Not everyone outside of the Boston Celtics media sphere has felt the Massachusetts franchise made a slam-dunk hire when it elevated longtime head coach Brad Stevens to the role of president of basketball operations last week after the not-entirely unexpected retirement of former team president Danny Ainge.
After the dust settled on the end of the 18-year veteran of Boston’s front office tenure, analysts began to wonder whether Stevens truly would be the best choice for the job given a number of factors related to the position and his experience in recent months as head coach of a frustrated Celtics roster.
Among them was the New York Times’ Marc Stein. “Whispers in the past week that the NBA coaching grind had begun to wear on Stevens, 44, are the most concerning aspect about the Celtics’ abrupt power shift,” Stein wrote in his most recent newsletter.
The move took The Big Ticket by surprise as well. https://t.co/NwWdcBJxUW
— The Celtics Wire (@TheCelticsWire) June 8, 2021
“The front-office grind can be even more withering,” he added — and case in point, it was that grind and the effect it had on Ainge’s health that the Celtics lifer cited as the reason for his exit.
“It should help Stevens that the well-regarded assistant general manager Mike Zarren is expected to expand his responsibility and lend considerable guidance. Besides hiring his own replacement on the bench, Stevens has to overcome limited flexibility to improve a roster around Jayson Tatum and Jaylen Brown that Ainge said in a February radio interview was ‘not good.'”
“I wondered at the time why Ainge was willing to put public pressure on himself to make in-season upgrades that he was ultimately unable to deliver,” pondered Stein. “Chances are Ainge already knew, deep down, he would be stepping down at season’s end.”
Fall didn’t have much of a chance to develop or show growth in this pandemic-inflected season. https://t.co/pFMEg93zvS
— The Celtics Wire (@TheCelticsWire) June 8, 2021
This echoes what Bleacher Report’s Jake Fischer wrote earlier in the week, who said “it seems Boston’s maneuvering will finally clear the path for assistant general manager Mike Zarren to operate as the Celtics’ lead basketball mind.”
“There’s a belief that Stevens will only nominally outrank Zarren in Boston’s decision-making tree, sources said, and it’s a role Zarren appears more than prepared for. Whenever teams have conducted negotiations or trade calls with the Celtics, sources said, it has typically been Zarren on the other line. Right around Memorial Day weekend in 2013, it was Zarren, for example, who phoned Brooklyn to resume negotiating the famous blockbuster trade that ultimately netted Tatum and Brown.”
That doesn’t mean Stevens is a figurehead by any means, however. As Fischer notes, ownership loves the new team president as one of the sport’s leading basketball minds.
The former Longhorn is going to make a run at the pros. Will he land with Boston? https://t.co/tfh2nlO2gP
— The Celtics Wire (@TheCelticsWire) June 8, 2021
“That ownership group just adores him,” a Western Conference executive was reported to have said by the B/R writer. “As they should—he’s an awesome basketball mind. He’s really, really smart.”
With salary cap and roster construction issues galore to sort out, it’s a very good thing these two are so highly regarded — and the time to test those skills in earnest has already begun.
This post originally appeared on Celtics Wire. Follow us on Facebook!
