Since exchanging his clipboard on the sidelines for a comfy chair and a spacious base in the front office, Brad Stevens has managed to guide the Boston Celtics to quite a substantial amount of success.
In his first year and change serving as President of Basketball Operations, Stevens has only gone on to pull off one success after another.
Heading into the 2021-22 campaign, he set the team up nicely with a revamped roster and a fresh, young head man to lead the charge in Ime Udoka, and only continued to make alterations and key moves throughout the year which, in turn, helped the franchise clinch their first NBA Finals berth in over a decade.
Now, even though the rookie front office personality was one of only six individuals to receive 20+ points in the Executive of the Year polling, one mustn’t forget that coaching was Stevens’ first love in this sport and, despite his tremendous track record thus far pulling the strings behind the scenes, the door for him to return back to the sidelines doesn’t appear to be fully shut.
At least, that’s what Stevens certainly made it seem like when he recently spoke with Heavy Sports.
Though he made it abundantly clear that he’s currently focused solely on bettering this Boston Celtics team with his powers as President and later would go on to praise the work Udoka has done during his first year with the club, in classic candid Brad-fashion, he was nothing but honest when discussing the possibility of him going back to coaching at some point down the road:
"“My motivation is for the Celtics to be good,” he said. “So I always feel like that’s a huge motivation for us. This organization’s been great to us. I’ve enjoyed it. I’ve enjoyed both roles I’ve been in. I love the people I’ve worked with in both roles, and my family loves it, so, yeah, we’re really happy.“I’m not going to try to predict the future. I have no idea. No idea. I don’t know if I’d ever coach again. We’ll see.”"
Frankly, these remarks should be shocking to no one, for, throughout his eight-year NBA coaching tenure, Brad Stevens had easily established himself as one of the best headmen in the game today.
During his time spent as coach of the Boston Celtics from 2013 to 2021, he managed to compile an overall regular-season record of 354-282 (.557), missed the playoffs just once (his first season, which was during a slight rebuilding phase) and guided the team to three separate Eastern Conference Finals appearances.
With his proven abilities both on the pro stage as well as at the collegiate level (166-49 record and a two-time NCAA Tournament runner-up during his six-year stint with Butler), should he wind up opting to take his talents back to the sidelines, without a doubt, there will be a bevy of opportunities waiting for him.
However, we hope Brad Stevens will continue to grace the C’s with his talents as an executive for a very long time before he even considers picking up a clipboard once again.
He had this team come within two wins of bringing home banner No. 18. He already has them coming into 2022-23 with the second-best odds of winning it all.
Who knows what more he may have in store for Boston!?