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The Boston Celtics Keep Winning. The Butler Bulldogs Know Why.
Why do Brad Stevens’s teams always seem to overachieve? We asked his former Butler players.
By Ben Cohen / Wall Street Journal
May 3, 2018
They overachieved at overachieving. They made a habit of beating teams that were better than them. They thrived after the unexpected absence of Gordon Hayward, and their success was unlikely enough that it was only natural to wonder how much of it had to do with their coach: Brad Stevens.
The Butler Bulldogs of 2011 were so much like this year’s Boston Celtics they might as well have played on a parquet floor.
Before he was maybe the best coach in the NBA, Stevens was maybe the best coach in college basketball, and never was he better than when the Bulldogs made it back to the sport’s national championship in 2011. They didn’t have a first-round NBA draft pick on their roster. Their leading scorer was a senior—a senior!—who took special pride in how disgusting his socks were. There are more players from that team already coaching basketball than still playing basketball. And they almost won the national title anyway.
“This Celtics team has Butler written all over it,” said former Butler guard Will Veasley.
They were down three starters in their Game 1 against the Philadelphia 76ers. They won anyway. The Celtics are still underdogs in this series, and they appear to be one year away from contending for the NBA title again, but it wouldn’t be unthinkable for them to make the Eastern Conference finals even if they don’t have Kyrie Irving and Gordon Hayward. The Celtics and the Cleveland Cavaliers have won nine more games over the last two years than their statistical profiles would have predicted, which is the most in the NBA, according to Basketball Reference.
Why? Cleveland has LeBron James. Boston has Brad Stevens.
And there are few people who can explain what that means—exactly how much Brad Stevens is worth to the Celtics—as well as his Butler players.
A typical day at Butler started with 6:15 a.m. practice to avoid conflict with class schedules, and it wasn’t uncommon for Hinkle Fieldhouse to be freezing because someone forgot to shut the windows the night before.
“We could literally see our breath,” said former Butler player Grant Leiendecker. “Our guys were playing in long sleeves and leggings like everyone does now. But it wasn’t to look cool. It was to stay warm.”
Stevens practices were over before most students were awake. “Short, precise and to the point,” Veasley said. His game plans were as tight as his practices. Stevens loved data before it was cool to love data. “He valued and understood that most games come down to two or three possessions,” said Evansville assistant Matthew Graves, who shared a cramped office with Stevens as Butler assistants. He gathered as much information as possible to have good material for those possessions, and his players say he had a knack for distilling complicated scouting reports into something digestible.
“That’s one way we were always able to beat teams that we should never have beat on paper,” Leiendecker said.
“His attention to detail, and making people understand why details matter, set him apart,” said Alex Anglin.
“It wasn’t just by accident that we made it to back-to-back national championships,” said Shawn Vanzant.
After majoring in economics at DePauw University, where he was a role player on a Division-III team of role players, Stevens left the pharmaceutical giant Eli Lilly for an unpaid position in Butler’s basketball office and planned to work at Applebee’s until a paid job opened as the team’s director of basketball operations. He worked his way up to assistant coach and, by the time he was 30 years old, Butler’s head coach. In his third season, when Butler played Duke for the 2010 national championship, Celtics general manager Danny Ainge was sitting with Boston owner Steve Pagliuca and told him the best coach in college basketball was on the court that night. He wasn’t talking about Mike Krzyzewski.
The Bulldogs playing for the national championship one year was improbable enough. That they did it again the next year was one of the greatest feats in the history of the sport. It seemed impossible before the season. And for most of the season. Hayward had left early for the NBA draft—a Butler player leaving early for the NBA was about as likely as their coach having a butler—and the Bulldogs once again were less talented than almost every team they played.
Which might sound awfully familiar to Celtics fans. Boston is now dependent on strategic wrinkles, tactical smarts and role players like Terry Rozier. It’s a classic Stevens team.
His style gets the most of each player, which in turn gets the most of the entire group. “Everyone knew their role and played it well,” Leiendecker said. Stevens went out of his way to make Leiendecker feel important even though he barely got off the bench. “We’re going to need you,” he said before a game against Syracuse in the NCAA tournament. “Be ready.” Butler pulled off the upset. Leiendecker didn’t play.
“But I was ready,” he said.
Stevens’s calm demeanor on the sidelines made him an outlier in a sport where coaches are encouraged to behave like maniacs. Even when his teams consisted of college kids, he treated them like adults. And being an outlier in college basketball worked to his advantage in the modern NBA.
He didn’t have to scream to get their attention. He still doesn’t. One useful proxy for an NBA team’s effort and execution is transition defense, or how much it cares about sprinting back to stop easy scoring opportunities. The Celtics have the league’s most effective transition defense, according to Cleaning the Glass. That is the statistical embodiment of a Stevens mantra: control the things you can actually control.
“He never, ever got upset with you about missing a shot,” Vanzant said. “Ever, ever, ever.”
Stevens has evolved over his five years in the NBA. “He doesn’t wear a tie as much as he used to,” Veasley said. But his personality and principles haven’t changed. What made him upset was letting a guy drive with his right hand when the scouting report specifically warned against letting that guy drive with his right hand. It seemed like a small detail, but Stevens knew that paying attention to the small details was the only way a team like Butler could play for the national championship.
Stevens wasn’t even good at yelling when he tried. There was one timeout in a 2010 game when he snapped and broke a clipboard. Butler’s players were impressed. They had never seen this Stevens before. But then a piece of the shattered clipboard struck Hayward, and Stevens was so horrified that he interrupted his own rant to apologize.
“It completely ruined his tirade,” Leiendecker said.
Write to Ben Cohen at ben.cohen@wsj.com
Why do Brad Stevens’s teams always seem to overachieve? We asked his former Butler players.
By Ben Cohen / Wall Street Journal
May 3, 2018
They overachieved at overachieving. They made a habit of beating teams that were better than them. They thrived after the unexpected absence of Gordon Hayward, and their success was unlikely enough that it was only natural to wonder how much of it had to do with their coach: Brad Stevens.
The Butler Bulldogs of 2011 were so much like this year’s Boston Celtics they might as well have played on a parquet floor.
Before he was maybe the best coach in the NBA, Stevens was maybe the best coach in college basketball, and never was he better than when the Bulldogs made it back to the sport’s national championship in 2011. They didn’t have a first-round NBA draft pick on their roster. Their leading scorer was a senior—a senior!—who took special pride in how disgusting his socks were. There are more players from that team already coaching basketball than still playing basketball. And they almost won the national title anyway.
“This Celtics team has Butler written all over it,” said former Butler guard Will Veasley.
They were down three starters in their Game 1 against the Philadelphia 76ers. They won anyway. The Celtics are still underdogs in this series, and they appear to be one year away from contending for the NBA title again, but it wouldn’t be unthinkable for them to make the Eastern Conference finals even if they don’t have Kyrie Irving and Gordon Hayward. The Celtics and the Cleveland Cavaliers have won nine more games over the last two years than their statistical profiles would have predicted, which is the most in the NBA, according to Basketball Reference.
Why? Cleveland has LeBron James. Boston has Brad Stevens.
And there are few people who can explain what that means—exactly how much Brad Stevens is worth to the Celtics—as well as his Butler players.
A typical day at Butler started with 6:15 a.m. practice to avoid conflict with class schedules, and it wasn’t uncommon for Hinkle Fieldhouse to be freezing because someone forgot to shut the windows the night before.
“We could literally see our breath,” said former Butler player Grant Leiendecker. “Our guys were playing in long sleeves and leggings like everyone does now. But it wasn’t to look cool. It was to stay warm.”
Stevens practices were over before most students were awake. “Short, precise and to the point,” Veasley said. His game plans were as tight as his practices. Stevens loved data before it was cool to love data. “He valued and understood that most games come down to two or three possessions,” said Evansville assistant Matthew Graves, who shared a cramped office with Stevens as Butler assistants. He gathered as much information as possible to have good material for those possessions, and his players say he had a knack for distilling complicated scouting reports into something digestible.
“That’s one way we were always able to beat teams that we should never have beat on paper,” Leiendecker said.
“His attention to detail, and making people understand why details matter, set him apart,” said Alex Anglin.
“It wasn’t just by accident that we made it to back-to-back national championships,” said Shawn Vanzant.
After majoring in economics at DePauw University, where he was a role player on a Division-III team of role players, Stevens left the pharmaceutical giant Eli Lilly for an unpaid position in Butler’s basketball office and planned to work at Applebee’s until a paid job opened as the team’s director of basketball operations. He worked his way up to assistant coach and, by the time he was 30 years old, Butler’s head coach. In his third season, when Butler played Duke for the 2010 national championship, Celtics general manager Danny Ainge was sitting with Boston owner Steve Pagliuca and told him the best coach in college basketball was on the court that night. He wasn’t talking about Mike Krzyzewski.
The Bulldogs playing for the national championship one year was improbable enough. That they did it again the next year was one of the greatest feats in the history of the sport. It seemed impossible before the season. And for most of the season. Hayward had left early for the NBA draft—a Butler player leaving early for the NBA was about as likely as their coach having a butler—and the Bulldogs once again were less talented than almost every team they played.
Which might sound awfully familiar to Celtics fans. Boston is now dependent on strategic wrinkles, tactical smarts and role players like Terry Rozier. It’s a classic Stevens team.
His style gets the most of each player, which in turn gets the most of the entire group. “Everyone knew their role and played it well,” Leiendecker said. Stevens went out of his way to make Leiendecker feel important even though he barely got off the bench. “We’re going to need you,” he said before a game against Syracuse in the NCAA tournament. “Be ready.” Butler pulled off the upset. Leiendecker didn’t play.
“But I was ready,” he said.
Stevens’s calm demeanor on the sidelines made him an outlier in a sport where coaches are encouraged to behave like maniacs. Even when his teams consisted of college kids, he treated them like adults. And being an outlier in college basketball worked to his advantage in the modern NBA.
He didn’t have to scream to get their attention. He still doesn’t. One useful proxy for an NBA team’s effort and execution is transition defense, or how much it cares about sprinting back to stop easy scoring opportunities. The Celtics have the league’s most effective transition defense, according to Cleaning the Glass. That is the statistical embodiment of a Stevens mantra: control the things you can actually control.
“He never, ever got upset with you about missing a shot,” Vanzant said. “Ever, ever, ever.”
Stevens has evolved over his five years in the NBA. “He doesn’t wear a tie as much as he used to,” Veasley said. But his personality and principles haven’t changed. What made him upset was letting a guy drive with his right hand when the scouting report specifically warned against letting that guy drive with his right hand. It seemed like a small detail, but Stevens knew that paying attention to the small details was the only way a team like Butler could play for the national championship.
Stevens wasn’t even good at yelling when he tried. There was one timeout in a 2010 game when he snapped and broke a clipboard. Butler’s players were impressed. They had never seen this Stevens before. But then a piece of the shattered clipboard struck Hayward, and Stevens was so horrified that he interrupted his own rant to apologize.
“It completely ruined his tirade,” Leiendecker said.
Write to Ben Cohen at ben.cohen@wsj.com