In the midst of March Madness, that time every year when college basketball takes over the headlines, Brad Stevens desperately wanted people to know that he had no plans on leaving Boston and the NBA to coach Indiana. “I'm a 44-year-old Ma—hole,” he said in response to the latest rumor. “I swerve around others when I'm driving, I eat Dunkin Donuts and I root for the Patriots." It seems clear that, despite speculation on Twitter and elsewhere, Stevens plans to remain the Boston Celtics' head coach for the time being. Stevens's impromptu celebration of Boston, however, comes after a growing subsection of Celtics fans have began publicly campaigning for a coaching change.
Let’s start with the obvious: Stevens signed a contract extension with the Celtics just last year, a clear sign that—at least at the time—the two sides were on the same page. And why wouldn’t they be? While he has not been immune to criticism—no head coach is, nor should they be—Stevens’s Celtics teams have tended to overachieve more often than not. Stevens has gotten phenomenal performances out of unheralded players—most famously helping to turn Isaiah Thomas into an All-Star and borderline MVP candidate—many of whom have had their greatest success under Stevens’s watch.
On top of that, Stevens has also been a big reason that Celtics draft picks Jayson Tatum, Jaylen Brown and Marcus Smart have gradually evolved into the team's core players. Robert Williams, drafted as something of a project, has also recently started to put things together. (It’s worth nothing that among the valid criticisms of Stevens this season has been his delay in trusting Williams with more playing time).
This season, however, has been Steven’s biggest challenge yet and he looks far away from passing it. The Celtics are struggling and this time there’s no Gordon Hayward injury or Kyrie Irving Locker Room Drama to blame. Boston has just been struggling. Every time this team looks like it’s about to find its rhythm, it loses it once more. The Celtics have gone on few sustained winnings streaks and have come out flat when faced with the league’s best teams. With last night’s overtime loss to the Memphis Grizzlies, the Celtics have once again fallen below the .500 mark and are now in eighth place in the Eastern Conference.
Boston’s struggles have fueled the thought that Stevens, who led Butler on their historic 2010 run to the NCAA Men’s Championship Game, could be interested in returning to his college roots. Indiana, one of the most storied programs in the country, recently moved on from Archie Miller and is hunting for a new coach. This is the kind of job that could tempt even someone who has more than proved he has earned his spot in the pros. There’s definitely a segment of Indiana supporters who would love to see his NCAA return. In fact, somebody recently built an entire shrine to Stevens outside of IU’s Assembly Hall.
In contrast, there are some Celtics fans that have been openly hoping for Stevens to switch employer or for the franchise to make that decision for him. Fans calling for a coach’s head is an inevitable consequence of a team sporting a talented roster failing to come together. In this particular case, there are clear issues with playing effort while the defense—as emphasized by last night’s game where they were outscored 76-48 in the paint during regulation—has been at best disappointing. While they continue to get production from Brown and Tatum (both legit All-Stars) the crowded bench is filled with inexperienced players who have yet to differentiate themselves.
This isn’t all on the head coach, but he certainly deserves a slice of the metaphorical “blame pie.” Given that Stevens’s whole reputation lies with putting his players in the best position to win, it’s impossible to overlook the fact that the “Stevens touch” has been lacking this year. It’s been troubling enough that a certain group of fans doesn’t see Stevens as the person who routinely takes the Celtics to the Eastern Conference Finals but rather the one who has yet to take them to the NBA Finals.
It’s not a completely unfair take but it leads to a follow-up question: who exactly do you replace Stevens with? Is there really an available head coach who could be the one to take this team over the hump. Should the Celtics blow-up their long-term plan, which definitely includes Stevens,simply because their young team has taken a step back while experiencing perhaps inevitable growing pains? There’s an unmistakable element of “the grass is always green” at play here.
Stevens deserves criticism and no amount of “we all have to become better” speeches, of which there have been far too many this season, will make up for that. That aside, the idea of the Celtics moving on from him so soon after signing him to an extension would be a clear-cut overreaction to an admittingly frustrating season. The future is never certain in professional sports but, for the time being, it sure doesn’t sound like Stevens is going anywhere.
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March 23, 2021 at 08:00PM
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Like It Or Not, These Are Brad Stevens’s Boston Celtics - Forbes
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