NBA: Ranking Mavs opening among head coaching vacancies around the league

Ranking the NBA head coaching vacancies: 2. Boston Celtics

There have been some cases of an NBA head coach moving up into the front office of the team he oversaw. Examples from NBA history include Red Auerbach and Pat Riley. It’s less common in the modern NBA and theoretically would only happen when an all-time great wants to move into a different stage of their career.

The Boston Celtics instead moved head coach Brad Stevens to the top of the front office, not because he was coming off a decade of NBA Finals appearances but because he was “tired” of the coaching grind. That puts Stevens in the rare place of finding his own replacement.

Working under Stevens seems like a positive on the surface, as he is genial, intelligent and laid-back. Celtics owner Wyc Grousbeck has been loyal to his own and gives his coaches a lot of leash; Stevens was coach for eight years, and Doc Rivers for another eight before him.

The roster is stocked with talent, from Jayson Tatum and Jaylen Brown on the wing to young center Robert Williams inside. Former All-Star point guard Kemba Walker is on the downswing of his career but still a talented scorer, while Marcus Smart is the heart-and-soul of the team. A new head coach won’t have much roster flexibility, which is more of a Stevens problem than a coaching problem, and it won’t have a top-10 player. Yet Tatum could still rise to that level, and having two All-Star wings under long-term contract is about as stable as an NBA roster gets.

The Celtics are in a large market that hasn’t been a huge free agent draw, although in recent years they signed Al Horford and Gordon Hayward to max deals, and to an extent recruited Walker as well. A new coach will have expectations to compete during Tatum and Brown’s primes, but given how last season ended there won’t be a mandate to win a title next season. It’s not a perfect job, but it’s a really good one.