Tuesday, July 16, 2013

How successful will Brad Stevens be from making the jump from Butler to Boston?

Doc Rivers left the Celtics to go join Chris Paul and "Lob-City" in Los Angeles. Danny Ainge, the team president of the Celtics, went looking for a coach to replace Doc Rivers and chose Brad Stevens. I believe Danny Ainge did a great job selecting Brad Stevens. Brad Stevens reminds me a lot of Erik Spoelstra. Both love analyzing statistics and watching game film. For example, Brad Stevens hired Drew Cannon just to analyze stats in 2012 for Butler. Also, both Stevens and Spoelstra were fairly young when getting their job as a coach. But the biggest similarity is the situation they were put in their first year. Spoelstra his first year was given a superstar, D-Wade, who was used to sharing the spotlight with Shaq but would have to succeed on his own. Brad Stevens has Rondo who just like D-Wade had superstars such as Kevin Garnett and Paul Pierce to help him win. Both the teams were going in a rebuilding process. The Heat the season before Spoelstra's hire were 15- 67 while the Celtics  traded Kevin Garnett and Paul Pierce and are considered by many to be tanking to get Andrew Wiggins.

The Celtics goal is to build up through the draft. Brad Stevens is perfect for that. At Butler he quickly turned the team into a contender. In his six years there he had 166 wins, which is the most for any D.1 in their first 6 years. In only his third season at Butler he brought them to the National Championship. Brad Stevens has a knack for developing young players and molding them to play team ball. With all this said, he can do the same with Boston who plan on getting young players from the draft and molding them behind a "true" point guard, Rajan Rondo. Boston might struggle next year but by the end of Brad Stevens's contract, the Celtics will be one of the best in the East.

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