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

[Bobshot]

I get the central argument here is about the coach designating roles for the players.

With the Celtics being so inconsistent at times with their game--sometimes passing for the best shot, sometimes bombs away from the perimeter--you wonder about roles. Everyone seemed to have the green light to throw up a 3.  Was there a designated protector of the paint? Maybe Baynes, when he wasn't hurt.

The strength with the old Celtics is everybody knew their roles. In the Auerbach days, Red tailored roles to the players' strengths, and he made sure the team talent was diverse. I will say this: the Celtics were primarily an offensive team before Russell. And they were constant bridesmaids. Easy Ed Maccauley was their center. Easy all right, defensively. When Russell came, his role was Secretary of Defense, and they became instantly unbeatable. Similarly, the Cowens-Havlicek, White etc era, and also the Parrish-Bird-McHale era. In the latter, the Celtics had a fine 2 guard named Danny Ainge, and he and Bird were the designated 3P shooters.

I'm not sure about roles with the current Celtics. That's one question I would like to ask Tommy.  But I get the impression they have nobody who has any sort of a role inside.

[ETNCeltics]

Brad Stephens was incredibly successful as a college coach. He's ridiculously overachieved with very little talent, and got a ramshackle roster to the conference finals in back to back years.

I'll take his way of doing things vs. Jae Crowder or whatever other malcontent made the above comments.

[dreamgreen]

I'm surprised to hear this for some reason Brad comes off as a great communicator to me but who knows? I'm sure if this is a weakness for him he will work on it and make large improvement. People that like to win get better at things they work on!

[SHAQATTACK]

in other words he is TOO feely good with players , he doesn't know how to take control of a group of adults    Thats Stevens job to organize the team.  This means pointing out players roles and directing their their roles , talking with about weakness and WHAT goals to project for themselves .

I was afraid he seemed too afraid to ASK for a player to play harder or stay on somebody's case about bad habits

Deal is ...19-25 year old s generally are not the stars on contenders.  Contenders have 24-35 year olds .  Im like at that age IF i need to do something different ....PLEASE give me feedback and tell me what i need to do if anything . 

This is why I like the Nets coach ,  he has much of Stevens IQ , but more of Pops forceful and direct manor .  He doesn't accept a Rozier attitude.

Brad needs to be more corrective about issues with feedback .

This may be part of Kyries issue with Brad.   he would not take charge of the locker room when the players ignored Trying to be a leader. 

[droopdog7]

Absolutely. This is one of the main criticisms that many of us on here had for Stevens. He didn’t clarify the roles, which is absolutely 100% part of his job as the head coach. That was one of the major underlying causes of this year’s dysfunction.

It was pretty obvious to me that guys just didn't know their roles most of the year. There was no hierarchy and guys were just left to freelance. I also thought that the earlier article about Stevens letting the locker room police itself and when he tried to step in, it was already too late was also pretty disappointing. What the heck was he doing this year?

I've said this before and I'll say it again; it's not just about the coach telling players their role.  They actually have to be willing and able to do so. 

In the case of the Celtics, the bad fit of the actual player skill sets led to bad results.  From there, players lost trust in the "system", and basically started to do their own thing.

But it isn't really about a coach assigning roles.  It's that players could not really play the roles the team might have needed.  Every unraveled from there.

[Fierce1]

The Celts of 2016-17 had lesser talent compared to the 2018-19 Celtics.
But that 2017 Celts team won 53 games.

The problem with the Celts last season is not having the right mix of players.
A case of law of diminishing returns.

[RJ87]

Absolutely. This is one of the main criticisms that many of us on here had for Stevens. He didn’t clarify the roles, which is absolutely 100% part of his job as the head coach. That was one of the major underlying causes of this year’s dysfunction.

It was pretty obvious to me that guys just didn't know their roles most of the year. There was no hierarchy and guys were just left to freelance. I also thought that the earlier article about Stevens letting the locker room police itself and when he tried to step in, it was already too late was also pretty disappointing. What the heck was he doing this year?

I've said this before and I'll say it again; it's not just about the coach telling players their role.  They actually have to be willing and able to do so. 

In the case of the Celtics, the bad fit of the actual player skill sets led to bad results.  From there, players lost trust in the "system", and basically started to do their own thing.

But it isn't really about a coach assigning roles.  It's that players could not really play the roles the team might have needed.  Every unraveled from there.

For the most part I agree. And I think players should be held accountable when there's no buy-in, but I also think a coach has to recognize when they way he usually approaches things isn't working and be willing to adjust. Just because one approach worked with past teams, doesn't mean it's going to work with every team he has. Brad seemed wholly unprepared for that this season and didn't really handle it well.

[Fierce1]

Part of the problem is Ainge didn't do anything to tweak the roster.
It was not working and Ainge stuck with it!

Why?

Because Ainge was going all in for Anthony Davis.

[CelticSooner]

For as good as Stevens is his style may just be suited for less egos. It’s up to Ainge to take away some toys and reel him in as well. I really hope he learned something about that this season because star talent wins and if the C’s are ever supposed to hang a other banner ego management will be a determining factor.

[nickagneta]

I think Stevens designated roles just fine, it's just some didn't want to fill the role. Brown wasn't happy with the role given him at first but adjusted his thinking and then went out and over the last 60 regular season games and 9 playoff games filled that role tremendously.

Hayward's role was changed when it was apparent he couldn't fill his originally defined role. He accepted the new role and ran with it to mixed results mostly because of physical limitations.

Marcus Smart played his role as elite defender with a bit of good offense tremendously by not taking as many bad shots and making more threes while jumping to a starting role.

Horford always played his role to the best of his abilities.

There is plenty of proof that Stevens defined roles on the team. There is also proof that players accepted those roles and thrived in them, though, unfortunately, I think there is strong proof some didn't accept those roles and didn't play within those roles, all to the detriment of team chemistry.

This doesn't mean that Stevens didn't make huge mistakes. He obviously didn't see what was wrong, at least at first, and if he did finally see what was wrong, whatever he did or didn't do certainly didn't fix things. He shares in the blame that was last year. I am just not sure defining roles was one of the things he did wrong

[Jiri Welsch]

Brad Stephens was incredibly successful as a college coach. He's ridiculously overachieved with very little talent, and got a ramshackle roster to the conference finals in back to back years.

I'll take his way of doing things vs. Jae Crowder or whatever other malcontent made the above comments.

David Lee is my guess

[Celtics4ever]

His biggest problem is sitting the hot hand too much.

[PhoSita]

Brad Stephens was incredibly successful as a college coach. He's ridiculously overachieved with very little talent, and got a ramshackle roster to the conference finals in back to back years.

I'll take his way of doing things vs. Jae Crowder or whatever other malcontent made the above comments.

David Lee is my guess

That's a good guess.  David Lee was pretty obviously frustrated during his time here.

[Roy H.]

Brad Stephens was incredibly successful as a college coach. He's ridiculously overachieved with very little talent, and got a ramshackle roster to the conference finals in back to back years.

I'll take his way of doing things vs. Jae Crowder or whatever other malcontent made the above comments.

Crowder or Gerald Wallace are the prime candidates.  Perhaps Lee.  I lean toward Wallace.

[blink]

Brad Stephens was incredibly successful as a college coach. He's ridiculously overachieved with very little talent, and got a ramshackle roster to the conference finals in back to back years.

I'll take his way of doing things vs. Jae Crowder or whatever other malcontent made the above comments.

Crowder or Gerald Wallace are the prime candidates.  Perhaps Lee.  I lean toward Wallace.

I think you guys are on the right track with this.  Probably an older vet from a couple of years ago who saw his minutes drastically reduced and the chance for a last big long-shot payday drastically reduced as well.  Lee and Wallace seem extremely likely.  Crowder?  Maybe him too.

I actually think Brad will be proactive about rectifying any coaching problems from last year.  With Kyrie gone and possibly Rozier as well, I think it is vastly easier to pull together team unity / chemistry.  If we get Kemba he doesn't seem like he will cause problems.  If Kemba isn't here and Smart is starting, I don't see problems with that either.  Hopefully some of this stuff gets worked out by roster selection, then Brad can re-set expectations and roles, probably more strongly.