The reason Brad Stevens might not be the coach you think he is.

[nickagneta]

I understand this is probably going to go over like a ton of bricks, but here goes.

I have seen on this site some extremely definitive statements regarding Brad Stevens, his demeanor, his passion, his coaching strategy and his management of players. Most seem to go like the following:

- Stevens is a terrible coach

- Stevens is too passive and that passivity gets passed down to his players and is a symptom of what is wrong this year with the Celtics

- Stevens doesn't have a passion for the game

- Stevens' offensive system is egalitarian and is based only on getting the ball to the open guy to shoot regardless of if that guy is a good shooter

- Stevens isn't good at developing players

- Stevens can't motivate his players...he has lost the locker room

And there are others, too many to list here without making the list very, very long. I think these beliefs/opinions of Brad Stevens to possibly be misinformed or just plain wrong.

First, let's make this clear, Brad Stevens is an amazing basketball coach. He probably has forgotten more about the game of basketball and how to coach it than any of us even know about those subjects. In a survey of NBA GMs before the 2020-21 season, Brad was voted as the 4th best coach in the NBA after Eric Spoelstra, Nick Nurse and Gregg Popovich. He was also voted as the third best coach to make in game adjustments, tied with Nurse but behind Spoelstra and Rick Carlisle. Fact is, if Ainge decided to fire Brad after this season, and I know many here would be delighted with that, Stevens would most likely be hired by another team within a day or so, having his choice of multiple open positions.

And this idea that Brad is too passive on the job or that he lacks passion is baseless. Someone can be passionate about something and still keep an even keel on their emotions and actions while doing that something. The old saying of "don't judge a book by its cover" comes to mind. Just because Brad approaches stuff like press conferences and pre-game speeches shown on TV in a calm, professional manner doesn't mean he doesn't have a passion for what he is doing and a passion for winning. I truly believe that to become one of the best at anything in the world at what you do, especially in sports, you have to be passionate about it, otherwise you wouldn't have the drive to become that good at it.

This then follows straight into the complaints about how Stevens acts on the sidelines, how he treats his players and what he "allows" his players to do. Some NBA coaches get very loud and very animated on the sidelines, get loud and scream at refs all game and during timeouts reams his players a new one. But, during a game, the cameras don't focus exclusively on Brad. During games, fans don't exclusively watch the coach. I've sat not too far behind the Boston bench during home games, and Brad admonishes his players and he works the refs. He simply doesn't do it in a ridiculously loud, obnoxious, condescending and animated manner. Brad gets loud a bunch during games, but you simply don't see and hear it because the cameras aren't drawn to him because isn't getting loud while also looking like he is a crazy old man going nuts, pulling his hair out and turning red in anger because you are on his lawn.

Simply put, Stevens isn't some over the top high school or college drill sargeant coach that draws attention to himself. He is a consummate business pro that manages people in a mature, professional manner like they are men, not boys you can intimidate into a better on court performance. Most high school and college coaches use intimidation and fear to handle their players, as the coach has the power to kick players off teams, revoke their scholarships and bench them unceremoniously for games on end. NBA coaches don't have that power because NBA players have guaranteed contracts. In many ways, NBA players have more power than their coaches. The only power coaches have if they have an issue they can't get past with a player, is to request management to trade said player. And management won't do that for many, many players and if a lot of players are problems, it's sometimes easier to fire the coach because you can't fire your players.

Let's face it, at your job, or at a job you once had, would you rather have a manager that emasculates you over every mistake you made and do it so all your co-workers can see and hear, or would you rather that manager bring you aside, tell you what you did wrong calmly and teach you how not to do it again? These players are men working in a professional business. They don't want to be treated like children any more than you would at your job.

And let's not confuse Brad's calm demeanor when the cameras are in front of him for a lack of holding players accountable. This team has played with fire, passion, energy, effort and aggression for years under Stevens. For most years this team played quite unlike the way Brad handles himself on the sideline. But, for half a season in 2018-19 and for most of this year, the team played listless and with minimal effort. Stevens didn't suddenly change to cause that. That's on the players. In 2018-19 it was due to a cancer in the locker room. And in this crazy Covid year, I think in many games, a lot of us have mistaken the aftereffects of injury, being sick with Covid or extremely fatigued both mentally and physically due to a short off-season, a condensed schedule and Covid protocols that demand testing at 9:00AM, whether you didn't get into your house or hotel room until very early in the morning, disturbing sleep patterns that help with recuperation, for a lack of effort and passion.

And as for how Stevens coaches on the court and his system, it's pretty obvious that early Brad Stevens and his system has evolved into a different coaching philosophy and system. Early in his Celtic career, Brad was vocal about how the team had to move the ball around and get it to the open guy to shoot, regardless of the quality of that player or that shot. But once Stevens started having true stars and superstars on his team, he has allowed his system to morph into a more pro/NBA iso system. Brad has allowed IT, Kyrie, Kemba, Tatum and Brown to dominate the ball during possessions and go iso heavy when they are in the game. He has had no problem doing the old Paul Pierce/Doc iso play to end close games. So I am not sure where this idea came from that Stevens system is still the same as it was back in 2013-14. It has definitely changed because come playoff time, superstar isos are what win NBA playoff games. It makes sense to allow your stars to do this during the season so they are prepared to be successful during the playoffs.

Regarding some other coaching responsibilities, Brad is an amazing developer of talent. That has not changed, even if the environment to do it successfully this year has due to the unique nature of this season. Smart, Rozier, Semi, Brown, Tatum and Timelord are worlds better now than they were when they entered the NBA. Many vets played much better under Stevens than they did under other coaches. Some garnering giant paydays because of it.

And just because some players keep making mistakes but keep getting playing time does not mean Stevens doesn't hold players accountable. We aren't in the locker room. We aren't in the coach/player one on one meetings that take place on the regular. Fact is, you can't bench your best players on the regular because of continued mistakes. You need to teach the players during practices and film sessions what they are doing wrong and live with the mistakes, while the players learn to implement that coaching into game performance. Some mistakes will take a lot of on court time and repetitions before they re minimalized. Jerking established players in and out of games to yell at them in front of team mates and fans for mistakes isn't going to speed up the learning process. Patience is needed while the player works things out on the court.

Crisis management of players doesn't work at the pro level of basketball. Moving players on and off court playing only in stuttered spurts doesn't work. This isn't high school ball. Coaches have substitution patterns and definitive roles players have to play within. Until the players earn the right or are ready to step into a new or different role, you don't thrust them into that different role. Injuries may change that, but otherwise you want to establish 5 man units, substitution patterns and minutes played for all your players so they can learn to maximize their efforts in those minutes played.

Now I know a bunch of you are going to call me a Stevens apologist. I am not. I have a bunch of criticism of him. I am a big believer of getting the hot hand the ball which Stevens doesn't appear to believe. I hate that he puts his stars in corners for long stretches of games while clearly inferior players dominate the ball up top playing a pick and roll/pop weave to create offense. I hate that he isn't running sets where his best players are interacting with the other best players on the team. I hate that at times he tries to let the players work things out on the court for way too long to the detriment of the team. I am befuddled by some of his on court 5 man units. I don't like that he seems to not be able to maximize true size during his time here. I hate that he seems to have no influence on getting his team prepared to come out strong and play great during matinee games. I think he wasn't prepared to handle a bad locker room a couple years ago and it lead to a terrible end of the season. And there are other things, but they are minor and not worth listing here.

In closing, I think a lot of people credit the players for wins and blame coaches for losses. I think that is wrong. Most losses can be attributed to bad performances by the players.  I think a lot of fans have issues because Brad doesn't act like their loud obnoxious high school coach. I believe a lot of fans think they know what Stevens is thinking and how he feels based on interviews and what the TV allows them to see during games. I believe many project their thinking and perceptions onto the coach. I think many have preconceived determinations about Brad and get stuck in confirmation bias when the team loses. And I think a lot of fans don't get that on court coaching is one of the less important parts of being an NBA coach.

I think Brad Stevens might not be the coach you think he is.

[slamtheking]

TP for what must be your aching fingers from all that typing Nick -- that and a lot of solid points you've put forth here.

I share those same frustrations and can see why some posters feel Stevens is part of that problem but a lot of the poor performance on the court is due to the players.

[PhoSita]

My theory is that a lot of the fan hate toward Brad is an aesthetic criticism more than a substantive one.

That's to your point about how he doesn't yell, scream etc.

I think for a lot of fans, Brad does not adequately serve the role that they want the coach to fill: embodying the frustration and anger that the fan feels when the team is playing poorly or the refs are making bad calls.

When the team has a crappy game, or it seems like the team got screwed by the refs, a certain kind of fan wants to see that the coach is upset about it and is giving the players and/or the refs an earful.  They want to hear the coach complaining bitterly in press conferences and daring the NBA to fine him. 


I think another sort of fan low-key (or perhaps just outright) dislikes Brad for being a kind of nerdy midwestern white dude.  He is, simply put, not cool.  He doesn't have an attitude.  He doesn't really make jokes, and when he does, they're pretty obvious and tame and lame.  He doesn't seem like a guy who "connects with the players," to use a euphemism that likely has something to do with race.


I'm speaking primarily from my experience interacting with other fans on Twitter, on this boards, and talking with my family members during games.


Anyway, I think the coach is an easy target for criticism when things aren't going well for exactly the reasons you mentioned.  You can't fire your players.  If the team as a whole is playing badly, the most obvious answer is probably that the star players aren't performing as well as everyone expected.  But "our stars aren't good enough" is a much harder conversation than "our coach sucks, fire the coach and hire somebody new."

Tom Thibodeau is an interesting name to consider in this context, because I think he does a lot of the things that fans want a coach to do.  He plays the best players a lot.  He's raspy.  He seems like a "working class" type of guy.  He yells.  He gets into it with the refs.  He has a track record of coming in and immediately making a team much better by enforcing expectations of defense and effort. 

Of course, he also tends to burn out teams after a few years and seems to contribute to his star players having shorter careers (see: Joakim Noah, Luol Deng).


I think a lot of the good and impressive things that Brad does are behind the scenes.  They aren't readily obvious to fans.  Even the on-court stuff can be difficult to discern unless you're a big x-and-o play design / system design nerd.  I confess I don't really catch most of the intricacies of the offensive and defensive schemes unless I read an article explaining them to me.

So, basically, Brad doesn't do a lot of the really up front and easy to notice things that fans find satisfying.  The good things he does are easy to miss or occur behind the scenes.  And some of the aesthetic / philosophy / personality choices of his, like his overall "don't get too high or too low" mantra, rub a certain kind of (particularly old school) fan the wrong way.



Personally, my gripe with Brad is that his teams consistently do not get to the free throw line enough, and his offensive schemes don't emphasize getting into the paint enough. 

But I also acknowledge that he's had so much success in his time as coach, including winning plenty of series I expected the team to lose, not to mention hanging tight in a few series I thought the team would lose handily, that he more than deserves the benefit of the doubt.

I also personally feel that his philosophy of not placing too much emphasis on wins or losses, rather focusing on the process and trusting that the result of doing things the right way will be good more often than not, is a very appropriate and useful one in all areas of life.

[Atzar]

Personally, my gripe with Brad is that his teams consistently do not get to the free throw line enough, and his offensive schemes don't emphasize getting into the paint enough. 

Hopefully I don't derail the larger purpose of the thread by talking too much about specifics, but I want to address this point.  This is likely a personnel issue as much as a coaching issue.  Under Stevens, we've only really had one guy who was good at getting to the line - Isaiah Thomas.  And he was great at it while he was here. 

Since he left, we've had a collection of guys who don't draw many fouls.  With Boston, Kyrie's FTAs per game were in line with his career averages.  Same with Horford.  Gordon's fell off a cliff, but for an obvious reason that had nothing to do with the coach.  Kemba's FTAs are declining some, but that's likely a combination of age, health, and usage rate just as much as coaching philosophy. 

Brown and Tatum are a whole other can of worms worthy of their own separate discussion.  In the interest of not branching too far from the topic, I won't get into that here.  But overall, my point is that I don't think Brad has an aversion to playing in the paint or drawing fouls.  I think it just reflects the players we've had over the last several seasons.

[PhoSita]

re: drawing fouls, I do think that it is *largely* personnel.

However ...

Terry Rozier

FTA per 36 in 2018 (BOS) - 2.6
FTA per 36 in 2019 (BOS) - 1.9
FTA per 36 in 2020 (CHO) - 3.2
FTA per 36 in 2021 (CHO) - 3.0

Gordon Hayward

FTA per 36 in 2017 (UTA) - 6.1
FTA per 36 in 2020 (BOS) - 3.0
FTA per 36 in 2021 (CHO) - 4.5

Marcus Morris

FTA per 36 in 2019 (BOS) - 3.0
FTA per 36 in 2020 (NYK) - 5.1
FTA per 36 in 2021 (LAC) - 2.0

Kemba Walker

FTA per 36 in 2019 (CHO) - 5.7
FTA per 36 in 2020 (BOS) - 5.0
FTA per 36 in 2021 (BOS) - 3.6



There are caveats for all of these -- offensive role, injuries, age, etc.

However, I think it does show a trend that there are at least a decent number of players who have been on the team during Brad's tenure who have the tools to play a role in the offense that generates more fouls, but they aren't asked or assigned to do that, for whatever reason.

Marcus Morris is an especially notable example of role -- he went from getting a handful of FTA per 36 in Boston, to nearly doubling that in New York, then becoming almost a pure jumpshooter in LA with the Clippers.  Role and system can make a big difference.


Now, ultimately you want your primary scorers to be the ones generating most of the free throws.  Part of the reason the guys noted above have higher free throw rates on other teams is that they weren't the lead scoring options in Boston (for the most part), and now have different (bigger) roles elsewhere.


Problem is, Jayson Tatum and Jaylen Brown are hovering around 25% free throw rate for their careers.  That means if they take about 20 shots a game, they're going to attempt only about 5 free throws.


Compare that to other superstars.  Kevin Durant, who plays basically the same position and role as Tatum even though he's much better, has a 41% career free throw rate. 

Jimmy Butler, who is kind of like the best case scenario for Jaylen, has a 51% career free throw rate!  Basically double.


We really need our two stars to focus A LOT more on getting to the line, by whatever means.  The coaching staff should be focusing on teaching them to do that, if they aren't already.


I do think that some of this is that Brad's offensive system emphasizes getting guys open for jumpers, as Nick mentions.  However, sometimes winning tough games, especially in the playoffs, requires your best guys to just go to work inside and force contact to get to the line repeatedly.  That's how you hammer your opponent into submission.  That's not the way you should try to win every game, but it is very important to have that strategy in your toolbox.

[Ogaju]

At the end of the day scoreboard is what matters. He is simply not getting it done. The fact that y’all need to write epistles to explain him is not a good look. Scoreboard!

[hwangjini_1]

TP for what must be your aching fingers from all that typing Nick -- that and a lot of solid points you've put forth here.

I share those same frustrations and can see why some posters feel Stevens is part of that problem but a lot of the poor performance on the court is due to the players.

i agree with your points slam, and, with much of nick's lengthy, well thought out, and insightful post.

thanks nicks...and of course a tp.

[PhoSita]

At the end of the day scoreboard is what matters. He is simply not getting it done. The fact that y’all need to write epistles to explain him is not a good look. Scoreboard!

why is this limited to the coach? the whole team is not getting it done!  clearly we should get rid of every last player on the team in addition to firing the entire coaching staff.

or is there a limiting principle to this "scoreboard!" concept?

[nickagneta]

At the end of the day scoreboard is what matters. He is simply not getting it done. The fact that y’all need to write epistles to explain him is not a good look. Scoreboard!

Scoreboard:

In less than 8 seasons Stevens is already 4th in regular season wins and 5th in playoff wins on the Celtic all-time list. And that's with a really crappy roster given to him his first two years here as Ainge wanted to tank. Also, he took 3 teams to the conference Finals, the same amount as Doc Rivers.

[nickagneta]

Want to apologize for the length of the OP. I started typing and before I knew it, it seems like I had a dissertation on the subject. Didn't mean to, it just happened. 😇

[PhoSita]

At the end of the day scoreboard is what matters. He is simply not getting it done. The fact that y’all need to write epistles to explain him is not a good look. Scoreboard!

Scoreboard:

In less than 8 seasons Stevens is already 4th in regular season wins and 5th in playoff wins on the Celtic all-time list. And that's with a really crappy roster given to him his first two years here as Ainge wanted to tank. Also, he took 3 teams to the conference Finals, the same amount as Doc Rivers.

Yes but you see they lost in the ECF each of those three times, which is actually bad.  Making the ECF and losing is bad, somehow.  I've been told this many times this year.  Maybe someday it will make sense.

There's almost never any detailed explanation as to why the times the team lost were Brad's fault, or even an argument that the opponents that beat them were clearly worse, but then I guess I shouldn't expect context or explanation when I'm getting the "Scoreboard!" argument.  Because the whole idea of that argument is that results are all that matters and that focusing on the context and the process of getting to the result is just a way of making excuses.


To my mind the recent loss in the ECF is the only time in Brad's tenure that the Celts lost a playoff series to an opponent with less overall talent.  But the fact that Hayward was injured, the opponent was coached by one of the best 2-3 coaches in the league, and the best player on the other team had far more playoff experience than the Celtics' main guys are all important factors in what was ultimately a very close matchup in a weird set of circumstances.

[PhoSita]

Want to apologize for the length of the OP. I started typing and before I knew it, it seems like I had a dissertation on the subject. Didn't mean to, it just happened. 😇

This happens to me with almost every single post I make, which is why my signature is a Mark Twain quote saying pretty much exactly the same thing as you did here.

[Ogaju]

At the end of the day scoreboard is what matters. He is simply not getting it done. The fact that y’all need to write epistles to explain him is not a good look. Scoreboard!

Scoreboard:

In less than 8 seasons Stevens is already 4th in regular season wins and 5th in playoff wins on the Celtic all-time list. And that's with a really crappy roster given to him his first two years here as Ainge wanted to tank. Also, he took 3 teams to the conference Finals, the same amount as Doc Rivers.

and that is all good if Doc Rivers is your standard. Moving on to next season before the playoffs begin is the very definition of a failed season. How long are you willing to give this coach? Next time the Cs are losing just watch the body language on the bench. He has killed the spirit of his players. I like Brad Stevens, but something ain’t right with this team. You guys defend Brad and you defend Ainge, sorry but you cannot have it both ways unless you do not mind the sorry state of the team.

[ozgod]

TP Nick. Summed up my thoughts perfectly.

[Ogaju]

At the end of the day scoreboard is what matters. He is simply not getting it done. The fact that y’all need to write epistles to explain him is not a good look. Scoreboard!

Scoreboard:

In less than 8 seasons Stevens is already 4th in regular season wins and 5th in playoff wins on the Celtic all-time list. And that's with a really crappy roster given to him his first two years here as Ainge wanted to tank. Also, he took 3 teams to the conference Finals, the same amount as Doc Rivers.

Yes but you see they lost in the ECF each of those three times, which is actually bad.  Making the ECF and losing is bad, somehow.  I've been told this many times this year.  Maybe someday it will make sense.

There's almost never any detailed explanation as to why the times the team lost were Brad's fault, or even an argument that the opponents that beat them were clearly worse, but then I guess I shouldn't expect context or explanation when I'm getting the "Scoreboard!" argument.  Because the whole idea of that argument is that results are all that matters and that focusing on the context and the process of getting to the result is just a way of making excuses.


To my mind the recent loss in the ECF is the only time in Brad's tenure that the Celts lost a playoff series to an opponent with less overall talent.  But the fact that Hayward was injured, the opponent was coached by one of the best 2-3 coaches in the league, and the best player on the other team had far more playoff experience than the Celtics' main guys are all important factors in what was ultimately a very close matchup in a weird set of circumstances.

So it’s Ainge’s fault, right? Or are you cool with 10 years without a finals appearance or 12 years without a chip?