What Boston Celtics president Brad Stevens said about the team's future

USA Today

19-05-2025

What Boston Celtics president Brad Stevens said about the team's future
Whatever the Boston Celtics are going to do this offseason, they are not ready to talk to the media about it. Celtics President of Basketball Operations Brad Stevens sat down with the media this afternoon for the first time since Boston was eliminated by the New York Knicks in their 2025 NBA Eastern Conference Semifinals second round series that ended in six games, and Stevens was exceptionally tight-lipped about the team's future plans.
He did hint that there may be more to say closer to the 2025 NBA draft, which is in itself a statement that the Celtics may have some moves in mind they are not ready to discuss or even encourage speculation on. But in an availability that lasted nearly a half-hour, the team president said remarkably little about Boston's future in any detail.
Let's take a look at a what Stevens did have to say about what the offseason may hold for Boston
On discussing the future more generally
Here, the Celtics president was most opaque, sharing what he would not share as much as he was letting anything concrete slip. "We'll talk about all that stuff in the next few weeks," said Stevens, trying to shut down forward-facing lines of inquiry from the media before it built up any inertia.
"We've been talking about this for years," he added, specifically touching on team financials and what might be coming as a result of their projected historic payroll and tax bill. "The (collective bargaining agreement) has been well known for years, and so there are penalties associated with being at certain levels, and we know that."
"You just weight that, where we are, you weigh everything else, and then you make those decisions. You have to have the full clarity of a full season, a full playoffs, and ... a couple good nights sleep, and everybody gets in the room and puts their heads together and figures out what's next."
On Jaylen Brown's knee
It was recently revealed that Brown has been playing on a partially torn meniscus for a fair amount of the 2024-25 NBA regular season, as well as all of the postseason. While it elevated the impact of what the Georgia native was able to accomplish, it also raised a number of additional questions, none of which were answered by Stevens.
The Celtics president did give some additional context on the situation, however, noting Brown has been playing with the injury for a while now. "Jaylen wants to play. Jaylen's a competitor. Jaylen's a warrior," he explained. "Jaylen takes great pride in being out there. "At the same time, he saw our team (doctors), and a couple of other people and and as he even said a couple of weeks ago that the knee's in a good place structurally."
"I think he felt comfortable getting out there and going after it, and hopefully he'll feel better after being off of it for a couple of weeks. The unfortunate part is we're done in the middle of May."
Regarding Jayson Tatum's Achilles injury
"Obviously, it's going to be a longer span of time with Jayson here," offered Stevens when asked about the stability Brown might provide with Tatum likely out for much or all of the coming season. "(Tatum and Brown) have been the core parts of this whole program for a while. There's no question about that -- those guys have achieved so much, and certainly deserve all the recognition and praise and accolades they get. That's a huge part of us being the best versions of ourselves."
As for the impact of Tatum's injury on summer plans, Stevens was equally hard to pin down. "I think anytime you're talking about an injury like that, I think it's another piece of information that you have to ingest and and figure out how that affects you moving forward, both next year and in the future," he suggested cryptically.
Noting that Tatum has a long rehab ahead, he pointed out the minor silver lining of the injury happening almost on the doorstep of one of the best doctors in the world who specializes in them. "There was a real benefit to doing it early," he explained.
On Kristaps Porzingis' lingering illness
"I don't think anybody was more frustrated than him," said Stevens. "I felt for him. The way it was described to me was just postviral syndrome, which is just lingering effects of a long illness.
"I think we've we've seen that and probably all read too much about that over the last several years," he added. "But I think that unfortunately I thought he had really turned the corner there towards the end of the regular season." For whatever reason, that was not the case consistently through the postseason for KP. Noting that the postseason grind is far from an ideal environment for recovery, the Boston president said "the next couple of weeks will do him good to be off," even though he plans to play for Latvia in international play.
On how the approach to the draft might change
"I don't think it changes at all for us," Stevens said when asked if Boston's approach to the 2025 NBA draft could shift given all the above. "We'll evaluate who we think will be available at (pick Nos.) 28 and 32. We just got done with two draft workouts today. We have plenty of time to thoroughly evaluate who we think those people might be.
"If we want to try to move up, try to move back, you know, whatever -- we'll see how it all goes. I think when you're at 28 and 32, you're not exactly able to pinpoint exactly how that night's going to go."
Regarding Joe Mazzulla as coach
"Joe's great. Joe's done a great job," shared Stevens, addressing a question about the recent trends of coach firings and what he thought of Mazzulla in such a light. "I don't think anyone in coaching ever thought it was certain. I think uncertainty is what you sign up for in some ways."
"But listen, here's so many things that go into winning and losing, and coaching's part of it, right?" the Celtics president related rhetorically.
"But playing circumstances, injuries, whatever the case may be, there's so many things ... I know how hard their jobs are, and I've felt for Taylor (Jenkins) and for Mike (Malone) ... They're way better than everybody thinks or knows. That's the reality of our situation because that's the way the world works and and there are other coaches that are really good too, that'll get their opportunities."
"But we're lucky that we have Joe here," he said.