Forsberg: Brad Stevens still a believer in Celtics’ foundation originally appeared on NBC Sports Boston
BOSTON — Too often we associate urgency with action.
The Boston Celtics came up short of their stated championship goals and, thus, a portion of an always antsy fanbase demands action. Fire the coach. Trade a star player. Break up the core. There is a thirst for something tangible that suggests that the team understands that the season’s outcome fell short of expectations.
Not everyone falls into this bucket, of course. But it is the vocal majority. In the absence of action, they can sometimes be placated by outrage. There is no immediate change but at least our emotions are being mirrored by someone in a position to facilitate it.
Celtics Talk: “I really believe in our foundation”-Brad Stevens on what’s next for Celtics in exclusive 1-on-1 | Listen & Subscribe | Watch on YouTube
Brad Stevens didn’t check any of those impatient boxes Thursday as he calmly navigated an end-of-the-season press conference in which he voiced support for rookie coach Joe Mazzulla, suggesting the team sees supermax-eligible Jaylen Brown as part of the team’s future, and essentially hinted the team believes there are small tweaks that can deliver them back to the championship stage.
All of which leaves the antsy masses shaking their fists about a lack of urgency from a team that has enjoyed massive success with its current core, but the absence of an 18th banner diminishes it all.
How does Stevens navigate the noise?
“First and foremost, we’re all emotional, right? As we go through the roller coasters and the ups and downs of games and series,” Stevens told NBC Sports Boston. “Then you kind of take a step back after this and reassess it more on the whole. And I think that’s my job, right? It’s to look at it more from the big picture of, ‘OK, fundamentally, where are we? Do we think that being where we are, with small tweaks, we can get to where we want to go?’
“I really believe in our foundation. It’s really hard to be in the mix in this league. The competition is great. Sometimes things have to go your way, and sometimes they do. But you’ve got to do everything you can take the luck out.”
Stevens doesn’t believe the Celtics can simply show up next season and all their wrongs will be righted. He understands the anxiety. Stevens simply believes that the most surefire way to get this team where it wants to go is to build around the foundation already in place.
“Listen, we didn’t have a great playoff run in general. And we certainly were outplayed for the better part of that Miami series, even though it went seven games,” said Stevens. “So we have a lot of work to do. But it doesn’t mean that we need to make mistake activity for achievement. For my seat, I think we have to understand what’s really good and how hard it is to have a foundation, and then figure out how to build off of it.”
Sometimes the boldest move is not succumbing to the pressure of a desire for change.
Again, we completely understand the angst. Mazzulla had some bumps in the road after vaulting from behind the bench to the captain’s chair on the eve of the season. His stubbornness complicated matters at times. We’re fairly certain Year 2 Joe will be better than Second Row Joe. As Stevens stressed: “Our players, our staff, everyone around him believe in him, and we’ve got to do our best to support him going forward.”
The scramble to fill the head coaching void after Ime Udoka’s suspension left Boston’s collection of assistant coaches thin on NBA experience. Stevens said the team tried hard to find a veteran presence before the season but could not find an ideal option willing to join the team right before the 2022-23 campaign was launched. The departure of assistant Damon Stoudamire in March extended the talent drain on the bench.
Stevens pledged that he, “will try to make sure that we add one person to our bench with significant NBA experience and then and then go from there.” Free-agent coaches with head coaching experience like Frank Vogel and Stephen Silas will be popular names, and Boston could have additional spots to fill once Udoka finishes filling out his staff in Houston.
Stevens addresses uncertain futures of Grant Williams, Payton Pritchard
How can Stevens improve the roster? That’s a task getting tougher as teams wait for a finalized collective bargaining agreement that could force high-spending teams like the Celtics to cut costs. The team might not have the luxury of carrying someone like Sixth Man of the Year Malcolm Brogdon with lucrative extensions for Brown and Jayson Tatum looming.
Stevens seemed to hint that an offseason goal will be better balancing the roster.
“I think you always have to look for people that fit well with your best players, that accentuate your best players, and then put that team and that group together,” Stevens told NBC Sports Boston. “As I said in the press conference, not having [center Robert Williams III] for the better half of the season — I actually thought our depth bigs did a great job all year and gave us a chance to have a great seed and be a top seed in the East and fill those minutes and fill those times. But I thought that we had a lot of guys that were on the perimeter and a lot of guys that could help us on the perimeter.
“We just have to look at everything and figure out, OK, how does it all fit together?” Is it as good of a fit as it can be? Obviously, we can’t always predict health, but we have to make ourselves as fortified as possible, both on the perimeter and on the interior.”
The 2023 Celtics ran into some of the issues that hindered Stevens’ talent-filled 2019 Celtics team. There wasn’t always minutes and playing time for rotation-caliber players. It would seem the Celtics could trim costs this offseason, strengthen the frontcourt, and still get by offering more robust roles to the likes of Sam Hauser. Payton Pritchard and Grant Williams, if retained, could see their minutes bounce back to 2021-22 levels. Danilo Gallinari could be healthy, Mike Muscala could be back.
Is that enough to fix what ailed Boston this season? The Celtics need their superstars to continue to evolve to really shore up what hindered them. Tatum can be even more consistent. Brown can improve his ball-handling. Smart can get back to his defensive roots and lean further into being the team’s quarterback at the point guard position.
All that, coupled with a healthy Williams III, and a more entrenched Mazzulla should allow Boston to remain in the title mix. Is it the sexiest plan? Of course not. Because there’s nothing tangibly different at the onset and you have to wait a year to see if it really worked.
But it might be the most prudent plan. And Stevens is content to trust his gut on this. For now, he’s got more pressing priorities. Like scouting for the No. 35 pick in the 2023 NBA draft and doing all he can to ignore the NBA Finals.
“I’m not all that excited to watch [the FInals], to be candid,” Stevens admitted. “I don’t think I’m going to be all that committed to watching the next couple of games live. I’m still hurting like everybody else from the loss on whatever day that was.”
Stevens spent the better part of the past 48 hours obsessing about all the things that went wrong on Boston’s playoff run that could have prevented the team from falling in 7 games in the Eastern Conference finals. He wonders what might have happened if Boston simply took better care of the home court it worked so hard to secure.
If the team had been just a little more crisp inside the Garden, his interview window Thursday could have been spent talking about a Finals showdown against the Nuggets.
“That’s why the margin is so slim, when you’re talking about doing a freakin’ end-of-the-season press conference or playing Finals Game 1 tonight,” sighed Stevens. “That’s one of the toughest things to swallow, just how slim that is.”