Brad Stevens (Zionsville, Indiana, 47 years old) has been chosen Best Executive of this season in which the Boston Celtics won 64 games before reaching the playoffs as a favorite in which, most important of all, he delivered (without dramas, in addition ) with that condition. It was his third season as head of the offices (president of operations) of the Celtics whom he had coached the previous eight years (2013-21). When Danny Ainge, who had run the offices for almost three decades, said that he was retiring although he later went to work in the Utah Jazz offices, Stevens made a leap that at the time was surprising. But he is already Executive of the Year and, well, he was never Coach of the Year although, for example, he did coach the East in the All Star Game. And he put the team in the playoffs seven years in a row, all but the first, in the midst of relocation.

He left the green bench with 55.7% wins (354-282) in the regular season. An excellent job but some unfulfilled promises (he lost three Conference finals), the weight of the expectations of someone who had been a young prodigy at Butler University, which he took over in 2007 (at the age of 31) after six as assistant, with various positions in the organizational chart. He led the team, which had never played in one, to two consecutive Final Fours, the youngest to do so (2010, 2011). He lost both times in the title game, the first narrowly against Duke (61-59).

As an executive, Stevens has completed the transformation process, accelerated evolution, of a Celtics that seemed to have run aground in the Jays project (Jayson Tatum and Jaylen Brown) in his last year on the bench, when they lost (4-1) against Brooklyn Nets in the first round after a year of 50% wins. Perhaps thanks to the information he had from his hours in the locker room, he seemed to be clear from the beginning what could be played (almost everything) and what couldn’t (the jays). He brought a few diagnoses from the bench, it was obvious, and since then he has demonstrated, another fundamental issue, that he is more aggressive and flexible than Ainge. More dynamic. If his predecessor always wanted to win and squeeze out any operation, and that is why he used to get entangled in eternally stalled negotiations, he prefers to move, even at the risk of making a mistake, without fear of putting on the table what is needed, draft capital (sacrosanct for so many executives) and/or players. His vision has worked, of course.

There are three operations that define the capacity for maneuver and the gift of opportunity with which Stevens has turned into champions that team that seemed touched and almost sunk in 2021, when he stopped coaching it, and that did not look, at the beginning, like right the course with Ime Udoka on the bench: 25-25 on January 28, 2022, before a huge end to the course (up to 51-31: 26-6 in 32 games) whose inertia led to the Finals, where They led 1-2 and had an advantage in the fourth game, at the Garden. With 1-3 within reach, their legs failed (they played 14 games between the semifinals and the East final, against the Bucks and Heat) and Stephen Curry emerged (from 1-2 to 4-2 for the Warriors).

Before, on February 10, 2022, Stevens moved the first of those three chips that have ended up leading to this 2024 title. A streak of nine straight victories (up to 34-25) before losing to the Detroit Pistons at the gates of the All Star Weekend convinced the new president of operations that the project was not lost. And he took advantage of the reconstruction that the San Antonio Spurs had entered into to acquire Derrick White in exchange for Romeo Langford (he had been a lottery pick in 2019), Josh Richardson, the first round of 2022 (Blake Wesley) and a right to exchange for the Spurs in 2028.

White was 27 years old and had been chosen at the end (pick 29) of the first round in 2017. He appeared, after a lot of work with Gregg Popovich, the dynamic guard who has since reached his optimal ceiling, the best possible version: excellent in defense Despite his height of 1.93 (twice in the Second Defensive Quintet), he scores almost 40% of his triples with almost seven taken per night, he is efficient with the ball in his hands in pick and roll plays and, the icing on the cake , a guy adored by a locker room that he has helped strengthen. He played the 2019 World Cup with the United States, sounds like a replacement for the (probably) injured Kawhi Leonard for the Paris Games (a team in Dream Team version) and has already been considered to enter as a reserve in the last All Star. Seen with little More than two years of perspective, Stevens’ success was thunderous. And the price, anything but exaggerated.

The big decisions of last summer

The other two movements, the definitive checkmate, came last summer, after the tremendous disappointment of the last Eastern final and the 3-4 against the Miami Heat: from 0-3 to 3-3 and final defeat at the Garden, all very difficult to explain. Stevens, who also gave a historically high contract to Jaylen Brown when many were calling for him to be traded, knew what type of player was needed and knew where he was. Hidden in broad daylight, in plain sight of everyone; discarded by many for the high competitive level, banished to the sad Wizards. READ FULL STORY HERE>>>CLICK HERE TO CONTINUE READING>>>

To take Kristaps Porzingis, and after some tense negotiations that forced to redo an operation that fell in its version 1.0, in which the Clippers were going to be involved, Stevens assumed the risk of moving Marcus Smart, a reference for the team in in recent years and one of the Garden’s most beloved players. As the Grizzlies, theoretical contenders in the West before their annus horribilis, wanted Smart and the Wizards were looking for a way to get rid of Porzingis’ contract, Stevens pretended to be passing by and took the Latvian with, as a gift, a 2024 first rounder (from the Warriors with top 4 protection). And he improved his 2023 pick in the process, which became 25 instead of 35. And he only had to let go, for such an important pick, Danilo Gallinari, Mike Muscala and Julian Philips. Given the result, it was an exceptional operation.

In their own way, and also forced by an unexpected playoff loss against the Heat, the Bucks were trying to reformulate their winning project (a puzzle from the 2021 ring) and convince Giannis Antetokounmpo that this had to continue being his home for many. years. The way to do it was Damian Lillard. A massive miscalculation, at least if we judge only by the point guard’s first year in Wisconsin. In the operation, and to get ahead of the Heat who had been flirting with the point guard for weeks, the Bucks sent Jrue Holiday to the Portland Trail Blazers, one of the best outside defenders of the last decade and a key player in that title that fell in Milwaukee in 2021. The Blazers wanted to redirect Jrue, who only stopped in Oregon, to obtain more assets with which to shore up their reconstruction. And Stevens, once again, saw the opportunity before the other contenders to be champions. The price was important, but once again it was worth it: Malcolm Brogdon, Robert Williams (two players very conditioned by injuries), the first round of 2024 that they had received in the Porzingis operation and another first, in 2029.

When he was promoted to the offices, in June 2021, Stevens was also clear that Al Horford was not finished. So, basically the first transcendental decision of his, he recovered the center at 35 years old and two after his departure from the Garden. To do so he showed conviction: he ventilated that failed attempt that had been Kemba Walker and delivered a first round of 2021 that ended up being Alperen Sengun, a very important player. The rest of the operation was completed with second rounds and minor players.

So in two years, after the disappointment of the 2020-21 season and before the start of the 2023-24 season, Brad Stevens completely changed the Jays project. In the 2020-21 season, Jaylen and Jayson played with Marcus Smart, Kemba Walker, Robert Williams and Daniel Theis as their most important teammates. This season the four following the two of them are White, Holiday, Porzingis and Horford. The best top-6 in the NBA and the core of a champion team…and well equipped to face the defense of its throne: in an era that will punish high spenders with a harshness never seen before (in sports, not only economically), the Celtics have all their main players under contract (including Al Horford, Payton Pritchard and Sam Hauser, the wardrobe) and have, a perfect contingency plan, seven first rounds of their own in the next eight years. Another example of the exceptional work of Brad Stevens who came to the Celtics to make history as a coach… and he is achieving it, things in life, as an executive.

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2024-06-22 06:22:13
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