“I’d rather be lucky than good.” I’m sure you’ve heard that phrase at least once in your life. The recent re-emergence of the Boston Celtics as playoff contender under head coach Brad Stevens has to make their fan base feel a bit lucky, but how much of it really is luck or outstanding coaching?
The Good, Now Gone
The Celtics are a storied franchise with a proud tradition, but like all good teams – and even dynasties – time waits for no one. The former giants of the NBA that reigned on opposite coasts of America used to feature lineups of living legends and future hall of famers. Now, the Celtics are a team full of role players.
It hasn’t been all that long since the Celtics were a dominant team. Just a few seasons have passed since Kevin Garnett, Paul Pierce and Ray Allen combined under the coaching of Doc Rivers and Tom Thibodeau to dominate the Eastern Conference and win a championship.
That time has passed. Kevin Garnett, once a generational talent, is gracefully departing from the league in the great white north of Minnesota, where it all began for him. Paul Pierce has played for three different teams not named the Celtics in as many years, currently reunited with Rivers on the Los Angeles Clippers. Ray Allen is currently not in the NBA.
Even a wrung below their champions, players like Rajon Rondo and Jeff Green, the shelf is bare. The good of the old Boston, the most recent championship-winning Boston, is simply a memory.
No Stars Required
The new Boston is being built in a different way. GM Danny Ainge has traded away any semblance of their championship roster, including its coach, in favor of a score of draft picks, value contracts, castoffs and role players.
Among those moves, there is a one that stands out far above the rest: hiring Butler head coach Brad Stevens.
Stevens was something of a cult hero when he was hired in the summer of 2013. He was coming off of consecutive Final Four appearances coaching the Butler Bulldogs. He was young, in his mid-30s, and Ainge made him an NBA coach with a lucrative six-year contract. Not only was the contract rather large in term of years, but it was given to a young man who had never coached in the NBA before and was being pursued by multiple other professional teams.
His time in charge was meant to be a rebuild. This Celtics team lost its best players during his first season and a half in charge. His best players heading into the 2015 NBA season: Kelly Olynyk, Marcus Smart, Isaiah Thomas, Jae Crowder, and Evan Turner.
Down the stretch in 2015, players like Avery Bradley and Turner averaged numbers more respectable than anything they had managed before Stevens. Ultimately, the Celtics finished the season stronger than most outside the organization (myself included) thought they would and astonishingly made it into the playoffs going 20-11 after the All-Star break, included a 6-game winning streak to end the regular season.
Perhaps some of their success was due to the rest everyone got during the All-Star Weekend, seeing as the team had no All-Stars. However, it is much more likely that Stevens used his excellent coaching acumen to get his players to buy in and play hard.
No star player? None required. When the team needed befuddled wanderer Turner to step and make game-winning shots, he delivered. When Stevens needed the team to pick up the pace and take care of the ball, they did just that.
Boston is rounding into form again this season. This time they aren’t waiting until the All-Star break. After staring 1-3, the Celtics are back over .500 with a record of 8-7, good for second in the Atlantic Division and ninth in the Eastern Conference.
All of this is happening to a team that puts an out-of-shape Jared Sullinger on the floor as much as 33 minutes one night, but as little as 14 another. But it isn’t just Sullinger. Tyler Zeller has played as little as 3 minutes and as many as 16. The point is that Stevens is making adjustments as games unfold, playing the players that give the team the best chance to win.
Stevens, Can It All Be So Simple?
Stevens really does stand out as the difference maker for this team, from managing minutes to making in-game adjustments. During Summer League, rookie R.J. Hunter mentioned that Steven’s was telling his team what their opponents were going to do and when they were going to do it – before the game ever started.
Combining excellent play calling – some of the best BLOB sets in the league, a great STACK run with Thomas, Smart and Olynyk, and incorporation of other winners like the San Antonio Loop – with the ability to manage his player minutes, finding the right combination on the heap of spare parts at his disposal, is creating a winning team in Boston.
The situation in Boston is a perfect litmus test for the coaching of Stevens. Last week, I mildly took Orlando Magic head coach Scott Skiles to task for his minutes management – Mario Hezonja, the No. 5 pick in the 2015 NBA Draft who flashed some great skill in Summer League, played zero minutes in a loss to the New York Knicks on Wednesday.
Where the road forks and Skiles is seen in one light while Stevens is seen in another has a lot to do with roster, along with coaching skill, ability to relate to players, making in-game adjustments, and plain old likability.
While Skiles has pushed the Magic to a 7-8 record, sitting below the Celtics in the standings, the playing time has been a mess in the name of giving the team the best chance to win. Understandably, a coach needs to put in players that are playing well. However, Skiles has a loaded roster of future talent with an incredibly high ceiling and loads of All-Star caliber potential.
Stevens is managing the minutes of players like Smart, trying to develop the young players, while also getting some run out of guys like Bradley. Bradley has probably done enough to justify a roster spot on most NBA teams, but he isn’t a high-ceiling prospect. When Stevens gets career-best numbers out of Bradley and uses him in the right situations, it acts as a catalyst for the whole team. The same goes for David Lee, a Golden State Warriors castoff, used in limited situations but deployed correctly. Lee isn’t going to continue improving and likely will never get close to another All-Star Game appearance. Skiles on the other hand, has guys ready to bounce out of the gym they are so stuffed with potential. Sitting players like Aaron Gordon, Elfrid Payton or Victor Oladipo for extended minutes, crunch time or leaving them out of the starting lineup and rotation may make the coach feel like he is giving the team the best chance to win, but at what long-term cost?
Stevens doesn’t have an Oladipo or Hezonja right now, and he isn’t treating Kelly Olynyk’s playing time the same way Skiles is cranking it up for Evan Fournier. There is a great subtlety to coaching, one I barely understand, and Stevens seems to have it in a way that many of his peers and elders never will.
If you don’t believe me, beautiful mind Gregg Popovich himself admitted to “stealing” plays from Stevens last season. And this season, Popovich said, “I really respect the hell out of him.”
Celtics Core or Ahead of Schedule?
The Celtics probably didn’t plan to be here. That is why Ainge picked up Stevens on a six-year deal. That is why they traded away all of their big names and mid-tier talent. Boston has a pick coming to them next year from Brooklyn and that pick could next them a generational talent based on how poorly the Nets are playing this season.
This speaks volumes to the work Stevens has done in Boston. He knows they are going through massive roster turnover and so do the players on his squad. In a recent interview with the NBA Coaches Association, he said that the biggest challenge is creating a sense of purpose in players that know there is roster turnover and they can be part of that. This self-awareness makes it all the more remarkable that he has been able to develop talent in players like Olynyk while getting quality playing time out of Sullinger and Thomas. The work he has done to make Turner seem less like a human piñata by putting him in the right situations speaks volumes.
And all of the work that Stevens is doing — getting players to buy in, being self-aware about the process the team is in, developing players and managing minutes to creating opportunities to win – all of it is putting the Celtics ahead of schedule.
The Celtics have a lot of upside to be excited about. The work Stevens is doing is for a squad that has yet to develop of a core group of players who will be part of their next ascendancy to the top of the East. Players like Lee, Bradley, Sullinger, Turner, Crowder and Jerebko likely won’t be part of that core. Smart still has great upside and figures into the long-term plans of the team, but they still haven’t added another piece.
The time is coming, but it isn’t here yet. Boston will add a whole new group of young players, including at least one high lottery pick in the new two or three years, plus will have the benefit of looking to free agency to bring in some talent. Stevens also helps in that area. Players speak highly of Stevens. In an appearance on the Lowe Post podcast this summer, Jared Dudley said that beyond Rivers and Popovich, Stevens is one of the coaches highest on his board and inferred that many other players around the league are also impressed with his temperament and interaction with his team.
If the Celtics good form starts to fade, they’ve set themselves up to make moves. Lee, Thomas, Amir Johnson, Sullinger, Crowder and Bradley could all net them draft picks or better, depending on their form and what the receiving team has to offer. They could also look to package one or more of these players with the Brooklyn pick for next year in an attempt to snag high level player later this year. The roster doesn’t have enough talent on its own to help Boston make a straight trade for a talented player who can become part of the Celtics core so any movement on that front would need to include the Brooklyn pick and more.
Likely, the Celtics would have to be looking to free agency to acquire any big name talent or will have to start crossing their fingers now for a shot at a coveted college star like Ben Simmons. Whatever direction Boston chooses to in player acquisition, they already have the right coach in place and will make all the difference for them in the years to come.
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