I’ve been watching/observing/covering the Boston Celtics for quite some time, never more closely than the Brad Stevens era. In all my time around Stevens, I don’t think I’ve ever once seen him on his phone ... until now.
The first cutaway of Stevens at the Las Vegas summer league showed him, phone in hand, talking to various Celtics staff as the team played. His new job requires the phone to be constantly out, constantly charged, and making full use of its data plan.
“The phone rings a lot,” Stevens said as he met the media Wednesday morning following the bulk of his Presidenting this summer. “I knew it was gonna be a sprint right now with everything that we had to do this summer. And so we still have a lot of work to do just generally. Some around the edges with the roster and some around making sure that now we can focus on some other things from an operational standpoint. So there's a lot to do.”
There always is. There’s an expectation that Boston will reorganize its front office a bit, with rumors swirling that a new General Manager will be named to join him. Stevens can turn more of his focus towards that now that the majority of his heavy offseason lifting is done.
Stevens came in tasked with cleaning up after Danny Ainge, who, through some misfortune and some amount of chasing his own tail, left the Celtics house a bit of a mess. Gordon Hayward’s injury triggered an unfortunate series of events, and each of Ainge’s answers seemed to muddy up the cap sheet a little bit more. Maybe if he worked for the Knicks or Lakers, it would have been easier to plow through those obstacles, but the Celtics' finances work differently.
So Stevens came in with his orange vest, sack, and trash picker to set things straight, and so far has accomplished his goals. The Kemba Walker move brought back Al Horford and Moses Brown, and Brown was flipped in a deal for Josh Richardson. Tristan Thompson was moved for Kris Dunn and Bruno Fernando. He got Dennis Schröder on the cheap, extended Marcus Smart to a reasonable deal, and managed to salvage a $17.1 million traded player exception for Evan Fournier. He also brought back Enes Kanter for some frontcourt depth.
“You want options, you want flexibility,” Stevens said. “We want to make sure that we're smart about what we're doing and at the same time, we want to make sure that our really good players feel valued and know that they're really important to us and that we're excited about them."
Stevens’ moves have put Boston about $6 million over the tax line, a number that’s easy to fix with a couple of moves around the fringes, especially since they have 16 players on the roster and need to trim down to 15 by opening night. Stevens insists that he’s free to spend into the tax if he sees fit, but no one should see fit with this roster.
“This is complicated stuff from a numbers standpoint, but I think we do have some flexibility and some options, which is good,” he said. “And we’ve got good players, so we’ve got a good foundation and that’s exciting as well."
To his credit, Stevens has built a decent team, even if it’s temporary. Here’s the new depth chart:
PG: Marcus Smart, Dennis Schröder*, Payton Pritchard^, Kris Dunn*
SG: Jaylen Brown, Josh Richardson*, Aaron Nesmith^, Carsen Edwards^
SF: Jayson Tatum, Romeo Langford^
PF: Al Horford, Grant Williams^, Jabari Parker+
C: Robert Williams#, Enes Kanter*, Bruno Fernando#
* expiring contract
+ non-guaranteed this season
# restricted free agents next season
^ team options next season
Those are a lot of footnotes. A lot can change with this roster moving forward. Players are tradeable, cuttable, waivable.
And yes, there’s a glaring hole at the 4 spot, which will probably be alleviated by starting Richardson or Nesmith and sliding Brown and Tatum down a spot.
It’s not a perfect roster, but one that accomplishes a couple of goals. First, the team can avoid the tax. Second, it puts a competitive team on the floor.
“We want to make sure that our really good players feel valued and know that they're really important to us.”
One of my biggest fears in the initial stages of this bridge year was how Tatum and Brown would perceive this season. Player careers are fragile and finite. They can’t play forever and every time they jump they risk the landing being their last. As much as we on the outside can say they’ll understand about re-tooling on the fly, no star player is keen on what feels like a wasted season. They want to win while building their legacies.
So adding Horford in the midst of a salary dump, Schröder at the taxpayer mid-level exception, Richardson through the Hayward TPE, and even getting a TPE for Fournier and allowing themselves a chance to improve that way all send Tatum and Brown the signals that while this is a bridge year, it’s not a wasted year.
This, though, is just the beginning of the build for Stevens. He and his front office have done a fine job acquiring pieces and putting together a team Celtics fans might be able to get behind for a season.
Consider it a sort of standalone episode in the story of the Boston Celtics. It could end up being fun.
“I want to be a team that Boston can really get behind, that plays with a great edge, that plays with the grit and toughness that’s necessary to compete at the very, very high level,” Stevens said. “We have a lot of players who have proven themselves as competitors. That’s exciting. We’ll see how it all shakes out ... I don’t think this will be without its hiccups, But we’re focused on trying to be the best version of ourselves for Boston.”
That’s all well and good, but the arc has to continue. It’s up to Stevens and his crew to continue writing that script. He’s done a good job on cleanup duty, but a lot of people can do cleanup work in this business. There aren’t many architects who can do the real building, and that’s Stevens’ next step.
