Boston Celtics: 3 way too early predictions for the 2020-21 season

Prediction: Brad Stevens will finally win the Coach of the Year award

Since taking over the role of Head Coach for the Boston Celtics, Brad Stevens has thrust himself into the conversation as one of the best coaches the league has to offer.

Throughout his seven year stint with the franchise, the ageless wonder has accumulated an overall record of 313-243 (.563 winning percentage). He has reached the postseason in all but one season — his first –, guided the team to two Eastern Conference appearances and, in 2017, was selected to coach the east’s All-Star team.

Year in and year out the man known as Brad has been in the discussion for best coach in the NBA and, yet, he has not once taken home the highest individual honor for the position: the Red Auerbach Trophy or, more widely known as the NBA Coach of the Year award.

Recently we published a list ranking Stevens’ best three seasons at the helm for Boston, ranking 2017-18 as the clear top dog. This specific season, as we pointed out in the piece, was easily his best chance to have taken home the illustrious award.

"Despite their copious amounts of injuries, by the end of the regular season the C’s finished in the East’s second seed with a record of 55-27. With a rotation consisting of unproven and youthful talents, Boston made their way to within one game of reaching the NBA Finals, taking the Cavaliers to the final minutes of game-seven. Improbable doesn’t even begin to describe their 2017-18 season. With everything that happened, it would have been a great surprise to have seen the C’s just simply stay afloat and, instead, Stevens guided them to as far as four minutes away from realistically going to the championship series."

Even with his impressive job, the award at the end of the year made it’s way into the hands of, then, Toronto Raptors coach Dwane Casey who, while his team did have a great run that season — finished first in the conference with a record of 59-23 –, had way less obstacles to face in comparison to Stevens and still finished with just four more wins.

The only challenge Casey truly met that year was LeBron James in the postseason where, as we all know, he and Toronto fell flat on their faces (fell to the Cavaliers in the second round in a clean sweep).

Just like Leonardo DiCaprio’s Oscar win in 2016, we’re projecting Stevens will take home the Coach of the Year award in 2021 because, frankly, it’s about dang time he won it. However, this is not to say this is the only reason, or even one of the driving reasons we anticipate he’ll win.

Heading into next season, the overall roster on the Celtics will likely be a lot more sound: Kemba Walker will be coming into year two in Stevens’ point guard-friendly scheme, Jayson Tatum will also be coming into year two of his newly found main option role on the team. Jaylen Brown and Gordon Hayward have shown huge strides forward this season.

Their youngsters such as Romeo Langford, Carsen Edwards, Grant Williams and Tremont Waters — more on him in a minute — will be heading into their second seasons. And, most notably, they will have the rights to three selections in this upcoming draft where they’ll look to nab a few talented youths on team-friendly deals.

All this, coupled with the fact that the C’s could potentially look to the free agency and/ or the trade market — both of which we’ve discussed multiple options — would lead one to believe that, barring injuries, the 2020-21 Boston Celtics roster should be more of a threat to the rest of the league’s elites than they have been this season.

Any more improvements to this already menacing team and Brad Stevens should certainly walk away from the season with the Red Auerbach Trophy.