Is our front office / coaching staff better or worse than last year?

[Roy H.]

Explain your reasoning.

[gouki88]

Coach is certainly worse in my opinion. We’ve got a fairly substantial sample size to be able to say that with confidence. He just has no idea on the offensive side of things.

Front office is a bit worse, I think. Made some good moves like the Williams extension, but also made some really random ones. I have no idea what direction our FO thinks this team is headed, and I’m not sure they do either. I’m willing to give Stevens more time though.

[Kiorrik]

Honestly, if we have the same record with two rookies as Head Coach and General Manager ... could do a lot worse.

I feel like something's either about to go down, or should be going down soon though.

As in, we do need a shakeup of sorts. Whether that's a big signing, a big trade, a firing ...

Something.

[nebist]

I voted worse coach. Better front office. I generally trust Brad. I think he’s really smart and level-headed. There were times I wanted him to be more of a hard-ass as a coach, but I don’t think that is any kind of detriment in the GM role.

I have been decidedly underwhelmed with Ime’s decision-making processes with strategy, rotations, and offensive vision.

Ainge was an excellent GM for a long time, but I think his last several years he got stale and started to miss some serious opportunities. I liked Brad’s decisiveness in his first offseason, and I thought both the Timelord and Smart extensions were 100% the right way to go. Obviously, there is more work to be done on the roster this deadline/offseason, but I generally trust that Brad will make strong, logical decisions.

[Atzar]

Front office is better, mostly because I think Ainge's last year was one of his worst as GM of the Celtics. 

Coaching is a push.  Stevens, like Ainge, had his worst year as coach last year.  Udoka has struggled, but that's not a high hurdle to clear and I do think Ime has made some progress as the year has gone on.  First year Udoka doesn't come close to the rest of Stevens' tenure as coach, but we'll see if he makes a leap from year one to year two.  Sometimes coaches do. 

[Celtics2021]

Not sure about front office.  I think the last year-plus of Ainge made a lot of questionable trade, signings, and picks that Stevens has had to unwind.  The entire 2020 draft, the Hayward saga, coming out of the Hayward saga by trading two seconds for a TPE that was questionably used (Fournier for two more seconds when they probably weren’t going to resign him, as opposed to having the full exception available for draft night), signing Thompson which limited their ability to use the full TPE they just acquired, dumping Theis and Green when only one needed to be moved to get under the tax, and so on.

And so from that vantage, I think the Kemba trade was necessary.  Getting Richardson and extending him was a solid move for no cost.  Rob Williams’ extension looks like a steal.  Schröder has been up-and-down, but will hopefully fetch us a second if nothing else.  I like the Smart extension, although I know that is not universally held here.  I don’t think it’s a bargain, but I don’t think it’s a bad contract either.  I’m not sure I would’ve traded two more seconds for a Fournier TPE, but I’ll withhold judgment until it’s either used or expires, although given the cost of that one, my bar to clear is high.  I’m not sure Ainge would have made any of those extensions.

Obviously the coaching is worse.  That said, I have liked some improvements I’ve seen.  At the beginning of the season, it was a pretty basic switch everything scheme.  That worked all right to a degree, because there is a lot of defensive versatility on the roster.  But it’s become a much more complex defense now, with Rob roaming all over, pressuring outside while still defending the rim in the same possession, Smart being allowed to fight through screens to keep on the primary backcourt threat instead of switching and having a lesser defender take over, etc.  The scheme is also more flexible and changes on more of a nightly basis, rather than being predictable every night.  Again, overall it’s been worse, but there’s been some growth and I hope to continue to see it.  Consistency has been a problem dating to last year, but he certainly hasn’t fixed it, and it’s arguably gotten worse.

As an aside, the more I’ve watched the way Rob is used, the more I’m of the opinion that Sabonis would be a great fit here.  He’s matched poorly with Turner over the years, but with Rob rarely matching with a center on D, I think they’d fit quite well, and he’s now one of my top trade targets.

[Goldstar88]

I think Brad has done a good job putting the team together and signing/extending players. I actually like the roster. Just feel like the coach is mismanaging the team, specifically on offense. If we had a coach that knew how to run an offense (D’Antoni) I believe the C’s would be a top 4 team in the East.

[Goldstar88]

Dup

[liam]

Ime drives me crazy and Brad hasn't really put his stamp on this team yet so I'd say it's too early to judge. Both Brad as a coach and Danny as GM seemed like they phoned it in last year so a change had to be made. I'm hoping for the best.