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Pop quiz: Who was the GM of the Cleveland Cavaliers when LeBron James brought a championship back to Akron? How about the Bucks in 2021? Dallas in 2011?
The sickos reading this are proudly sat at home, on the train to work, or on a well-deserved bathroom break, and they’ve remembered David Griffin, Jon Horst, and Donnie Nelson. Good on them: three points to Gryffindor.
I’d posit to you that you’re in the minority if you nailed all three. And if the majority of basketball fans don’t know who was responsible for some of the greatest championship wins of the modern era, then Brad Stevens still has work to do before he can walk the NBA halls of Valhalla.
To many, the upcoming season sees the Celtics in a state of suspended animation, waiting hopelessly for the return of their franchise hero. We’re cast as the helpless princess atop the tower with our knight in shining armor’s return certain but distant. If this were a book, you’d be tempted to skip the chapter and get to the good bits.
For Brad Stevens, though, this is the start of the season that separates him from the David Griffins of the world and, hopefully, secures his legacy as one of the brightest basketball minds of the 21st century.
Stevens has already made a slew of tough choices this offseason: Jrue Holiday, Kristaps Porziņģis, Al Horford, and Luke Kornet are all suiting up for new teams in October. This is an unfamiliar roster and now that the hardest decisions are behind him, this season has to be about building on the margins.
Often, championship rosters get trapped, locked in for better or worse to the core that carried them to glory. Toronto in 2019, Milwaukee in 2021, and Denver in 2023 all became expensive, asset-strapped, and increasingly reliant on an aging core. The bond forged by a championship is hard to break. Front offices stick to the original construction, only to watch the team gradually fade and sour the glory days with a bitter finish.
For the Celtics, Tatum’s injury has allowed for a guilt-free reset. Stevens has maneuvered Boston out of second-apron restrictions, though at the cost of real quality. This may not be the year to pull off a Kevin Garnett-level swing like 2008, but I hope Stevens cycles through the non-essential pieces. Tatum, Derrick White, Jaylen Brown, and Payton Pritchard are clearly long-term pillars of this Celtics team. Everyone else (sorry, Sam Hauser) is fighting to prove they belong on the next great Celtics squad.
If players don’t profile as playoff ready for 2026/27 and beyond, then permanent contracts shouldn’t tie Boston’s hands.
To me, the last team to go through a season from hell in a supposed contention window was the Memphis Grizzlies in 2023/24. Scoff if you want, but the Grizzlies had posted back-to-back 50+ win seasons. Off-court controversy and injuries meant the 23/24 campaign was anything but sunshine and rainbows. Ja Morant played a paltry nine games, and the FedExForum faithful only saw nine victories in a 27–55 season. GM Zach Kleiman, an Executive of the Year winner like Stevens, put the grind in Grind City as Memphis churned through 33 players in the regular season, an NBA record.
Perhaps the likes of Luka Garza, Neemias Queta and Josh Minott emerge as playoff ready this season but if they don’t, I hope Stevens advocates for guys like Amari Williams, Drew Petterson, RJ Luis and whatever G-League star he falls in love with on a late-night synergy binge instead of the Celtics sticking with mediocrity. In giving chances to a record number of players, Kleiman & Co. discovered players like Jay Huff, Vince Williams Jr, GG Jackson, and Scottie Pippen Jr. Making the most of that skippable chapter could set the Celts up for an exciting rebirth in 26/27. I hope Stevens can show that his expertise extend to an area that going into his fifth season are so far uncharted.
Boston has their big green maniacal monster. Joe Mazzulla owns the highest winning percentage of any coach in NBA history, winning 74% of his first 246 regular season games, by also having incredibly high standards, aggressively innovative, and a deadpan response that can quash the queasiest of media probes. Mazzulla is a top-tier coach: a perfect spearhead in any race for a championship. I do, however, worry that if Joe had hair, this would be the season that he pulls it out.
I see real frustration on the horizon this season as Mazzulla adapts to working with a group of players that may not execute to an assassin-level standard. It’s up to the players to continue to deliver, and it’s up to Mazzulla to work with what he has at his disposal.
But as the master of ceremonies, Stevens will likely have to manage Joe through this year, and that presents a real challenge. Am I asking Stevens to channel Zach Kleiman and Natasha Romanov in my season preview? Yes. A tall task? Yes. But it’s one that I think Stevens can manage.
A world-class coach at the college and NBA level, Stevens has the management skills to stop Mazzulla from smashing the culture they’ve worked so hard to build together—before unleashing him, unleashing the anger of a frustrating season on a terrified Eastern Conference in 2026/27.
The end goal is Banner 19, and it can be achieved in many different ways. There’ll be arguments to preserve a winning culture across the organization. Scrape tooth and nail to make the postseason. Value the experience that players get in uncomfortable roles and carry that new knowledge and new confidence into an improved championship roster in 12 months time.
Door #2 is the quiet quit (the 76ers last year).
Regular season games become a masochism litmus test for your average Celtics fan. How much pain can you take if there’s a tantalizing reward at the end of the rainbow? Many fans and analysts are advocating for a development season next year — one that results in a top-3 pick in a loaded 2026 draft class. If a year from hell can result in a franchise-changing star arriving to turbocharge the back half of the 2020s, then maybe we’re all suckers for punishment.
There’s real merit to either approach, and one or two more injuries to key figures could result in the organization’s hand being forced rather than chosen by leadership. But, heading into next season, the Celtics need to have a clear approach in mind. It’ll be up to Stevens to make a decision that could define the future of the C’s for the next decade.
This is a season of titanic proportions for Brad and the Boston Celtics. More difficult decisions are down the road. Stevens will have to prove himself in areas unfamiliar to a contending GM. A tough year is ahead.
Get it right, and Stevens goes down in history with the Pat Riley, Jerry West, and Red Auerbach, one of the best front office heads in NBA history. Get it wrong, and, morbid as it may seem, Stevens could end up a rather difficult trivia question in a decade or two.
