Brad didn't make Thomas a good basketball player. IT was (and still is) a good player because of the thousands of hours he put into his craft every over the course of 27 years, but everyone in the NBA is a good basketball player. There are probably 100 NBA players who could get numbers if they were given consistent minutes on a bad team. In the NBA, the winners are the only ones that matter at the end of the day, and Stevens made Thomas a winner. And, most importantly, Stevens made Thomas into a superstar, the rare NBA player who can "get his" while directly correlating his positive performance with wins. So you are correct in asserting that Stevens didn't make Thomas "what he is" (a very good basketball player), but he DID shift the league-wide perception of Thomas, which is much more important when it comes time to solicit contract offers.