No one was harder on himself for how last season went than Brad Stevens.
The head coach was refreshingly candid in the assessment of his poor performance in the wake of a 4-1 series loss to the Bucks in the Eastern Conference Semifinals. He certainly wasn’t the cause of the defeat but he failed to prevent the sinking ship from taking on more water in the final few months of the season, despite his best efforts. After years of getting the best out of his roster full of underdog talent which led to endless praise around the league, Stevens was sure to put himself front and center for Boston’s failure.
“I’ll be the first to say that this, you know, as far as any other year that I’ve been a head coach, it’s certainly been the most trying,” Stevens said last May. “I did a bad job. At the end of the day, as a coach, if your team doesn’t find its best fit together, that’s on you. I’ll do a lot of deep dives into how I can be better.”
Those comments did not go unnoticed by returning veterans on the Celtics roster. While the case has been made by some critics can be made that Stevens got too much of the credit for his team's play when the Celtics’ made surprise runs to the Eastern Conference Finals in 2017 and 2018, the fact that he tried to deflect the blame from his players after an embarrassing performance against the Bucks during which one of his stars looked like he checked out on his team spoke volumes to those on the roster.
“Brad was in a tough situation like we were,” Marcus Smart told BostonSportsJournal.com. “We never dealt with that type of publicity and Brad never dealt with it either. It's a learning point for us and him. We went through it together. It takes a lot for a coach to admit when he didn't do his best job and we commend Brad for that. You got somebody like that as a coach who is generally able to own up to it, you have so much more respect for him and the team wanting to go out to play for him. The team tends to trust him a little bit more.”
That trust is already evident as the preseason got underway last week. Despite his mismanagement of last year’s roster at times, Stevens is pulling no punches when it comes to the fluid starting lineup and bench rotation this season. Kemba Walker appears safe for a starting job and the same goes for Jayson Tatum, while everything else is in flux for the other positions. Enes Kanter was believed to be a favorite to start at center based on his experience and discount contract but a shift in his role is now in consideration after Robert Williams started the preseason opener.
“Kanter is going to do things, and has some things he does really well that I think is just unique, so he’s obviously going to play,” Stevens said. “We’re trying to figure out if it’s best with the starting unit or best to bring him off so you can play through him a little more on the block and those type of things. And that’s probably the case if we continue to start all those guys on the wing. We’ll see how that goes over the next couple of weeks.”
That’s the type of flexibility that Stevens could have used more of last year when it comes to lineups. He stuck with an opening group that had no chemistry early on as Boston stumbled out to a 10-10 start. A tweak with Marcus Smart and Marcus Morris helped to right the ship in November but he stayed with the new-look starting lineup for weeks after the All-Star Break despite some horrific defensive woes and a slump Morris. Whether it was trying to keep egos happy and engaged or maintaining consistency, the calculus didn’t work and was a departure from the Stevens’ teams we saw in recent seasons when he mixed and matched without hesitation down the bench on most nights. Deep bench players like Shane Larkin or Jonas Jerebko were given extended opportunities in past seasons and helped carry the C’s to wins on nights they had the hot hand or were difference-makers on defense. Those types of players (i.e. Brad Wanamaker, Semi Ojeleye) simply didn’t get much of a chance on Boston’s roster last season, even when the regular rotation players weren’t justifying their own usage in games.
Not settling for Kanter at center right away is a good sign that Stevens is moving back towards his traditional mentality on that front. With some drama out the window following Kyrie Irving's departure along with the long list of guys fighting for themselves in the midst of a contract year, Stevens has his kind of team back now, where anyone on the roster is capable of making an impact on any night and merit must be earned.
“Brad was in a unique situation (last year),” Smart added. “He had so much talent and he didn't know what to do with it. You can only play five guys at a time and trying to play 10 guys is hard. I think this year, Brad is really focused on who needs to play with who and who needs to play when, and just whoever at the time is playing the best in the game, that's who we are going to rock with. Whoever is coming off the bench to go into the game, that's who we are going to rock with. You get in and give everything you have. That's just who we are. We have to trust one another and I think we are doing that more and more this year. That's the beauty.”
That type of mentality doesn’t necessarily work unless there is buy-in across the team, especially from veterans. Jaylen Brown and Gordon Hayward were two players that went through plenty of changes in their roles as the year wore on. With uncertainty in place this year about the wings in the starting five, the duo remains confident in Stevens' ability to guide them despite his struggles last year on that front.
“I think that stuff will take care of itself,” Brown said of the starting five decision to BSJ. “It's to the point where everybody has improved and gotten so much better and experienced from last year, I think we are mature enough to be able to handle situations. I think we trust with Brad and his decisions. I think he's learned from last year, just like we learned from last year as well as the front office. Every situation is different. I think this year, it will be fine.”
“As we've shown in years prior, we're about winning,” Hayward added. “It's not about who starts the game and who finishes it. We're all going to get our opportunities out there. I don't think any of us are worried about that.”
Two years ago, Smart took the decision out of Stevens' hands to a degree by volunteering to come off the bench, paving the way for Brown to start at shooting guard. Smart was the sixth man in the preseason opener but hasn’t had a similar conversation with Stevens this fall.
“I haven't talked to Brad,” Smart said about his starting status. “None of us have. This year, I'm not going to talk to him. Whatever Brad says, we're trying to our fullest, complying with it and do it. Brad is always putting us in a position to win and we're trusting him more this year than ever.”
Given the massive question marks in place across the roster, while going up against an improved Eastern Conference, the challenge will be greater than ever for Stevens to navigate this team back towards a contending level once again. However, if the first week was any indication, there is far better buy-in across the roster than last year. Stevens has the full ear of his team again and that’s a promising development for a franchise that will need to maximize every facet of this group to make serious noise in the Eastern Conference this season.
"I have all the confidence in the world that last year was a learning experience for him, just like all of our young players," Danny Ainge said. "Like I said many many times before and I’ll continue to say, he’s the least of our worries. He’s prepared, and I think these experiences are going to make him a great coach."