Brad Stevens has increased his win total in each of his first five seasons with the Boston Celtics. Expectations were high, and yet he still surpassed them in 2018.
Boston Celtics coach Brad Stevens is set to increase the team’s regular season win total for the fifth consecutive year. In a season headlined by tragic injuries and unlikely victories, he has handled the success in the most Brad Stevens way possible – with a blank stare and his arms crossed.
The funny thing about celebrating regular season success is that Stevens himself would surely find this accomplishment to be trivial at best. The same could be said about the Coach of the Year Award, as I’m sure he would deflect all praise to his players for playing the game in the way that he envisioned.
At this stage, it’s hard to say what has improved more between the roster and Stevens himself. We like to joke today about how he’s essentially piloted a G League team to increasingly unlikely wins against elite talent, but let’s not forget what a so-called “G League team” really looks like.
The Celtics are only five years removed from a 25-win roster that was brewing with equal parts soon-to-be emerging young talent and profound mediocrity. The list of players to get the most minutes is as nostalgic as it is uninspiring (per Basketball-Reference):
- Jeff Green – 2,805
- Brandon Bass – 2,266
- Jared Sullinger – 2,041
- Avery Bradley – 1,855
- Gerald Wallace 1,416
- Kelly Olynyk – 1,400
- Kris Humphries – 1,376
- Jordan Crawford – 1,198
- Phil Pressey – 1,132
- Jerryd Bayless – 1,036
- Rajon Rondo – 998
Here’s the thing, though. Couldn’t you imagine Stevens coaching that group to a 10-game win streak this year? Doesn’t it feel like a lineup of Crawford, Bradley, Green, Sullinger and Olynyk have enough hustle to throw an unsuspecting opponent off guard?
If Jayson Tatum, Greg Monroe, Semi Ojeleye, Shane Larkin, and Abdel Nader can go on a run against a gritty Utah Jazz team, it would seem that Stevens’ system can get much more out of his players in contrast to that year. While Tatum projects to be better than anybody on the 2013 team, you can’t ignore the fact that 80 percent of that lineup wasn’t even in the NBA last year.
While that group erased an early deficit in the second quarter, the Jazz deployed Rudy Gobert, Ricky Rubio, Joe Ingles, Jonas Jerebko, and Royce O’Neal. The difference in professional experience is enormous. All I’m going to add is that Shane Larkin was +25 in a game decided by three points.
Such is the context of win No. 52. And this, I guess (warning: loud video):
If Larkin and Ojeleye can be used to orchestrate game-winning plays in the year 2018, I have no doubts that a time-traveling Brad Stevens could have turned around that 2013 season with similar trickery.
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So at the risk of jinxing everything, it’s incredible to see the Celtics continue to add to their regular season success for yet another consecutive year, in what might also be the otherwise unluckiest season I have ever seen. It’s almost unfair to say that about a team that’s winning more than 50 games, but it’s the truth. The Celtics play three games against low-ranking opponents in their last four games, and given the injury situation, they won’t be in a position to rest players and mail those games in.