Danny Stepping Down / Brad To Lead Front Office / New Coach

[Ogaju]

On another topic; hope we replace Danny Brad sooner rather than later.

Would be really cool if the new coach could help assemble next season's roster.

Come again?

My bad, corrected :]

Yeah ...need to do the interviews and get the Jays to sign off.

So we have actually reached the point where players need to  sign off on the coach? Not 10 yr vets but young players. NBA is doomed

If you want them to become 10 year vets on your team, you bet.

[GreenlyGreeny]

apologies in advance for the long post; hopefully some will find the perspective an interesting pov.

i watched the presser in its entirety, and came away with a completely different opinion of what transpired than what i initially thought.

background: i had the privilege of working in a c-level role with two different fortune 500 companies in my career and i’ve seen this type of organizational change up close several times. my $0.02, the change the c’s just announced was the result of an internal power play, which was won by brad. i’ve seen this play out many times and it usually takes one of two paths: 1) the ugly, ego-driven firefight that is tough to hide internally and externally, and 2) the professional, respectful, but material difference in vision that ends up with one person “winning” and the other agreeing to “retire.”

from what i witnessed, the c’s went through the latter. danny and brad’s awkward body language at the presser, brad’s quick promotion without ownership even considering a search, danny claiming health reasons and a desire to spend time with family (old standards for exiting execs) combined with his non-answer regarding future jobs all point to a decision forced on ownership to pick one of two diverging points of view and philosophies. like i said, i’ve seen this before and it goes down in similar fashion almost every time.

furthermore, the praise danny and brad heaped on each other during the presser was very awkward and came across as two guys who are both pros and will say the appropriate things at the right moment. it wasn’t completely genuine and was a bit forced. for a guy who allegedly made his own decision to retire to spend more time with family, danny didn’t seem very happy at the presser. this was a gentlemanly separation at the request of ownership. “here’s your exit package, danny, which is contingent on you playing the company guy bit on your way out.” danny gets a nice cash reward and the ability to spin it as his decision; the c’s get a fluid transition and little-to-no bad PR.

also, i’ve worked directly with guys like brad who seem to be very low key and demure but are surprisingly very savvy politically. it makes sense we heard rumors and read articles earlier in the season that brad would assume a greater role in personnel going forward. he was not happy with danny’s rosters and made it clear to wyc that he needed more control. as the team struggled to perform, ownership was forced to become more involved in these diverging philosophies and ultimately pick a side. what was announced today was the culmination of this battle being won by brad, which makes sense. ownership was forced to pick a horse for the long term and brad came out on top. i think the “aw shucks” indiana country boy schtick purposefully hides a very driven, savvy, ambitious personality. he didn’t get to where he is by chance. honestly, this viewpoint makes me even more confident in his ability to run basketball operations for the c’s.

like i said, simply my opinion based on what i’ve witnessed firsthand. granted, i could be completely wrong but all the signs do seem to point to a professional power play that didn’t go danny’s way.

I suspect the same. Also suspect the Celtics organization member who reportedly wanted to see Stevens fired immediately was a part of the game, either involving Danny and/or Austin.

Also suspect that Brad was lobbying for moves that Danny passed up, which we now know was a mistake (bet anything Brad was lobbying for Harden and Kawhi because he knows how difficult it is to win an NBA championship without a top 5 talent; instead, Danny chose to do nothing but watch the Raptors and Nets win titles we should own).

Nets?

Hard to see anybody stopping them unless Harden or Durant becomes injured. Maybe Utah because of Quin Snyder, but it would probably still require a Herculean effort from Donovan Mitchell if the Nets’ Big 3 is healthy.

Speaking of the Jazz, rumors abound that Danny may join them in some capacity…

[Ogaju]

Bucks. ...the best chance.

On another subject. Too bad Danny got a bad rap for the trade with the nets ..Nets could have won a chip if it wasn’t for bad nets coaching. And folks forget the Cs had to take the terrible Wallace contract. The draft picks still had to be converted by Danny. It was not the heist it was made out to be.

[SparzWizard]

Can't wait to see this crash and burn coming from Brad Stevens, if reports were true that some members of the organization wanted him fired immediately. His coaching has been atrocious up to date, and he has zero experience in roster management.

Wyc should've just looked for another GM and hired another coach.

[Ogaju]

Can't wait to see this crash and burn coming from Brad Stevens, if reports were true that some members of the organization wanted him fired immediately. His coaching has been atrocious up to date, and he has zero experience in roster management.

Wyc should've just looked for another GM and hired another coach.

Where are these reports.

[SparzWizard]

Bucks. ...the best chance.

On another subject. Too bad Danny got a bad rap for the trade with the nets ..Nets could have won a chip if it wasn’t for bad nets coaching. And folks forget the Cs had to take the terrible Wallace contract. The draft picks still had to be converted by Danny. It was not the heist it was made out to be.

We lost Collin Sexton for 2 years of a psycho.

[GreenlyGreeny]

Can't wait to see this crash and burn coming from Brad Stevens, if reports were true that some members of the organization wanted him fired immediately. His coaching has been atrocious up to date, and he has zero experience in roster management.

Wyc should've just looked for another GM and hired another coach.

It was a member of the organization, not members. And it was probably a rumor started during some behind the scenes power play between today’s winner and loser.

[colincb]

Listening to Shams and Jackie M, the retirement of Ainge was expected sooner or later ever since his heart attack. That Brad would rather be traveling less to be home with his family is not a surprise either, nor is ownership's desire to have continuity with someone they trusted and respected enough to re-sign him to an extension less than a year ago.

The simplest explanation is usually the best one (aka "Occam's Razor").

[SparzWizard]

C's closest opportunities to sniffing/winning the NBA Finals was in 2018 and 2020.

2018- blew a 3-2 series lead to the #4 seeded LeBron Cavaliers. Win Game 6 and the Celtics would've been in the Finals. They could've gone neck and neck with the Warriors and might've possibly won (since all the Celtics/Warriors games of the past have came down to the wire or with BOS blowing them out. We had their number).

2020- faced a #5 seeded Miami Heat team but had no sense of urgency to challenge and beat them. Could've advanced to NBA Finals to have a Lakers/Celtics rematch-- where the Celtics would've beaten LA by throwing all their bigs at Davis and wings at LeBron.

[gouki88]

The "what happens if the players don't like being told what to do by a woman?" thing is the same type of argument that's been used to deny women leadership positions from time immemorial.

It's not a good look.

Good look or not, it's the reality.

As much as some of these NBA guys run off at the mouth about equality and opportunity, at heart most would not completely respect a woman as their head coach.

It's also a bad idea to hire your coach based on being progressive looking and stylish.

How do you have any idea? They fully respected Kara Lawson when she was an assistant here, the Spurs players rave about Hammon. You have no idea about what players think given you're nothing like them, and everything publicly said about these women has been respectful and full of admiration.

You just said it, these women were assistants, not the head coach. Huge difference.

But there's absolutely nothing to support your out-there claim that " most would not completely respect a woman as their head coach." Absolutely nothing

PhoSita was the one who brought up this possibilty, not me. So others see this as a possible problem.
Think about the slurs that many of these guys use with regularity, sexist slurs, homophobic slurs. Ever listen to the rap that these guys love? It's full of complete disregard for women as equals. You're in fantasy land, as usual.

Ah, so this is just you shaking your fist at pop culture again? Got it

This is just me telling the truth. Sorry it offends your fragile sensibilities.
I never said I thought it was right, just that it is reality.

You can't comprehend a man respecting a woman yet I'm the one with fragile sensibilities? LOL.

Nothing is ever as funny as you thinking your opinion is the reality, all the time. Classic stuff

Tropical Smoothie is right. Plus every month there would be a few games she'd get mad techs bc she's irritable 

Anyway, I think you misunderstood what he was saying. It wasn't that he couldn't comprehend a man respecting woman rather he couldn't comprehend a Black man respecting woman because all Black men think like rappers and rap lyrics. Racism disguised as misogyny but either way his bigotry is on full display.

Hahahah, many TPs

[nickagneta]

So I took my time on commenting on this because I wanted to see the presser and hear as much of the different perspectives as possible. So my take:

I think this was in the works for a while. The comments by Danny many weeks ago about stepping back and delegating more responsibilities to others suggests that. And I once again need to wonder just how much input people like Ainge's son, Zarren and Stevens had prior to this statement. I believe they had some but perhaps Danny was getting the input and making his own decisions.

Could Brad being burnt out have to do with giving his input into which players this team needed and Ainge going in other directions forcing Brad to coach players he didn't want to coach? Did the people under Ainge pull off a palace coup? You have to wonder.

Or.....did Stevens, Ainge Jr and Zarren already have a lot of power behind the scenes and Ainge really is retiring due to health and home issues and the owners wanted to see the current vision of the team and it's future continue so committed to Stevens being the lead in the continued implementation of the current direction of the team's path? Keeping guys familiar with the current vision helps continuity in moving forward.

It could be either and my guess is this will be answered by who Stevens hires as coach and the moves he makes over the next several months to couple of years. Will they be major moves with a very different type coach helping to re-create this team the way Stevens wanted but wasn't getting because Danny was in the way? Or will only tweaks happen with the roster and a coach with similarities to Stevens be brought in to move forward with basically the current iteration of the team and it's vision?

For what it's worth, none of us have a clue how much Brad was involved behind the scenes and how much he learned from Danny, Zarren and company about running an NBA franchise. Brad may have already gotten a lot of experience in learning what to do in his new position over the years. He could have had a much larger voice than any of us know. The only way we will know for sure is waiting to see what his future moves will be.

So, I don't see this being a cost cutting measure. I see this as a future vision decision measure with Brad representing either the continuation or the change of that vision.

Also, I gather we can now all retire the CBS nickname. I guess it's now either POBOBS or GMBS.

[hwangjini_1]

So I took my time on commenting on this because I wanted to see the presser and hear as much of the different perspectives as possible. So my take:

I think this was in the works for a while. The comments by Danny many weeks ago about stepping back and delegating more responsibilities to others suggests that. And I once again need to wonder just how much input people like Ainge's son, Zarren and Stevens had prior to this statement. I believe they had some but perhaps Danny was getting the input and making his own decisions.

Could Brad being burnt out have to do with giving his input into which players this team needed and Ainge going in other directions forcing Brad to coach players he didn't want to coach? Did the people under Ainge pull off a palace coup? You have to wonder.

Or.....did Stevens, Ainge Jr and Zarren already have a lot of power behind the scenes and Ainge really is retiring due to health and home issues and the owners wanted to see the current vision of the team and it's future continue so committed to Stevens being the lead in the continued implementation of the current direction of the team's path? Keeping guys familiar with the current vision helps continuity in moving forward.

It could be either and my guess is this will be answered by who Stevens hires as coach and the moves he makes over the next several months to couple of years. Will they be major moves with a very different type coach helping to re-create this team the way Stevens wanted but wasn't getting because Danny was in the way? Or will only tweaks happen with the roster and a coach with similarities to Stevens be brought in to move forward with basically the current iteration of the team and it's vision?

For what it's worth, none of us have a clue how much Brad was involved behind the scenes and how much he learned from Danny, Zarren and company about running an NBA franchise. Brad may have already gotten a lot of experience in learning what to do in his new position over the years. He could have had a much larger voice than any of us know. The only way we will know for sure is waiting to see what his future moves will be.

So, I don't see this being a cost cutting measure. I see this as a future vision decision measure with Brad representing either the continuation or the change of that vision.

Also, I gather we can now all retire the CBS nickname. I guess it's now either POBOBS or GMBS.

i vote for pobobs...or pobby for short. 

[Ogaju]

He is not shedding CBS anytime soon.

[Roy H.]

So, I don't see this being a cost cutting measure. I see this as a future vision decision measure with Brad representing either the continuation or the change of that vision.

Let's say it's the latter, a change in organizational vision.

Is there any real argument that Stevens is the most qualified person for the job of lead executive?  Economics aside, Ujiri clearly is more qualified than Stevens, for instance.  The fact that the team didn't even conduct a search suggests that this was either a continuation of philosophy hire, or a money thing. 

[tstorey_97]

Wyc is a billionaire. He went to Noble and Greenough in Dedham, got a Bachelors from Princeton, then got a law degree at Michigan and an MBA at Stanford. He's a billionaire.

He didn't give Stevens the title because he "didn't want to pay the rest of his contract." What?!

If you dislike Stevens that's fine, evidently the man described above after 8 years of employing him, has no problem handing him his billion dollar basketball franchise.

I'm fussy having listened to sports radio for some time in the car today.

One side of mouth...

"All the players hate Stevens."

Other side of mouth...

"They need a coach who will get in guy's faces."

Ainge set up this deal and it was highly difficult for him to walk away from the job Red Auerbach gave him. He is probably one of the most competitive men there is. In it's own way this was defeat for him. He knew something had to be done and that was what he did.

Grousbeck wants Stevens to run the team whether we like it or not and ultimately Grousbeck knows more about running a business and managing money than anyone in the media anyway. Since Stevens got here, the franchise has been a money machine.

If the team plays poorly everyone wants a new coach who will be "mean" to the players....Doc Rivers got here and took them all on a freaking European vacation in the off season and won a title.