Speaking on SiriusXM?s The Starting Lineup show with Frank Isola and Brian Scalabrine on Friday, Stevens expanded on the decision to move on from a foundational player in Brown.
This is the part where I?m glad I?m 50 and not 30, Stevens said. I?ve been, fortunately or unfortunately, under the public eye for a long time and you?re just kinda used to the reaction, good or bad. And at the end of the day, you just have to do what you think is the best thing for the organization. And it?s not always gonna be the popular thing. And it may be right, it may be wrong, who knows, right?
For all of the talk of the Celtics removing another supermax contract from their books after signing Jayson Tatum to a five-year, $315 million contract in July 2024, Stevens acknowledged that the decision to move Brown wasn?t just rooted in money and contractual commitments.
Stevens stressed on SiriusXM that Boston also wanted to augment its overall approach this offseason, noting that having two primary scoring threats who both want the ball in their hands wasn?t sustainable.
At the end of the day, the biggest thing is that when evaluating how the team played in the past couple of Playoffs, we have to build the depth to stay competitive as we can to build for a long, sustainable run; it was inevitable,Stevens said. For us, it was a really hard decision.
There were a lot of things that went into it. You have two max players, two max usage; those are the things you have to make a decision on. Jaylen?s a great player, but I like the team we have.
Considering the Celtics current financial commitments especially in the restrictive CBA environment now in place across the NBA Stevens admitted that the Celtics can?t rely on free agency to try and push this roster back into legitimate title contention over the next few years.
We don?t have the ability to pay free agents, Stevens admitted. We?re gonna have to bring in some guys on two-ways and bring in some guys as minimums and hope they hit. And huge kudos to the players and their work ethic and a huge kudos to our coaching staff and our player development staff. It built a really deep group.
And that?s what you need to be to win in this day and age. We think that?s really important. We do think that we have a lot of strengths and we?ll evaluate the team early on, but we?re gonna be pushing like we always push. And now we have a few more assets in the cupboard to work with.
