Doyel: What's next for Brad Stevens? How about Team USA
INDIANAPOLIS — We’ve seen him play for Zionsville High School and DePauw University. We saw him coach Butler, and now the Boston Celtics. Every step of the way – every single step – Brad Stevens has wildly overachieved.
Some day we need to see him coach the U.S. Olympic team.
Not sure how a man can wildly overachieve in a position where a gold medal is the only option, but Stevens would find a way. It’s who he is, what he does.
Stevens won’t get the chance at the next Olympiad, the 2020 Summer Games in Tokyo. That opportunity already has been given to Gregg Popovich of the San Antonio Spurs, a choice that should work just fine. Though his age could give you pause.
Popovich, not Stevens, to succeed Coach K on national team
Popovich will be 71 in four years, just two years older than his predecessor, Mike Krzyzewski, during the Rio Olympics, but with a caveat: Coach K has been doing this for 12 years. He was 57 for his first Olympics, and while Coach K doesn’t have an auto-pilot button on his mental motherboard, he’s had that Olympic thing figured out.
Pop surely will figure it out, too. He’s been with Coach K for these Olympics, and he’s great at X’s and O’s and connecting with NBA players.
Rather than advocating right now for Brad Stevens to coach the 2024 U.S. team – has anyone ever advocated for something to happen eight years ahead of time? – let’s do this: Let’s advocate briefly for Popovich to put Stevens on his staff in 2020, and to groom him for 2024.
And let’s also say this: That’s going to happen. Pop will put Stevens on his staff, a prediction I feel fine making given how much Pop admires Stevens. That curmudgeon, Pop’s no dummy – and he’s not afraid to admit he doesn’t have all the answers. Over the years he has volunteered to the media that he has studied Stevens since his Butler days, and has borrowed from Stevens’ playbook.
But enough about the wonders of Gregg Popovich. Let’s get back to the wonders of Brad Stevens, who graduated as Zionsville’s all-time leading scorer and played all 101 games at DePauw and led Butler to back-to-back national championship games and has engineered the Celtics’ quick turnaround, placing fourth and sixth in Coach of the Year voting in the past two seasons.
For years there has been talk that Stevens is one of basketball’s best coaches – at any level – and there is not one shred of evidence to suggest otherwise. It takes more than basketball brilliance to succeed internationally, mind you. George Karl proved that in 2002, when his U.S. team of NBA players finished sixth at the World Championships. Hall of Fame coach Larry Brown led another Dream Team to three losses and a bronze medal at the 2004 Olympics.
NBA players have to want to excel for their coach, I’m saying, and players want to excel for Brad Stevens. His Celtics teams have had no business winning 88 games over the past two seasons, but they did. It had been decades since Boston added a marquee free agent in his prime until this summer, when Al Horford chose the Celtics.
Brad Stevens did that.
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What would he do as coach of the U.S. Olympic team? You know what he’d do. There are no sure things in this sport – those 2002 and ’04 U.S. teams proved that – but a U.S. team under Stevens would be as safe as a bet can be.
And he’d say yes, by the way.
This is what Stevens said in October 2015, amid rumors that he would replace Krzyzewski in 2020:
"First of all, it’s flattering to even be mentioned. Secondly, if they approached you, you say ‘yes’ before they get the question out of their mouth," he told reporters in Boston. "Thirdly, I would hire somebody else, because I think there’s a lot better coaches than I am.”
That’s why Popovich, players, anyone who knows him is crazy about Brad Stevens. As good as he is, he doesn’t act like he knows it. It’s possible he has no idea how good he is, and wouldn’t believe it if you told him.
On Monday he and his wife, Tracy, were in Indianapolis, back at Hinkle Fieldhouse, to remember former Butler star Joel Cornette. Stevens, an assistant when Cornette played at Butler, was a pallbearer.
When several of Cornette’s teammates spoke on Monday, more than 30 former Butler players, coaches and staffers stood behind them. Stevens took his place in the back, out of sight, practically hidden by the tall men in front of him. Stevens doesn’t need the spotlight, not anywhere, not ever. He goes out of his way to avoid it, actually, which contributes to his magnetism. But the spotlight eventually finds the biggest star in the room, and that’s who Stevens has been. The spotlight will find him for Popovich’s Olympic staff in 2020. And it will find him again as the head coach in 2024.
Some things you believe, some you hope for, and some you just know. This is all three.
Find IndyStar columnist Gregg Doyel on Twitter at@GreggDoyelStar or atwww.facebook.com/gregg.doyel.