Brad commits to Boston
Extension confirms coach’s intentions
WALTHAM — My first meetings with Brad Stevens were quick and cordial vignettes at summer league in Orlando just after his hiring. We agreed we should meet for lunch back here, and it was over chowder at Union Oyster House that we discussed basketball, our jobs and what it would mean to coach a franchise like the Celtics in a place like Boston.
Near the end of the scallops, Rudolph “Spider” Edwards and his wife came in and took seats at a table across the room. I nodded over.
“There,” I said, “is a famous man. I’ll introduce you to him on the way out.”
“Who is he?” Stevens asked.
“He was a high school star,” I told him, “but everyone knows him from working at the old Garden and this one. He had a bigger job, but he also ran a dry mop up and down the floor during timeouts. People would shout his name.”
Stevens took it all in. He knew the Celtics were a storied franchise, but here in the city’s oldest restaurant, he was getting an idea of just how deep the sense of community runs. Leaving such a situation with Butler in Indiana was the most difficult part of the decision he’d just made.
Finding it here, both with his family and professionally, is why, with three years left on his contract, he was at the Celtics’ practice facility announcing an extension yesterday. According to sources, three years have been added to his contract at figures that will bring him more in line with the higher end of the league’s coaching spectrum.
It was a commitment by Stevens to the Celtics, to the NBA to people who feel the same about commitment as he does.
“That was vetted in the sit-downs before I came here, the nine days we talked on the phone and then in person,” he said after leaving the podium where president of basketball operations Danny Ainge discussed his own extension as well. “It was very well-vetted that this was an organization that valued continuity, and it was important to them. I thought with Doc (Rivers’) tenure being nine years and choosing to leave on his own, you know, that’s pretty unique for a coaching situation in a professional or a college situation. You know, coaching stability is not exactly the highest in college either.
“So I do think it was wellvetted. It was well-thoughtout. And as a result, I’ve felt really empowered. I haven’t thought about being fired ever. If it happens, it happens down the road. But at the end of the day, I haven’t even thought twice about it.”
Not that he wants to. It was rumored from the day he signed with the Celtics that the NBA was for him a glorified weigh station, that he couldn’t in good conscience leave Butler for another college job, so he was here for transitional purposes until moving to a marquee school. But Stevens said then that was not the case.
And he said it again with yesterday’s announcement.
“It’s so hard,” Stevens said when the subject of changing jobs was raised. “It’s so hard to move. This ended up being a great move for a lot of reasons. Butler is in a great place, and we’ve been able to grow. We’ve been able to get better here. And our family has really enjoyed Boston. But it’s hard to leave a place.
“I’ve said this before, and I don’t know if people don’t take me seriously or not, but choosing to leave some place is not an easy decision, and I don’t want to have to go through it again. So if they want to choose to move on from me eventually, I get it. But that’s why I’ve said it’s been a one-sided question for a long time.”
With his contractual clock now reset to six years, Brad, wife Tracy and children Brady and Kinsley will have a chance to become more Bostonian, maybe even forget to pronounce an “r” every now and then.
“We haven’t seen everything,” Stevens said. “We want to explore more. But we have dove head-first into the relations we have with friends here. And that’s a big reason why you want to be in a place, right? It’s the people you’re around on a daily basis, whether it’s at work or at home. It’s been a good transition for us.”
The presence in town of his coaching mentor, Todd Lickliter, reminded him of something his Butler boss had stressed.
“It’s always about who you’re around,” Stevens said. “No matter what industry you’re in or the level you’re playing at, being around great people on a day-to-day basis is just so helpful.”
Helpful, too, for the Stevens family is they’ve been able to maintain their Indiana ties.
“We get a great chance to spend time in Indy during our off time and to reconnect, and I think all the advancements in technology have made connecting even easier,” Stevens said. “My son still talks to his best friend on FaceTime three days a week. They see each other right after school regardless of whether they went to school together or not. So that’s been great. And we’ve loved this community. We’ve made great friends.
“And right after every season, I sit down with my management team, and that is my wife and my kids, and I say, ‘How do you feel about how we’re all doing?’ And, ‘Was the season long on you? Was it hard on you?’ And, ‘How can we better manage that in the future?’ And they’ve been nothing but jacked up about being here and being with the Celtics, so that’s been a bunch of fun for them, too.”
The ties will get more time to bind, though Stevens still has a ways to go to match Spider Edwards’ more-than-30-year tenure at the two Gardens.