Who is to blame more for disappointing season thus far. Ainge or Stevens?

[CF033]

Agree with Who. I think this is a player problem.

- Hayward took forever to get mediocre
- Brown took until early December before accepting his role and playing better more consistent ball.
-Injuries to the bigs left us with almost none for 4-6 games.
- Rozier being Rozier and being bad as a bench player but good as a starter.
- Tatum not really taking any developmental steps forward.

That's all player issues, not coaching or front office issues.

I agree that it's mostly on the players.  But would you not agree that Stevens deserves at least some criticism?  He's a great coach and I honestly want him here for many years to come.  This season however he's done an underwhelming job IMHO.

1) Our bench unit by itself would make for a decent starting NBA roster: Baynes (or Williams), Theis, Hayward, Brown, Rozier.  On paper anyway.  Brad has not yet been able to get the most out of the immense talent that is spread across our roster.  Our bench play overall is very inconsistent and stagnant offensively.  Haven't figured it out yet.

2) He is incredibly stubborn at times when it comes to in game adjustments.  For instance, sticking with his usual "switch everything" pick and roll coverage against Houston and letting Harden dismantle us did not seem ideal.  Not sure why you'd want to use a typical strategy against a player that is anything but typical, especially when it was clear that it was not working as the game progressed.

3) Trying too keep to many people happy by spreading minutes around.  Please Brad, just cut Terry Rozier's minutes and split most of them between Smart and Brown.  Especially Smart.  If that makes Terry unhappy then too bad.  He's done little this season to prove that he deserves the minutes he gets off the bench.  In many games his selfish play hurts our team.  Brad needs to recognize that and rein him in.

4) ATO plays don't seem as sharp as in years prior.  That's definitely on the players as well, but he needs to get them to execute.

5) Not calling time outs fast enough to stop the other team's momentum when they're on a run.  Now I know that this is debatable, and he seems to subscribe to the Phil Jackson, Popovich kind of philosophy where it's up to the players to "figure it out".  I'd normally have no issue with this, but we're still overall a young team that has not developed adequate chemistry to do this game by game.  I'd prefer Stevens call TO when he notices things going south, i.e when the other team has scored 3 buckets in a row while our offense looks ragged.

6) The points you've made about our players are spot on.  I don't disagree with any of that.  I'd argue that Tatum has regressed from last season.  That's on Tatum, but also on Brad and the rest of our coaches too.  Recall how Brad had a short leash on Tatum early in the season when he'd go into hero ball mode.  We're not seeing that as much anymore, and Tatum looks more and more like Carmelo Anthony with each passing game.

7) Inconsistency.  Primarily a player issue.  But the lack of effort that is observable at times is frustrating to watch.  They say that the team takes on the characteristics of the coach.  I don't think that this is true with Stevens, but is he still getting through to everyone in the locker room?

Shared blame.  That's how I see it.  I think that these are fair criticisms from a neutral perspective.  Again, I want Brad here.  We could do far, far worse.

Long term outlook - it's hard to be pessimistic.  Even if we don't do well this year, we're still set up incredibly well.  Ainge has done an incredible job.  I'm also still relatively optimistic about this year.  In recent years we've played great basketball after the All Star Break.  I think things will round into form and this will be the case again.  I've said and will continue to say that none of the teams in the East want to play us in a 7 game series, especially in round 1.

The question was who is more to blame. I agree with Who that it's more a players not performing problem. That doesn't mean Stevens and Ainge aren't also to fault but I think it fairly obvious that the biggest problem has been player performance.

I mean, blaming Stevens for most of what's wrong, in my opinion, is like trying to blame a ship sinking on the one guy trying to bail water out of the ship instead of the 15 guys looking at the hole in the ship's side and doing nothing about plugging the hole.

Stevens has maybe cost this team one loss. That's it. The other 5-6 bad losses were all on the players

It's not really that simple. If players aren't performing up to their potential due to chemistry issues then that falls on the team composition/line up choices which falls back on CBS and DA. Realistically everyone factors in.

[Celtics17]

This team is set up right now to make a big trade this summer. There is too much middle/upper talent and not enough upper end talent. It was kind of planned this way but with Hayward being the All Star he use to be but that hasnt worked out yet. Coaching is very difficult when you have a team like this because you dont always know who can be counted on. Sometimes too much talent can be as much of a problem as too little.

Let's not count this season a disappointment until after the playoffs are over and hopefully not then either. Time will tell what both CBS and DA can do but now is not that time.

[footey]

Reality is that we probably will not win championship as constructed. Toronto and Milwaukee are a notch better, and that’s just the East.

Our best chance is to be patient and hope we can put together good enough package to get Davis or another star. And hope Hayward somehow can return to his Utah level or close to.

See no point of a panic trade to try and win this season, which likely won’t get us much further and would diminish what we can offer Pels in offseason.

[NKY fan]

I think DA is more to blame!!... he miscalculated The make up of the roster. I don’t blame young players for not being on the same page as the vets... they were fine without them this last April and May.
Now they have to be led by and defer to two guys that don’t really affect the W/L column that much.
 With that said CBS is to blame for underestimating the effect of the new defensive rules that the league introduced and send memos to all teams...
Remember the pathetic showing in preseasons games against the cavs? Our players were clearly surprised by the foul calling... this carried over to the first 10 games as well.

[RodyTur10]

Agree with Who. I think this is a player problem.

- Hayward took forever to get mediocre
- Brown took until early December before accepting his role and playing better more consistent ball.
-Injuries to the bigs left us with almost none for 4-6 games.
- Rozier being Rozier and being bad as a bench player but good as a starter.
- Tatum not really taking any developmental steps forward.

That's all player issues, not coaching or front office issues.

I agree that it's mostly on the players.  But would you not agree that Stevens deserves at least some criticism?  He's a great coach and I honestly want him here for many years to come.  This season however he's done an underwhelming job IMHO.

1) Our bench unit by itself would make for a decent starting NBA roster: Baynes (or Williams), Theis, Hayward, Brown, Rozier.  On paper anyway.  Brad has not yet been able to get the most out of the immense talent that is spread across our roster.  Our bench play overall is very inconsistent and stagnant offensively.  Haven't figured it out yet.

2) He is incredibly stubborn at times when it comes to in game adjustments.  For instance, sticking with his usual "switch everything" pick and roll coverage against Houston and letting Harden dismantle us did not seem ideal.  Not sure why you'd want to use a typical strategy against a player that is anything but typical, especially when it was clear that it was not working as the game progressed.

3) Trying too keep to many people happy by spreading minutes around.  Please Brad, just cut Terry Rozier's minutes and split most of them between Smart and Brown.  Especially Smart.  If that makes Terry unhappy then too bad.  He's done little this season to prove that he deserves the minutes he gets off the bench.  In many games his selfish play hurts our team.  Brad needs to recognize that and rein him in.

4) ATO plays don't seem as sharp as in years prior.  That's definitely on the players as well, but he needs to get them to execute.

5) Not calling time outs fast enough to stop the other team's momentum when they're on a run.  Now I know that this is debatable, and he seems to subscribe to the Phil Jackson, Popovich kind of philosophy where it's up to the players to "figure it out".  I'd normally have no issue with this, but we're still overall a young team that has not developed adequate chemistry to do this game by game.  I'd prefer Stevens call TO when he notices things going south, i.e when the other team has scored 3 buckets in a row while our offense looks ragged.

6) The points you've made about our players are spot on.  I don't disagree with any of that.  I'd argue that Tatum has regressed from last season.  That's on Tatum, but also on Brad and the rest of our coaches too.  Recall how Brad had a short leash on Tatum early in the season when he'd go into hero ball mode.  We're not seeing that as much anymore, and Tatum looks more and more like Carmelo Anthony with each passing game.

7) Inconsistency.  Primarily a player issue.  But the lack of effort that is observable at times is frustrating to watch.  They say that the team takes on the characteristics of the coach.  I don't think that this is true with Stevens, but is he still getting through to everyone in the locker room?

Shared blame.  That's how I see it.  I think that these are fair criticisms from a neutral perspective.  Again, I want Brad here.  We could do far, far worse.

Long term outlook - it's hard to be pessimistic.  Even if we don't do well this year, we're still set up incredibly well.  Ainge has done an incredible job.  I'm also still relatively optimistic about this year.  In recent years we've played great basketball after the All Star Break.  I think things will round into form and this will be the case again.  I've said and will continue to say that none of the teams in the East want to play us in a 7 game series, especially in round 1.

The question was who is more to blame. I agree with Who that it's more a players not performing problem. That doesn't mean Stevens and Ainge aren't also to fault but I think it fairly obvious that the biggest problem has been player performance.

I mean, blaming Stevens for most of what's wrong, in my opinion, is like trying to blame a ship sinking on the one guy trying to bail water out of the ship instead of the 15 guys looking at the hole in the ship's side and doing nothing about plugging the hole.

Stevens has maybe cost this team one loss. That's it. The other 5-6 bad losses were all on the players

So you don't think Popovich would be able to extract 4-5 more wins with the same team?!

For sure Popovich would keep players way more accountable than Stevens. He wouldn't allow Tatum to go into iso-mode all the time. Rozier probably would've been brought close to tears, when he was confronted during a time-out with his lack of ball movement. And I'm sure Popovich would've something to say about the team repeatedly giving up lay-ups. 

Stevens deserves credit for his accomplishments in the past, but this season is well below expectations. I firmly believe that the Celtics are just as talented as the Raptors and the Bucks. We should've been right in there in the fight for the #1 seed. I hope our coach can turn it around.

If we get knocked out in the first round of the playoffs and Irving decides he'd better team up with for example Durant, Leonard or Butler, because he doesn't believe the Celtics are on the right track, things go south really quickly. Then immediately there's no reason to make a trade for Davis (since it's unlikely he would re-sign) and we basically have to count on the future with Rozier, Smart, Brown, Tatum, Ojeleye, Theis, Williams and draft picks.

Not a bad place to be in, but not what we're looking for.

[Tr1boy]

Agree with Who. I think this is a player problem.

- Hayward took forever to get mediocre
- Brown took until early December before accepting his role and playing better more consistent ball.
-Injuries to the bigs left us with almost none for 4-6 games.
- Rozier being Rozier and being bad as a bench player but good as a starter.
- Tatum not really taking any developmental steps forward.

That's all player issues, not coaching or front office issues.

I agree that it's mostly on the players.  But would you not agree that Stevens deserves at least some criticism?  He's a great coach and I honestly want him here for many years to come.  This season however he's done an underwhelming job IMHO.

1) Our bench unit by itself would make for a decent starting NBA roster: Baynes (or Williams), Theis, Hayward, Brown, Rozier.  On paper anyway.  Brad has not yet been able to get the most out of the immense talent that is spread across our roster.  Our bench play overall is very inconsistent and stagnant offensively.  Haven't figured it out yet.

2) He is incredibly stubborn at times when it comes to in game adjustments.  For instance, sticking with his usual "switch everything" pick and roll coverage against Houston and letting Harden dismantle us did not seem ideal.  Not sure why you'd want to use a typical strategy against a player that is anything but typical, especially when it was clear that it was not working as the game progressed.

3) Trying too keep to many people happy by spreading minutes around.  Please Brad, just cut Terry Rozier's minutes and split most of them between Smart and Brown.  Especially Smart.  If that makes Terry unhappy then too bad.  He's done little this season to prove that he deserves the minutes he gets off the bench.  In many games his selfish play hurts our team.  Brad needs to recognize that and rein him in.

4) ATO plays don't seem as sharp as in years prior.  That's definitely on the players as well, but he needs to get them to execute.

5) Not calling time outs fast enough to stop the other team's momentum when they're on a run.  Now I know that this is debatable, and he seems to subscribe to the Phil Jackson, Popovich kind of philosophy where it's up to the players to "figure it out".  I'd normally have no issue with this, but we're still overall a young team that has not developed adequate chemistry to do this game by game.  I'd prefer Stevens call TO when he notices things going south, i.e when the other team has scored 3 buckets in a row while our offense looks ragged.

6) The points you've made about our players are spot on.  I don't disagree with any of that.  I'd argue that Tatum has regressed from last season.  That's on Tatum, but also on Brad and the rest of our coaches too.  Recall how Brad had a short leash on Tatum early in the season when he'd go into hero ball mode.  We're not seeing that as much anymore, and Tatum looks more and more like Carmelo Anthony with each passing game.

7) Inconsistency.  Primarily a player issue.  But the lack of effort that is observable at times is frustrating to watch.  They say that the team takes on the characteristics of the coach.  I don't think that this is true with Stevens, but is he still getting through to everyone in the locker room?

Shared blame.  That's how I see it.  I think that these are fair criticisms from a neutral perspective.  Again, I want Brad here.  We could do far, far worse.

Long term outlook - it's hard to be pessimistic.  Even if we don't do well this year, we're still set up incredibly well.  Ainge has done an incredible job.  I'm also still relatively optimistic about this year.  In recent years we've played great basketball after the All Star Break.  I think things will round into form and this will be the case again.  I've said and will continue to say that none of the teams in the East want to play us in a 7 game series, especially in round 1.

The question was who is more to blame. I agree with Who that it's more a players not performing problem. That doesn't mean Stevens and Ainge aren't also to fault but I think it fairly obvious that the biggest problem has been player performance.

I mean, blaming Stevens for most of what's wrong, in my opinion, is like trying to blame a ship sinking on the one guy trying to bail water out of the ship instead of the 15 guys looking at the hole in the ship's side and doing nothing about plugging the hole.

Stevens has maybe cost this team one loss. That's it. The other 5-6 bad losses were all on the players

So you don't think Popovich would be able to extract 4-5 more wins with the same team?!

For sure Popovich would keep players way more accountable than Stevens. He wouldn't allow Tatum to go into iso-mode all the time. Rozier probably would've been brought close to tears, when he was confronted during a time-out with his lack of ball movement. And I'm sure Popovich would've something to say about the team repeatedly giving up lay-ups. 

Stevens deserves credit for his accomplishments in the past, but this season is well below expectations. I firmly believe that the Celtics are just as talented as the Raptors and the Bucks. We should've been right in there in the fight for the #1 seed. I hope our coach can turn it around.

If we get knocked out in the first round of the playoffs and Irving decides he'd better team up with for example Durant, Leonard or Butler, because he doesn't believe the Celtics are on the right track, things go south really quickly. Then immediately there's no reason to make a trade for Davis (since it's unlikely he would re-sign) and we basically have to count on the future with Rozier, Smart, Brown, Tatum, Ojeleye, Theis, Williams and draft picks.

Not a bad place to be in, but not what we're looking for.

you forgot Hayward~

And I mean we haven't even seen Tatum, Brown ceiling

unfortunately due to a full squad, their growth has been stunted

[RodyTur10]

Agree with Who. I think this is a player problem.

- Hayward took forever to get mediocre
- Brown took until early December before accepting his role and playing better more consistent ball.
-Injuries to the bigs left us with almost none for 4-6 games.
- Rozier being Rozier and being bad as a bench player but good as a starter.
- Tatum not really taking any developmental steps forward.

That's all player issues, not coaching or front office issues.

I agree that it's mostly on the players.  But would you not agree that Stevens deserves at least some criticism?  He's a great coach and I honestly want him here for many years to come.  This season however he's done an underwhelming job IMHO.

1) Our bench unit by itself would make for a decent starting NBA roster: Baynes (or Williams), Theis, Hayward, Brown, Rozier.  On paper anyway.  Brad has not yet been able to get the most out of the immense talent that is spread across our roster.  Our bench play overall is very inconsistent and stagnant offensively.  Haven't figured it out yet.

2) He is incredibly stubborn at times when it comes to in game adjustments.  For instance, sticking with his usual "switch everything" pick and roll coverage against Houston and letting Harden dismantle us did not seem ideal.  Not sure why you'd want to use a typical strategy against a player that is anything but typical, especially when it was clear that it was not working as the game progressed.

3) Trying too keep to many people happy by spreading minutes around.  Please Brad, just cut Terry Rozier's minutes and split most of them between Smart and Brown.  Especially Smart.  If that makes Terry unhappy then too bad.  He's done little this season to prove that he deserves the minutes he gets off the bench.  In many games his selfish play hurts our team.  Brad needs to recognize that and rein him in.

4) ATO plays don't seem as sharp as in years prior.  That's definitely on the players as well, but he needs to get them to execute.

5) Not calling time outs fast enough to stop the other team's momentum when they're on a run.  Now I know that this is debatable, and he seems to subscribe to the Phil Jackson, Popovich kind of philosophy where it's up to the players to "figure it out".  I'd normally have no issue with this, but we're still overall a young team that has not developed adequate chemistry to do this game by game.  I'd prefer Stevens call TO when he notices things going south, i.e when the other team has scored 3 buckets in a row while our offense looks ragged.

6) The points you've made about our players are spot on.  I don't disagree with any of that.  I'd argue that Tatum has regressed from last season.  That's on Tatum, but also on Brad and the rest of our coaches too.  Recall how Brad had a short leash on Tatum early in the season when he'd go into hero ball mode.  We're not seeing that as much anymore, and Tatum looks more and more like Carmelo Anthony with each passing game.

7) Inconsistency.  Primarily a player issue.  But the lack of effort that is observable at times is frustrating to watch.  They say that the team takes on the characteristics of the coach.  I don't think that this is true with Stevens, but is he still getting through to everyone in the locker room?

Shared blame.  That's how I see it.  I think that these are fair criticisms from a neutral perspective.  Again, I want Brad here.  We could do far, far worse.

Long term outlook - it's hard to be pessimistic.  Even if we don't do well this year, we're still set up incredibly well.  Ainge has done an incredible job.  I'm also still relatively optimistic about this year.  In recent years we've played great basketball after the All Star Break.  I think things will round into form and this will be the case again.  I've said and will continue to say that none of the teams in the East want to play us in a 7 game series, especially in round 1.

The question was who is more to blame. I agree with Who that it's more a players not performing problem. That doesn't mean Stevens and Ainge aren't also to fault but I think it fairly obvious that the biggest problem has been player performance.

I mean, blaming Stevens for most of what's wrong, in my opinion, is like trying to blame a ship sinking on the one guy trying to bail water out of the ship instead of the 15 guys looking at the hole in the ship's side and doing nothing about plugging the hole.

Stevens has maybe cost this team one loss. That's it. The other 5-6 bad losses were all on the players

So you don't think Popovich would be able to extract 4-5 more wins with the same team?!

For sure Popovich would keep players way more accountable than Stevens. He wouldn't allow Tatum to go into iso-mode all the time. Rozier probably would've been brought close to tears, when he was confronted during a time-out with his lack of ball movement. And I'm sure Popovich would've something to say about the team repeatedly giving up lay-ups. 

Stevens deserves credit for his accomplishments in the past, but this season is well below expectations. I firmly believe that the Celtics are just as talented as the Raptors and the Bucks. We should've been right in there in the fight for the #1 seed. I hope our coach can turn it around.

If we get knocked out in the first round of the playoffs and Irving decides he'd better team up with for example Durant, Leonard or Butler, because he doesn't believe the Celtics are on the right track, things go south really quickly. Then immediately there's no reason to make a trade for Davis (since it's unlikely he would re-sign) and we basically have to count on the future with Rozier, Smart, Brown, Tatum, Ojeleye, Theis, Williams and draft picks.

Not a bad place to be in, but not what we're looking for.

you forgot Hayward~

And I mean we haven't even seen Tatum, Brown ceiling

unfortunately due to a full squad, their growth has been stunted

I didn't forget Hayward. If we lose Irving I don't think the Celtics can compete for a championship the next two years of his remaining contract, although they would have cap space in 2020. So maybe I should have mentioned him  .

It would be very interesting how good a core of Smart, Brown, Tatum, Williams and others can become, but the team on paper looks so close to being a contender right now that having to take a gamble on that future looks underwhelming. How strange that may seem. Half of the NBA teams would immediately trade their whole roster for those 4 players.

[MikeB12]

So all of a sudden Stevens is the main problem after every year before this the Celtics improved their season win total.  Wow.

Last year the Celtics overachieved no question about that in my opinion.

So this year just about every Celtic fan jumps on the wagon to say the C's are the favorite in the East without giving proper consideration to the chemistry aspect with Irving and Hayward coming back.

The Celtics were 1 game from the NBA finals last year but not many really realized how tough improving by 1 game to make the finals this year would be.   Many C's fans just assumed - hey the Celtics have to be the favorites don't they?

Well, Toronto improved; Milwaukee improved and Philly and Indiana look tough too.

So the Celtics are stuck in the 5th playoff spot and they may not improve that position but the situation is more complicated that just blaming Stevens.  Injuries this year and the changing chemistry of the team are the biggest reasons for the struggles this year.

MikeB (Celtics fan for over 50 years)

[CF033]

So all of a sudden Stevens is the main problem after every year before this the Celtics improved their season win total.  Wow.

Last year the Celtics overachieved no question about that in my opinion.

So this year just about every Celtic fan jumps on the wagon to say the C's are the favorite in the East without giving proper consideration to the chemistry aspect with Irving and Hayward coming back.

The Celtics were 1 game from the NBA finals last year but not many really realized how tough improving by 1 game to make the finals this year would be.   Many C's fans just assumed - hey the Celtics have to be the favorites don't they?

Well, Toronto improved; Milwaukee improved and Philly and Indiana look tough too.

So the Celtics are stuck in the 5th playoff spot and they may not improve that position but the situation is more complicated that just blaming Stevens.  Injuries this year and the changing chemistry of the team are the biggest reasons for the struggles this year.

MikeB (Celtics fan for over 50 years)

To be fair a lot of sports casters/columnists etc picked the Celts to be best in the east this year, not just celtics fans.

[86MaxwellSmart]

We need a 3 for 1 trade.

[gpap]

So all of a sudden Stevens is the main problem after every year before this the Celtics improved their season win total.  Wow.

Last year the Celtics overachieved no question about that in my opinion.

So this year just about every Celtic fan jumps on the wagon to say the C's are the favorite in the East without giving proper consideration to the chemistry aspect with Irving and Hayward coming back.

The Celtics were 1 game from the NBA finals last year but not many really realized how tough improving by 1 game to make the finals this year would be.   Many C's fans just assumed - hey the Celtics have to be the favorites don't they?

Well, Toronto improved; Milwaukee improved and Philly and Indiana look tough too.

So the Celtics are stuck in the 5th playoff spot and they may not improve that position but the situation is more complicated that just blaming Stevens.  Injuries this year and the changing chemistry of the team are the biggest reasons for the struggles this year.

MikeB (Celtics fan for over 50 years)

It's just as illogical to think Stevens doesn't deserve any criticism at all and can just walk through raindrops because Boston has taken a liking to him since day one.

I know he's the golden boy in town, but the coach's job is to steer the ship in the right direction. So far, he hasn't done that.

[footey]

Good interview with Mike Gorman on Celtics Beat today. He feels that Al is the leader/team elder but is very quiet, compared with the 2008 team where KG was very vocal. Every player on the 08 team knew their role from game 1, this is team is still trying to figure it out, and the lack of leadership is making it more difficult.

He also said it was not 100% that Kyrie would return.

[Chris22]

Disappointing season? Hardly.

We have played well since moving Hayward and Brown to the second unit.
We lost Horford and Baynes for a while, and that has hurt us.
When Baynes comes back, we will kick ass again.

I do think Brad should play Williams with the starting unit, when we are playing teams with size and length.

[mctyson]

Neither guy. They are doing their jobs well.

It is down the players.

Yep, really cannot blame either for Rozier and Brown not playing hard or well, and for Hayward not mixing in well (though Stevens is to blame for some of that).

I can blame Ainge a bit for not capitalizing on Roziers playoffs and trading him this offseason, but you need a partner too.

[Moranis]

I'm confused why so many think this is a disappointing season thus far.  The team has performed about as expected especially given all of the missed games by virtually everyone on the team.