Boston Celtics coach Brad Stevens has earned rave reviews from every corner, and some of the loftiest praise has come from his boss.
Earlier this week, Celtics' president of basketball operations Danny Ainge said that, in a decade or two, Stevens will be viewed as one of the all-time coaching greats and gushed about Stevens' selfless nature while navigating the early stages of Boston's rebuilding process.
"I wouldn’t have brought him in and given him a six-year contract if I didn’t think he was really good and special," Ainge said during an on-camera interview with Comcast SportsNet. "By the way, I’m the first one to see how special he was. It’s exciting for me that everyone else is recognizing that.
"Brad is one of the smartest coaches in the NBA. He’s learning the game still. But he’s a tireless worker, he’s a great communicator. It's exciting for me that Brad is getting the accolades that he’s getting. We’ve always known that about Brad. He’s going to have some ups and downs through his coaching career, but, it’s my opinion that, in 10 or 20 years from now, we’ll be talking about Brad as one of the great coaches to ever coach in the NBA.
"He has such high character and players respect him because it’s not about him -- it’s about the organization, it’s about the team, it’s about the players. He tries to divert the attention away from him, and that’s genuine."
"In 10 or 20 years from now, we'll be talking about Brad as one of the great coaches to ever coach in the NBA." Celtics president Danny Ainge
After posting a 25-57 mark during his first season with the Celtics two years ago, Stevens led the Celtics to a 40-42 record and the seventh seed in the Eastern Conference this past season. Although Boston was swept out of the first round of the postseason by the Cleveland Cavaliers, LeBron James was one of many to gush about Stevens' talents as a coach.
Last month, Wizards guard and forward Jared Dudley said in a Grantland podcast that there's a "buzz" going around the league among players about Stevens. Said Dudley, "I keep hearing the buzz on [Stevens] a lot. He’d definitely be in my top two or top three [coaches you’d want to play for]."
Currently. Stevens is in Johannesburg, South Africa participating in the NBA's Basketball Without Borders program. Even in the quietest month of the year for the NBA, Stevens is immersed in the game.
"Basketball is such an international game and it’s played at such a high level all over the world," Stevens noted last month during an interview with SiriusXM radio.
"The places basketball has taken me, it’s incredible. I’ve coached in China with USA basketball, I’ve taken a few college teams to Western Europe, I get a chance now to go to Africa, the Celtics are going to Madrid and Milan for our preseason -- it’s just amazing where this game takes you.
"I’m a beneficiary of that and I’m looking forward to going [to Africa] and I’ll probably learn a lot more from the people I’m with and the people I’ll get a chance to get to coach then they will from me. But I’m really looking forward to it. It’s certainly something that we’ve targeted and circled for a long time."