Brad Stevens has been excellent for the Boston Celtics. To evaluate his tenure here and spin it as more negative than positive requires putting far more weight on the negatives than the positives.
Early coaching success is fantastic. Scrappy underdog teams that consistently overachieved. Later tenure had some disappointments, but I’d put a lot of that blame on the GM.. Players brought in that were malcontents, loss of Horford the most team oriented player, hoarding of draft picks and marginal players drafted with those picks. Expectations were higher but results were similar to those underdog teams. And his last year was bad, players tuned him out. In general, pretty hard to armchair coach nitpick his in game management, ATO plays and emphasis on ball movement. Definitely a talented coach, was seen as a top 3-5 coach in the league.
The transition to GM was great. He identified players that fit with his core (Horford and White) and wasn’t afraid to use draft capital to obtain them. He continues to be excellent at using draft capital at the trade deadline to improve a championship caliber team without emptying the war chest. Brogdon was a good get, Hauser contract and Pritchard contracts are excellent value. He wasn’t afraid to make major changes to a championship caliber team bringing in Holiday and Porzingis, again at decent value. The roster has gotten better every year he has been GM.
Initially a good coaching hire but then when that coach deserved to be fired, the transition was bumbled. Hiring a second rookie coach was risky, especially with minimal time to prepare. Failure to reach the finals last year was the result of that bumble. Mazulla isn’t incompetent, he has the team playing hard, fully bought in and it’s hard to quibble w the excellent regular season this year. But really high expectations this year and if Mazulla’s rookie coaching inadequacies rear their head in the playoffs again this year…that hire will be a failure. So TBD.
Past and present, Steven’s has put this organization in a position for success, but hasn’t been able to get them over the hump. Unless you view anything short of a championship as a failure, his tenure has been really good.