Danny Ainge never meddled with Brad Stevens' Boston Celtics coaching

Danny Ainge never told Brad Stevens "no" when he was the Boston Celtics' general manager according to the current Cs President of Basketball Operations. As Stevens told Heavy's Steve Bulpett, even if Ainge thought the former Celtics head coach would fail, he would allow Stevens the freedom to try.

“I took a lot from Danny,” Stevens told Bulpett. “Danny’s an amazing person, and the thing that I probably took more from him than anything else is that he didn’t always agree with everything I did — in fact, he probably looked at some of the stuff I was doing as, ‘No, that probably won’t work.’ But he always allowed me to do my job, and he always was really supportive.”

Given Stevens' track record with the team, despite not having a real win-now roster until the 2017-18 season and making the postseason the previous three years and even reaching the Eastern Conference Finals in 2017, Ainge did well to trust him. It's not hard to find a connection between that trust translating to major risks taken during Stevens' run as PBO; i.e. trading Marcus Smart and Robert Williams III this past offseason.

Thus far, like Stevens' coaching tenure, there's not much Celtics fans should wish Stevens didn't do. If anything.

Brad Stevens taking lessons from Danny Ainge and paying them forward with Boston Celtics head coach Joe Mazzulla

Stevens was once the mentee, and he told Bulpett he's taking that experience and paying it forward with current Celtics head coach Joe Mazzulla.

“I always felt like, at the end of the day, [Ainge] knew how hard coaching was. I certainly know how hard coaching is,” Stevens said. “I know how Joe (Mazzulla) feels as he’s going through the season.

“I know the ups and downs. I know what his concerns are. I know what he gets excited about. I know what’s going on with the team and having a pulse on how hard that is on the coach. Danny always did that for me, and I think he really did it for a lot of people in the building. It’s a hard act to follow when you have to follow Danny.”

Love and trust, a slogan Smart made famous during his time in green, is exactly what Stevens is trying to show after Ainge showed him such for so many years.