Criticism of Stevens' Lack of Communication With Players per Sporting News

[moiso]

Maybe if Lee bothered to show up in shape he would have won Stevens over a little more than he did.

[Surferdad]

Maybe if Lee bothered to show up in shape he would have won Stevens over a little more than he did.

Bingo.  It's a two-way street, but so many posters on this thread are quick to blame Stevens.

[bdm860]

People are talking about Lee, and my first thought was Courtney Lee, not David Lee.  I don't remember any gripes from David Lee, but I remember Courtney wasn't happy, "lashing out about lack of playing time":

After playing just 7:40 Saturday afternoon during a 106-99 loss to the Washington Wizards, Boston Celtics guard Courtney Lee lashed out about his lack of playing time to CSNNE.com's A. Sherrod Blakely.

Lee told CSNNE.com he has talked to head coach Brad Stevens and heard "everything said that I want to hear."

"But I mean, you see that's not the case when I'm out there," Lee said.

Without being asked about Lee, Stevens said the guard's playing time would likely return closet to normal (16.7 minutes per game) on Sunday in Indiana. Stevens said he rode Avery Bradley's hot hand as long as possible after halftime, an explanation for why Lee did not appear in either the third or fourth quarter.

As a rookie played 25mpg on a Finals team.
To playing 33mpg on a rebuilding Nets team.
To playing 30mpg on an above .500 Houston team.
To playing 25mpg on a veteran playoff Boston team under Doc.
To playing 16.8mpg on a rebuilding Boston team under Stevens at 28 years old.
To playing 30mpg for the next 4.5 years after being traded from Boston.

David Lee and Keith Bogans were 32-33 years old while with Boston, sure they wanted to play, but they knew they were in the twilight of their careers.  Courtney Lee on the other hand, rightfully thought he was in his prime.  He gets traded midway through Stevens first season, and immediately goes on to play 30mpg as a starter on a playoff team.  Actually goes on to play 30mpg for the next 4.5 years.  From age 23-32 he was pretty healthy and started somewhere between half and all the games played every season while playing 25mpg-30mpg, except under Stevens, barely played, never started.

Courtney Lee's partial 2014 season under a rookie Brad Stevens does not make sense.

I'm thinking it was Courtney Lee.

[Spicoli]

Stevens needs to go back to college. He is not going to be the coach to lead this team to a title.

[angryguy77]

A coach that allows his team to shoot poor 3 after poor 3 in big playoff games isn't a good coach.

It doesn't matter who played well in the reg season, what matters is how they play when the season is on the line. So far in 2 straight years, I've seen this team play some of the most selfish, unorganized ball in elimination games.

I bet before this year, there was a number of Raptors fans who thought it was a big mistake to fire Casey. He was the most successful coach in the team's history up until that point. Sometimes a compilation of success isn't indicative of how good a coach is.

[Fafnir]

Man Lee was such a disappointing player for the Celtics, under both Doc and Stevens.

[ImShakHeIsShaq]

Maybe if Lee bothered to show up in shape he would have won Stevens over a little more than he did.

Bingo.  It's a two-way street, but so many posters on this thread are quick to blame Stevens.

So many are quick to blame everyone else. Even if that doesn't include you it does include a lot of people who comment.

[mmmmm]

My money is on David Lee. Stevens was new here and Stevens gave Lee a chance, he sucked and disappeared. Lee was pretty bitter about his time here.

To be fair, Lee went on to play pretty effectively for both DAL and SAS after leaving BOS.   He felt like he could still play effectively and that was proven by how he performed on the two Texas teams.   So it's understandable that he was probably frustrated and felt like he was not really given a chance by Stevens.

On the flip side, Stevens was also clearly put in charge of a young team with goal number one being development, not necessarily optimizing the use of a 32-year-old veteran.   So the fact he didn't use Lee could simply be a matter of fit.

But flipping back over, this is where communication is important, so that a guy like Lee understands and accepts why he doesn't fit.

All that said -- it is pure speculation that the player quoted was Lee.  It could really be any of a number of guys.

And this is proven to be wrong as he was out of the league within a year, age 33.
He was an epic crater on defense. A joke that wasn't funny.

What's funny is that you don't really seem to have any knowledge about how well Lee played in Dallas after he was traded from BOS and then in his final year in San Antonio.

The fact that he retired the following season doesn't really change that.

[tenn_smoothie]

Kyrie and Rozier created their own roles...mainly take every shot and play iso basketball. Get those 2 malcontents out of Boston and watch things improve.

Because Jayson Tatum never ever plays iso basketball.

I think Tatum played too much iso this season out of desperation and out of not being sure what to do within the offense that went from ball-movement one year to one guy dribbling the shot clock away this past year.