Brad Stevens praises activism of Celtics players: 'I think it's been great'

Several members of the Celtics have been active across the country by taking part in peaceful protests after the death of George Floyd. Jaylen Brown drove 15 hours to his hometown of Atlanta to lead a march on Sunday. Marcus Smart, Vincent Poirier and Enes Kanter were among several members of the Celtics organization spotted taking part in protests in Boston on Sunday afternoon.

Brad Stevens praised those players and the entire organization’s response over the past few days. He was also part of a call with all 30 NBA head coaches over the weekend, which led to a statement being put out Monday that announced the creation of a committee on racial injustice and reform to pursue solutions within NBA cities.

“I think it’s been great,” Stevens said in a zoom conference on Tuesday of his players' activism. “I think, in paying attention from afar but also having individual conversations with everybody on our team and knowing, obviously, what’s happened has been appalling and been brutal and been hurtful and painful. I’m really — and I’ve said this many times, I think the NBA is amazing. I think our players are amazing. We’re lucky that we have such great people representing us with the Celtics. I can’t say enough good things.”

Brown has been active in the community throughout his tenure with Boston, but he has been at the forefront of activism by NBA players, something that has specifically impressed his head coach.

“Jaylen’s greatest impact, as good as he is at basketball, won’t be in basketball,” Stevens said. “He’s a special guy, he’s a special leader, he’s smart but he has courage. He’s got a lot of great stuff to him, and I think we recognized that when we drafted him, but I think that he has been even more unbelievable every day, every year. I’ve always personally really enjoyed listening to him and talking to him about things outside of basketball. He told me he was going down there on Thursday, and obviously I certainly am not surprised by him taking a leadership role. That’s who he is.”

Stevens also said he wrote a letter to his players in the wake of Floyd’s death to let them know he is with them amid their pain from the tragic situation.

“I think that a lot of people are feeling pain and then transferred to anger,” Stevens said. “I wrote a letter to our guys this weekend and it took me a while to put down exactly what I wanted to say, but I think the thing I wanted them to know was that every decent person is hurting. Every decent person feels the pain of the African American community. But I also don’t want to pretend like I know the exact distinct pain. What I wanted them to know is that I’m with them, thought that was really important.

“And really, again, it’s so great to see so many guys so active. But I know a lot of the guys — I’ve talked to a lot of guys — that everybody is hurting. Let’s put it that way. The leadership that they’ve shown is terrific. And hopefully the most important thing is we can have short-term healing, we can have near-term gains, and we can have long-term sustainable action that creates change.”

While the NBA inches closer to making a return to play official in the next week, Stevens has kept his focus on the mental side of his players in the interim amid the pandemic and protests across the country.

“I think every coach is in this boat right now, nobody is talking about basketball this week,” Stevens said. “And when the pandemic began, basketball is also an afterthought. So what we’ve tried to focus on this entire period was, first and foremost, the pandemic and mental well-being of everyone from the organization and that’s been, obviously, intensified this week. And, then, the second part is, when we have focused on basketball, it’s been much more focused on the concept of staying a week away from your best shape because we’re all on call. We don’t know exactly — even now, as you read and I’m on some of these calls, but I’m reading and know the same things you know. Ultimately, we’re all on call and, if they choose to resume the season, and tell us when, we all have to be ready. There’s still a lot of discussions going on with that regard.”

Thoughts on playing in Orlando/Auerbach Center reopening

Stevens did confirm that several Celtic players have visited the Auerbach Center, which the team opened on Monday for voluntary individual workouts. He touched on the value of being back in that environment for players after such a long layoff and how the logistics have worked for the workouts amid the CDC guidelines.

"We have a number of players that are here in Boston," Stevens said. "We have a number of players that are going in. The value of those individual workouts I think right now, especially with the facility being back open, is you're back on the NBA court with all the NBA lines. You’re able to expand and a do a little bit more conditioning on a full court.

“We've structured all of those times as such so that it's a very tight schedule. It's voluntary. If they don't want to come, they don't have to come. But they have a set time, because we have to be cognizant of all the NBA, state health and CDC guidelines with regard to the rules that are in place. I don't think it's the end all, be all to be back in the facility right now. I didn’t think that on May 8th, I don't think that right now. Our guys all over the place have been very committed to staying a week away from their best shape. We've had constant conversations with that. It is great that they're able to be back, and I think they like it, and I think maybe more than anything is that you have the strength equipment. You don't have limited strength equipment, you have everything you could possibly need from a strength and conditioning standpoint. That's probably the best benefit.”

With the prospect of empty arenas awaiting in Orlando in July, Stevens was also intrigued by the impact a quiet environment could have from a fan and coaching perspective.

“I’ve been sitting in my house for three months. So I’ve thought about this stuff over and over and over. There would be some interesting parts if we were to resume play without fans. And obviously, I think the competitiveness will be the same in my opinion. When you see these guys go after each other in practice, or if you go to practices of great players playing against each other in the summer in Vegas, USA basketball or whatever the case may be, some of those, the competitiveness will be tremendous.

“The sound will be great for TV. I think people would love to hear more of the coaches, players, referees, the dialogue between everybody, so I’m interested to see if we do get in that scenario, what the league would decide on pumping in noise or not. I think the voices of the game would be a whole new world, and a lot of fun. And to be honest, I think it would be most impactful in kind of a depth of what these guys do possession to possession from a basketball standpoint and how much communication goes into it.”

The NBA is expected to vote on a resumption of the season on Thursday at a Board of Governors meeting.