Brad Stevens
Bradley Kent Stevens is an American basketball executive and former coach who is currently the president of basketball operations and de facto general manager for the Boston Celtics.
Born and raised in Zionsville, Indiana, Stevens starred on the Zionsville Community High School basketball team, setting four school records. After high school, he attended DePauw University, where he played basketball and earned a degree in economics. Stevens made the all-conference team multiple times and was a three-time Academic All-America nominee. He transitioned into coaching after quitting his job at Eli Lilly and Company, joining the basketball program at Butler University as a volunteer prior to the 2000–01 season. Stevens was promoted to a full-time assistant coach the following season. After five seasons in the role, he assumed the position of head coach on April 4, 2007, after Todd Lickliter left to coach the Iowa Hawkeyes. In his first year, Stevens led Butler to 30 wins, becoming the third-youngest head coach in NCAA Division I history to have a 30-win season.
In 2010, his third year as head coach, Stevens broke the NCAA record for most wins in a coach's first three years, exceeding the previous record by eight wins. In the NCAA tournament, Stevens coached Butler to the first Final Four in school history, while also becoming the second-youngest head coach to make an NCAA national championship game, losing 61–59 to Duke. With the following season's team also making the Final Four, Stevens became the youngest coach to go to two Final Fours. Stevens coached the Bulldogs in their second consecutive national championship game on April 4, 2011, where the team again lost, this time to the Connecticut Huskies. Stevens was regularly named a finalist for Horizon League Coach of the Year award, winning twice, and was also a nominee for both the Hugh Durham Award and Jim Phelan Award in every year of his college career.
This success garnered Stevens the head coaching job with the Boston Celtics in 2013, when he signed a six-year, $22 million contract. After undertaking a rebuild early in his tenure, Stevens led the Celtics to the NBA playoffs every year from 2014 to 2021, won a division championship in 2016–17, and appeared in the Eastern Conference finals in 2017, 2018, and 2020. He gained a reputation as one of the NBA's best coaches, with his motion offense and stingy defense earning plaudits from fans, peers, and players.
In June 2021, Stevens was named as the president of basketball operations and the de facto general manager of the Celtics following the resignation and retirement of Danny Ainge, before Ainge was talked out of retirement to join the Utah Jazz as their alternate governor later that year. In April 2024, Stevens was named the 2023–24 NBA Executive of the Year. Following that, he won his first NBA championship while with the Celtics as an executive, completing the rebuild that Stevens helped begin and oversee as the head coach.
Early life
Stevens grew up in Zionsville, Indiana, where he developed his love for basketball. Starting at age five, Stevens would watch taped basketball games "before he went to afternoon kindergarten". His father often drove him to Bloomington to watch Indiana Hoosiers games. Stevens later stated, "It's hard not to be when you're a kid growing up in Indiana."For his eighth birthday, Stevens received a new basketball hoop. He later remarked: "It's so much fun to dream in your driveway. That's where my friends and I hung out. It was a lot of fun to grow up in that era." When a friend, Brandon Monk, had a basketball court installed in his backyard, Stevens "appeared instantaneously." He was so dedicated to the game that he would bring the unprepared ingredients for grilled cheese sandwiches to Monk's house so that he would not waste time waiting for the sandwiches to cook.
Monk's court soon became a gathering place, where kids from Zionsville and the surrounding areas would hold pickup games. These games helped develop Stevens' competitive streak. Besides playing basketball, the young Stevens also enjoyed solving puzzles, a skill he later applied to analyzing opposing teams to find their weaknesses.
Stevens attended Zionsville Community High School, where he became a star basketball player. Stevens wore No. 31 in high school in honor of Indiana Pacers guard Reggie Miller. As a freshman, Stevens got up early to practice shooting at a local gym before school. The hard work paid off as he made the varsity team that year. By the end of his high school career, Stevens had set school records for career scoring, assists, steals, and three-point field goals. As of 2017, he still holds the records for career points per game average, total career points, assists, and steals, as well as the single-season points record. Stevens was named to the all-conference team thrice. In 1995, he was the sectional MVP and the leading scorer in state sectional play.
Stevens made the academic all-state first team and received the Straight A Gold Medal Award all four years. He was a member of the National Honor Society, graduating seventh in his class of 165. Stevens also earned three letters in basketball, three in track, and one in baseball during his days at Zionsville. During summers, he traveled the country playing AAU basketball.
Stevens was recruited to play Division III basketball at NCAC powerhouse DePauw University, where he played in all 101 DePauw games, earning four varsity letters. Stevens earned multiple all-conference and academic all-conference awards, and was a three-time Academic All-America nominee. He was a team captain during his senior year and averaged more than eight points per game three of his four years. Stevens' career highs were 24 points and eight rebounds in a game. After his senior year, Stevens received the Coaches' Award. Coach Bill Fenlon later described Stevens as "one of the most selfless, team-oriented person I've ever been around."
At DePauw, Stevens was a member of the Management Fellows Honors Program and the DePauw Community Services' Sports Night executive board. He was also a brother of the Alpha Tau Omega fraternity. During summer vacations, Stevens spent time teaching at Butler basketball camps. He was named to the Dean's list and graduated in 1999 with a degree in economics.
College coaching career
In the summer of 2000, Stevens was offered the opportunity to volunteer in the Butler basketball office. He ran the idea of quitting his job at Eli Lilly by then-longtime girlfriend Tracy Wilhelmy. She thought about it for two hours before telling him to go for it. Stevens later remarked, "Now, it looks like a great idea. At the time, I thought it was something I really wanted to try." Tracy began law school to get a J.D. degree that could support the couple if things did not work out for Stevens. She later said, "We were 23 and realized this was our chance. Five years down the road, we were probably not going to be in a position to do that. The more success you had at Lilly, the harder it would be to leave."Stevens planned to live in a friend's basement and took a job at Applebee's to pay the bills. Before Stevens started training at Applebee's, he was offered a low-paying administrative position as coordinator of basketball operations under then-coach Thad Matta. The position had opened up when assistant coach Jamal Meeks resigned after being arrested on solicitation and drug charges, of which he was later acquitted. Years later, Matta recalled, " was just a hungry young kid that was desperate to get into coaching. He had a great passion and was willing to take a risk to get into the coaching profession."
After Matta left the school following the 2000–01 season, new head coach Todd Lickliter promoted Stevens to a full-time assistant coach. Under Lickliter, Stevens was active in every aspect of the game: skills instruction, game preparation, in-game coaching, and recruiting. Butler was 131–61 during Stevens' time as an assistant coach.
Named head coach
On April 2, 2007, Lickliter resigned in order to take the head-coaching position at the University of Iowa. The Butler players had a meeting with athletic director Barry Collier, urging him to promote from within. Collier, having spent the entire season observing the assistant coaches' interaction with the team, agreed. The day after Lickliter resigned Stevens and Butler's two other assistant coaches interviewed for the job. Within 24 hours of the interviews the 30-year-old Stevens was named Butler's new head coach. According to Collier, Stevens had something older, outside candidates could never match: six years of experience learning the Butler system, dubbed "The Butler Way" by Collier. "Age wasn't a factor because I'd seen his ability shine through during the course of the season," Collier said.2007–08 season
At the start of the 2007–08 season, Stevens was the second-youngest coach in Division I basketball. He got off to a fast start, winning his first eight games before narrowly falling to Wright State 43–42. Legendary coach Bob Knight, whose Texas Tech team was an early victim, said: "I wish we played as smart as they do." Virginia Tech coach Seth Greenberg added: "they've got toughness about them and they expect to win."Midway through Stevens' first season, with the Bulldogs at 12–1, The New York Times wrote "so far, Stevens has made the transition look easy." The Times went on to state that Stevens had the calm and composure of a seasoned veteran. "You've got a lot of people always looking for the next step. And that's not what I was doing. I was just trying to figure out a way to win the next game and think like a head coach," Stevens said.
Butler ended the regular season with a 27–3 record, taking first place in the Horizon League with a 16–2 in conference mark. The team beat Illinois–Chicago 66–50 and Cleveland State 70–55 to claim the league's tournament title and an automatic bid to the 2008 NCAA tournament. Butler was awarded the seven seed in the East Regional. They beat tenth-seeded South Alabama 81–61 in the first round, before falling to second-seeded Tennessee 76–71 in overtime.
Stevens ended up with a school and Horizon league record 30 wins, beating several big-name schools—Michigan, Texas Tech, Florida State, Ohio State—along the way. In doing so, he became the third-youngest head coach in NCAA Division I history to lead a team to 30 wins in a season and became the fourth-winningest first-year coach. Butler was nationally ranked for a school and league record 19 consecutive weeks. Butler's 30–4 record was the best among teams that did not reach the Final Four. Stevens was a finalist for the Hugh Durham Award, losing to Keno Davis of Drake, and a finalist for the Jim Phelan National Coach of the Year Award, losing to Bo Ryan.
At the end of the season, Butler signed Stevens to a seven-year contract. "We are extremely excited to reach this long-term agreement to have Brad continue to lead our program," Collier remarked.