Brad Stevens spoke to the media on Wednesday, answering wide-ranging on Jayson Tatum, this year’s team, trade strategies, and more. Here’s everything he said, with my reaction.
ON JAYSON TATUM POTENTIALLY RETURNING:
“There’s strength thresholds he has to meet. And then after that, several weeks of progressions, right, from the standpoint of scripted against small groups, scripted against bigger groups, scripted in 5-on-5, unscripted random, all the way up through those. But it's a long progression, and it's almost like, once you hit the strength, then you do your thresholds of a progression of play, and then you're also reconditioning to play real minutes, whatever that looks like. He’s obviously made great strides. Right now, we're still focused on the full-strength game.”
FOLLOW UP: WHERE IS HE IN HIS RECOVERY:
“We’re not putting a timeline on it, as we haven't the whole time. I mean, I think one of the things that everybody can see that we didn't apply for a DPE (disabled player exception) this year, which was a conscious decision for a lot of reasons. But the reality is, he's not going to be back until he's 110 percent healthy, and he feels good about it, and that's a big part of it, right? Obviously, he's itching to play. Obviously, he hates watching. But he's also very cognizant of the need to meet every threshold and why there are those things that are put in place. We've had a lot of great talks about it. One of the things that we love about this whole group, and I think the guys that have been here the longest lead the charge, is they love the play.”
Karalis’ Analysis:
There's a little bit of cold water being dumped on all the videos we’ve seen of Tatum seemingly progressing through his recovery. Stevens saying that they're still in the stage of building strength and that they're not at the progression to play and reconditioning is a reminder of how long a road he has to go.
The videos of Tatum working out are meaningful, but it’s still only December 17, which is a tick more than seven months post-surgery. Tatum’s father said at the time that this was an eight-month recovery, which means we’re not even at the place where an optimistic family member was targeting yet.
I have said all along that the beginning of March made sense. That would be approximately 10 months post-surgery, which is plenty of time to check all the boxes Stevens mentioned.
They are all on the same page on this. Tatum has to be physically … and mentally … ready to return. That's why Stevens added “and he feels good about it.” Every doctor in the world can say he’s ready to play and if his own brain said otherwise, then he’s not ready.
That said, I think his brain is going in the other direction, which is the “he's itching to play” part of it, but I do believe Tatum when he has said he’s not going to rush it.
One thing Tatum does not want to do: He doesn’t want to go through this again. It sucks. He’s not going to put himself in a position to return and risk a re-injury. There's always a risk of injury in basketball, but he’s not going to increase that by coming back too soon. No one is.
ON THE TEAM’S FIRST 25 GAMES:
“A lot of positive, seen good growth, which is important. I think we're in the midst of it, as every other team is, and there's a fine line between feeling really good about yourself and not feeling so good about yourself. And I think we just have to kind of stay in the work. I've kind of looked at us on a positive side, a work in progress where I'm really encouraged by both the work and the progress. You know, I think that we're making strides, and so we just have to continue to do it.”
Karalis’ Analysis:
Notice he didn’t say “we’re a good team,” or anything in that realm. There's “a lot of positive,” and “good growth,” but the best thing he can say is they're “making strides.”
You’ll see later how he’s not putting a ceiling on this team, and he did snap back at me when I prefaced a question about exceeding expectations with a “who’s expectations?” He’s not going to say anything less than something positive about these guys, but it’s always what he doesn’t say that tells the story.
I’m always reminded of him being asked about what he liked best about Vincent Poirier, and he replied by saying he’s one of the funniest guys in the locker room. Best way I’ve ever heard a coach tell the media a guy sucks without saying it.
ON TEAM NEEDS:
“Yeah, I mean, we need to get better. I think some of that's internal, and I think some of it's external, but we'll see how that all goes.”
Karalis’ Analysis:
Some guys can get better, but they need to make a trade to improve the team. This team is open for business.
ON THE TRADE DEADLINE APPROACH:
“I think the whole league, from everything you know, especially as you start to talk about those things with other teams, as you go to all the college tournaments that were a couple weeks ago, and then now the fact that a lot of the league can be traded, I think everybody, or a lot of teams, are really still very much in, ‘Let's see how everything looks as time goes on.’ Everybody's a work in progress. What’s the difference between third and ninth in the East right now? There's hardly anything, right? And I think that we're all still trying to figure out who we are and what we can be. We will not put a ceiling on this group, if it makes sense for us to look for things that can help us, we certainly will. But it all has to be within good deals, and it all has to be within the ultimate goal, which is the North Star of retooling so we're in a position to compete for what we want to compete for.”
Karalis’ Analysis:
I’ll just add a little bit here before going on to the next, very related answer. Stevens is making it clear that he won’t risk anything just to make a half-cocked run right now. The team is good, but not good enough for that. At the same time, there are a lot of front offices that have a lot of decisions to make.
And this is the part of the trade deadline that few people consider, at least not seriously. Other teams have their own evaluations of where they are and what’s important to them. We like to play in trade machines and come up with trades that we like, but teams have to be open to the move. More on this in a second.
ON GOING FOR IT NOW VS. A LONGER-TERM APPROACH:
“If I feel like we can do something to reach those things, and it makes sense with another team that's willing to do something, which is very complicated, then we always listen, and we always look, and we're always pursuing that. There's nothing holding us back, necessarily, from that. But at the same time, there's a lot of things that have to go right in a deal. One thing you can control is the people in the room getting better. I think it would have been easy for all of us to assume that (Neemias Queta) would have a long way to go in this role, and he's just jumped in and grabbed it and been great, right? Like, Jordan (Walsh) is getting to grow because of the opportunities there. So there's a balance with all that. But the North Star is the North Star, and we'll keep it that way”
Karalis’ Analysis:
The North Star is a championship, and there are a number of ways to get there. The guys on the roster have to continue their improvement to help in achieving that goal.
At the same time, Stevens isn’t going to over-extend to push this particular team to make a run. Even as a lot went right as they got to 15-9, and people started to wonder if the Celtics should become buyers, it doesn’t seem like Stevens will make anything besides a no-brainer move that happens to improve them this season.
Basically, there's nothing in this start to the season that has swayed Stevens, and that's why he’s the boss. Because people on the outside, both fans and media, can get caught up in the momentum and he has the ability to block that out and be realistic.
Part of that realistic approach is the difficulty of making deals, which he referenced. This isn’t the old system where two teams just made deals with each other. This new system means more teams have to be involved. Which brings me to …
ON THE DIFFICULTIES OF MAKING TRADES AND THE NEED TO INVOLVE MORE TEAMS