After this evening's game, Stevens NBA coaching record is 175-164. If you throw out his first season when the C's went 25-57, the C's with Steven's full imprint are 150-107 or a 58% winning percentage and that includes his second season where they won just 40 games.
Let's look at his body of work with players. For sake of ease, I will simply use Evan Turner who, imho, should make sure that Stevens never pays if they dine out together after his Portland contract. Setting aside this season's SSS, Turner clearly had his two best NBA seasons under Stevens in Boston. Before that, he was an NBA cast-off and since then, he got the Blazers to pay him handsomely to revert to some of his worse habits. We can do a similar exercise with other players who left recently but its best to let the evidence build before looking at Crowder, Bradley and even Thomas. I suspect we will find that these guys aren't as effective once out of Stevens' system.
The guy has managed to win over a wide range of players including grizzled veterans and NBA rookies, molding them into cohesive units who essentially play better than the sum of their parts. And he has done this despite being relatively youthful and having no prior Association experience.
I love Popovich who is one of the best professional sports coaches ever, I think Steve Kerr is actually underrated given all the talent he has to work with in Oakland, if only because of how seamlessly he manages all the different egos. Spoelstra turned out to be a fantastic coach, despite many NBA pundits thinking he was merely a Riley puppet and caretaker of the Miami big three. There are also a host of other very good coaches in the NBA including Snyder, Vogel, Stotts, Joerger, (hi SRN!), Brown and even D'Antoni. However, for my money, Stevens is better than all of them, for this team and this time. Including any of the names above, there is no one I would prefer to be running the show for the C's.
Finally, here is a recent quote from Pop on Stevens:
Let's look at his body of work with players. For sake of ease, I will simply use Evan Turner who, imho, should make sure that Stevens never pays if they dine out together after his Portland contract. Setting aside this season's SSS, Turner clearly had his two best NBA seasons under Stevens in Boston. Before that, he was an NBA cast-off and since then, he got the Blazers to pay him handsomely to revert to some of his worse habits. We can do a similar exercise with other players who left recently but its best to let the evidence build before looking at Crowder, Bradley and even Thomas. I suspect we will find that these guys aren't as effective once out of Stevens' system.
The guy has managed to win over a wide range of players including grizzled veterans and NBA rookies, molding them into cohesive units who essentially play better than the sum of their parts. And he has done this despite being relatively youthful and having no prior Association experience.
I love Popovich who is one of the best professional sports coaches ever, I think Steve Kerr is actually underrated given all the talent he has to work with in Oakland, if only because of how seamlessly he manages all the different egos. Spoelstra turned out to be a fantastic coach, despite many NBA pundits thinking he was merely a Riley puppet and caretaker of the Miami big three. There are also a host of other very good coaches in the NBA including Snyder, Vogel, Stotts, Joerger, (hi SRN!), Brown and even D'Antoni. However, for my money, Stevens is better than all of them, for this team and this time. Including any of the names above, there is no one I would prefer to be running the show for the C's.
Finally, here is a recent quote from Pop on Stevens:
He really is."I don't think that much of him," Popovich said, having some fun with the media. "But I'm glad he thinks well of me. I enjoy that because I want to be larger than everyone around me. I enjoy making them smaller."
After Popovich finished his facetious bashing of Stevens, a reported tried to change the topic. But first, Popovich wanted to make it clear he meant no real disrespect to Stevens.
"He is a special person -- and that's on and off the court," Popovich said. "He's very intelligent. And intelligence is fine, but if it doesn't come along with incisiveness, judgment and an emotional maturity, it doesn't do you much good. And he has all of those things. And that's large. Not that many people have that. It shows in the way he handles people and the way he coaches. He's going to be a great one before it's all over with. And he's already a hell of a coach."