships with the Celtics with the original Big Three of Larry Bird, Robert Parish and Kevin McHale.
Ainge ended his playing career with the Suns from 1992-95 and was a member of the Suns team that lost to the Chicago Bulls in the 1993 NBA Finals. He went on to coach the Suns for three-plus seasons from 1996-1999, leading Phoenix to a 136-90 regular-season record and three playoff appearances. He resigned early in the 1999-2000 season in order to spend more time with his family.
Ainge took over the Celtics basketball operations in 2003. He was the NBA executive of the year in 2008, after engineering the deals for Kevin Garnett and Ray Allen that helped the Celtics raise their unprecedented 17th NBA championship banner.
Ainge was a two-sport star at BYU who in 1981 won the Wooden Award as the nation's top college basketball player. He played parts of three seasons with the Toronto Blue Jays, batting .269, before settling into a 14-year career in the NBA.
