(This post is running as the lede item on DigitalSportsDesk.com tonight)
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| Danny Ainge, new coach Brad Stevens and co-owner Wyc Grousbeck |
WALTHAM, Mass –
July 5, 2013 -- The formalities were already covered by a series of phone calls
between Boston Celtics President of Basketball Operations Danny Ainge and Brad
Stevens. It was time to sit down and finalize a deal to make Stevens the 17th
head coach to walk the sidelines for the storied National Basketball
Association franchise. Not a soul outside of the organization was aware of the
breakfast meeting at Stevens' mother's house in Indiana, a setting that would
make the casting directors and set designers for the motion picture
"Hoosiers" marvel in creative vision. The deal breaker was going to
be the Celtics' ability to put Stevens and his family at ease with the daunting
task and unfathomable opportunity being proposed to the young coach, the most
successful coach in the history of tiny Butler University.
Stevens' mother's
shitzu poodle, Mack, greeted Ainge and the Celtics hierarchy at the garage door.
Then, with the snuff test administered by the 10-pound pooch successfully
passed, the deal-making could unfold with the negotiating at a dining room
table in a setting right out of Americana, in the hotbed of hoops in the
Hoosier State where basketball is indeed a religion. Ainge, along with minority
team owner Stephen Pagliuca and Managing Partner Wyc Grousbeck, gathered around
the table covered with plastic to protect young Brady and Kingsley’s
grandmother Jan's furniture from the kids’ arts and crafts projects
Believe it or not,
before the job opportunity came along and before the phone rang and Ainge was
asking Stevens if he'd be interested in succeeding Doc Rivers, the Stevens
family's belongings were already all packed up and in storage, not because they
envisioned a change of employers, but simply because they were trying to find
the right home to settle down and raise two wonderful children right smack in
America's heartland.
"It's really
comical, and you have to be able to laugh at yourself," said Tracy,
sincerely happy that their challenging real estate ventures were the subject of
questioning instead of her viewpoint on x's and o's or the trials and
tribulations as a coach's wife. "We had purchased a house in Carmel,
Indiana a couple of years ago and immediately knew it just wasn't the right
fit, she explained. "We tried to sell it for about a year and we hadn't
received any offers. So, we finally get an offer, and we sold it and had to get
out fairly quickly. We've been looking for a place and - this time - we didn't
want to make the wrong choice in buying a new house. We were hoping to find a
place quickly but it wasn't working out, so we decided to put all of stuff in storage
and move in with Brad's mom. It was only going to be a few weeks, as we
had (Butler University) basketball camp and Brad was going to be gone a lot in
July, recruiting.
"The call
comes in on a day when we'd just looked at two houses and we both agreed they
weren't the right fit." she elaborated. “To me, it was a little bit of a
'sign,' as we still hadn't found a home and, maybe, this is something we should
really think about. When it came time to meet, we met at Brad's Mom's
house and they came in, walked through the garage and the dog is barking,” she
laughed.
"Then, right
in the middle of the meeting, my cell phone kept ringing multiple times, which
sometimes means something is wrong," she recounted. "I looked at it
and it was one of the basketball secretaries at Butler where we had 160
campers. She was calling to say a construction crew had turned off the water
and while they had some running water, the restrooms were not working! So I had
to excuse myself from the meeting, but when I came back, Brad said "I
think I'm going to do it," and I said, 'Okay!"
The rest is
history, and you can call it Celtics lore or maybe even Celtics
"lure."
Amidst pure fate,
some scrambled-up living arrangements and real-world issues like the timing and
feel to sign on the dotted line for a longterm real estate move, -- never mind
the ill-timed plumbing failures --
the fade-to-black background story that brought Ainge and Stevens together at
this crucial moment in Boston Celtics franchise history actually began at the
2010 NCAA Final Four at Lucas Oil Stadium in downtown Indianapolis. The former
NCAA star from Brigham Young University and two-time NBA champion as a Celtics
point guard sat with Pagliuca, a Duke University graduate, as the David vs.
Goliath NCAA championship game unfolded, pitting Stevens' underdog Butler team
against Duke and Coach Mike Krzyzewski's blue blood Blue Devils.
"In 2010,
Steve and I went to the championship game against Duke, and, of course, Steve
was rooting for Duke,” remembered Ainge. "Not to bring back bad memories
for Brad, but as I sat there, I said to Steve, 'this is the best coach in
college basketball, right there down on the sideline. He thought that I was
talking about Coach K, so we had a little debate right then and there. But,
well before that time, I had known of Brad and watched him coach, and I loved
to watch his teams play. I love his poise, and more than anything, in talking
to Brad about prospects for the draft, I always valued what he said, and I talk
to a lot of coaches. For some reason, I just trusted his opinions, and I liked
his feel and understanding of players - the character of players and the
talents of players.
"Brad was my
first choice," said Ainge at a packed press conference on the floor of the
Celtics suburban Boston training facility, a place where the children of
Celtics staff and players frequently traipse around, shoot baskets and glance
up at replicas of 16 NBA championship banners that mimic the real ones that
hung in the rafters of the fabled Boston Garden and now adorn the more
modern-looking TD Garden on Causeway Street downtown.
"I've watched
and admired his poise, his intelligence, his teams and their execution under
pressure. I've always looked at him over the last few years as a candidate to
be a great head coach, never really thinking it was going to be this soon in
Celtics history.
“I viewed him as a
great talent, but maybe more importantly, a man with great integrity and
character,” noted Ainge who was shoulder-to-shoulder with the 10th different
Celtics head coach since he played for Bill Fitch in the glory years of the
'80s.
“I am absolutely
humbled to be sitting in this room,” said Stevens as the time came for him to
speak at his introductory media conference where he let it slip that he had
already been reading Celtics great Bill Russell’s memoirs. “As any young
basketball coach was or is, I am just in awe of the Boston Celtics organization
and all that’s been accomplished by the many players, coaches and everybody
else that has worked in this building to help them do what they’ve done.
“One of the things
that I’m so thrilled about is to work in a place that has high standards but
also places such a value on culture. It’s really important. I’m a
process-driven guy. I believe in relationships. I believe in trying to be the
very best you can be and that has clearly been something that has been stressed
in every conversation that I’ve had here, starting with the multiple
conversations I had with Danny.
I want to thank and
appreciate Butler, as there’s been a lot of emotion,” Stevens added, sincerely,
as he named the Butler support team and called out to the players past and
present. “I wouldn’t be sitting here and I’m not one of these guys that’s crazy
enough to think that I’m here because of me. I’m here because I’ve fooled a
couple of these guys and because we’ve had great people on our bus all the way
through and I’m looking forward to working with the great people here.”
"Since the
hire, the feedback we've gotten has been amazing from coaches, some that I've
never heard from before, saying that same thing, that Brad is one of the great
young coaches that they've ever been around. I couldn't be more excited about
our partnership. We've spent a lot of time on the phone over the past 10
days, as it's been a very difficult decision for Brad, leaving a wonderful
situation at Butler with his staff, his athletic director and his players,”
noted Ainge.
"Brad's
success will be determined by what I do to help him and support him and what
(Celtics) ownership does to support us. We all know what we're about to embark
on, and he will have great support from ownership and management. There will be
transition from the college game to the NBA game, but we will give him that
support to make the transition fast. He's a very smart guy, and I'm not worried
about that. He's probably more worried about that than I am," said Ainge
with a smile.
"Wyc and Pags
knew how much I liked Brad from the very beginning," said Ainge. "We
hadn't made a deal but it was getting close and the thing that was preventing it
from happening was the uncertainty of the NBA. There was a tug to stay at
Butler where he was recruiting new players and they’re going into the Big East.
Brad loves his athletic director and it was just really, hard. But once he met
everybody, he and his wife felt more comfortable."
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| Brad Stevens, the 17th head coach of the Boston Celtics (photos by Getty Images). |
The Celtics
organization has long embodied the term "Celtics family," and Ainge
took that organizational culture up a notch when he took over the basketball
operations job in a place where he and his family literally grew up.
"I lived
it," said Ainge. "I've been a coach and I've been a player, and I
know how draining it can be. We welcome families here. We welcome players to
include their families. We want the kids hanging around, shooting with their
dads on the court, and we want the whole family to participate in the
experience."
For Stevens, a
self-described “process-driven, day-to-day guy,” his hard decision process was
a fork in the basketball road. If he jumped at the pros, he would have to leave
behind the security of a dream-come-true job at Butler and take that "leap
of faith," as Ainge put it multiple times in the introductory press
conference. In Stevens' mind, surely there was a laundry list of upside factors
such as coaching a strong but ornery point guard in Rajon Rondo, who can
masterfully quarterback a foundation of gutty, road-tested, high basketball IQ
players who will compete mightily during a period of transition and change for
this franchise.
On the long-range
planning chart for the young coach and his family is the potential for a bright
future, living in one of America's great cities, coaching the league’s most
respected and winningest clubs with a newfound, windfall NBA bank account with
a different type of security - financial security - to the tune of his freshly
minted six-year, $22 million dollar deal.
In taking the gig,
Stevens has the utmost admiration and support from senior management, in Ainge.
In the past three days, he quickly learned - at his mom's dining room
table - he has the support of team ownership.
Said Grousbeck,
with a breath of fresh air and even - yes, humility, uncommon in NBA ownership
circles, "Thank you to Brad and Tracy and their family for believing in
us, believing in the power of "Celtics Pride." When you take charge
of this organization and all of the tradition and pride that has been built by
so many great people in the past, you are a trustee and your obligation is to
build the Celtics pride and take it forward. We think that by having Brad and
his family here, as a key part of the Celtics going forward, we're doing
everything we can to bring back the championship ways. Both on and off the
court, we think Brad will help us lead this franchise to where it needs to be
and we're going to be patient, committed and resolute."
Reflecting back at
the scene from his moms dining room table, Stevens thought hard and you could
see the wheels turning in his mind, relishing the request to elaborate on the
feeling he had when Ainge and the Celtics’ contingent departed.
“We were pretty
well set on what the decision would be when they arrived because of the fact we
were meeting in person,” said Stevens, painting the picture. “Obviously, it was
important to them to meet us and be sure they felt good about us and for us, we
felt a tremendous sense – we felt at home.
“Sitting there
around that table, it was very evident, it was very obvious. When they left, it
was obvious it was the right decision. But that didn’t make communicating the
decision any easy to the people I spent 13 years with (at Butler). We’ve done
nothing but look forward since and we had a blast with our family here in
Boston yesterday, walking downtown.
“I just can’t wait
to get back to normalcy,” added the young coach who can mark his calendar with
a date to watch Celtics
2013 draft picks Kelly Olynyk and Colton Iverson along with 2012 No. 1 pick Fab
Melo when they play on the Celtics
summer league roster in Orlando just about 48 hours after Brad Stevens, the 17th head coach of the
Boston Celtics, was introduced to a group of reporters who all shared the same
opinion about a very good hire. That being a coach fitting of a new value in Celtics family
history – one of humility.
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