The Ringer NBA Show - Ep. 29: Fireside NBA Chatter With Bill Simmons and Brad Stevens

Episode Date: September 20, 2016

HBO and The Ringer's Bill Simmons is joined by the head coach of the Boston Celtics, "The President" Brad Stevens, to discuss coaching in the NBA vs. college (5:00), Brandan Wright's time with the Celtics (16:50), Marcus Smart's career arc (22:00), success against the Warriors (29:30), the efforts to recruit Kevin Durant and Al Horford in free agency (34:00), potential NBA rule changes (41:00), picking the brains of Popovich and Belichick (52:20), and the 3-point shot's impact on positionless basketball. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Hey everyone, today's special edition of The Ringer MBA show hosted by yours truly Bill Simmons is brought to you by C-Geek, the presenting sponsor of the BS podcast and the only fan-friendly app for buying and selling tickets for sports and music, which is two taps on your phone. You can instantly buy C-Geeked tickets to an event and enter the event using your phone. No paper tickets. Drop your old ticket app. Use one that's built for 2016. Again, do everything on your phone.

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he's going to have a bunch of guests on this show we are going to take this podcast to another level so please subscribe to the ringer MBA show and write suggestions on iTunes about people you want to see here last thing any given Wednesday my new HBO show

we have only done 10 episodes so it still counts as new but Wednesday September What's Wednesday? What's Wednesday? Tate? September 22nd. September 21st. Wednesday, September 21st. Any given Wednesday, 10 p.m. HBO. Kevin Durant. That seems relevant because you're listening to the Ringer NBA show. You must care about the NBA. Kevin Durant will be on with Nas. Oh yeah, Nas, one of the five greatest rappers of all time. They're together and we also have Vince Staples.

So yeah, that's happening. Wednesday night, 10,000. p.m. Check that out, and you can watch the rears on HBO, HBO 2, HBO On Demand, HBO Go, and HBO now. Shout out to Calloway, shout out to Miller Light. And now, here he is, Brad Stevens, the Celtics coach. Here's the podcast I taped with him at the end of last week. Here we go. All right. First time this has happened on the BS podcast, the president, Brad Stevens. How are you? How you doing, Bill? Thanks for having me. I call you the president.

on Twitter because I feel like not only you're in charge of the Celtics, you should just be in charge of the whole country what you did these last three years. It was so important to Celtics fans. It was amazing to watch on TV. See, you're humble, you're going to get embarrassed, but I just had to thank you for everything

you've done for the Celts. Much appreciated. As you know, as you know, because you've followed the game so close for so long, and as everybody else knows what Danny, and it's amazing how many people it's fun to... All right, that's the only serious sports radio coach answer I'm allowing you.

Now we're getting into it. Well, good luck. You've got the wrong guys. No, no, no, I'm going to get you. I've studied. I've studied your pregame and your post game. I got a scouting report from Sean Grandi. I know how to get some stuff.

Grandi and I dig into deep topics sometimes. Yeah. So college versus pro. You got a 30 game season in college. You have guys that you get to coach for three, four years at a pop. basically, get more time to prepare. You don't have to worry about trade rumors. Is it just easier to coach college? No, the jobs are very different and the challenges are very different. Obviously, when you're in the midst of that 82 game season and 18 months I was here, anything like that during a typical

college season. Right. And I think the one thing that I've probably, you know, we didn't just coach the college, you knew them for six years. You know, a lot of times you've got juniors. You know, a lot of times you've got juniors that committed to you. By the time they walked on campus, you knew them, you knew their families. You could coach them. And there wasn't, like, maybe you are if you trade for someone at the trade deadline. You were out west. Isaiah had to fly from Phoenix to Boston to get his physical parts that we wanted him to know. I met him the morning, a Sunday morning in L.A. We played. He gets kicked out of the game. I remember that. And he's about the way he's playing. And then he gets kicked out of the game. And then I'm walking back through the tunnel. And I remember turning to Jay Lerick.

How do you handle this? Like, I've met Isaiah this morning. And, you know, like, if I was, if I had recruited Isaiah and knew him really well, I would probably know what thing else. Well, I was lucky that Isaiah is who he is. And Isaiah, right when I, right when we walk through, like, sure, it doesn't happen again, you know, and it was great on his part. Because, you know, I'm sitting there walking in there, like, well, this will be interesting. You know, Isaiah doesn't know me, and I don't know him. And we're just going to get to learn each other. and unfortunately you have to learn each other and grow together pretty quickly in this gig. Most college coaches fail when they come to the NBA.

When I was living in Boston in the 97 to 99 range when Petino was there, he was trying to coach the team like it was a college team, and he was trying to do the press, and he's shuttling guys in and out. It was almost like he kind of lost what worked in college, which is the continuity and not realizing that if you're trading. people all the time. Everyone else on the team is going to be worried about being traded. How did you handle that when, especially that first year, you had so much turnover? How do you handle that with minutes and all that stuff? Was that the toughest learning curve

you had? Well, I think there's so many tough ones. You know, again, the 82 games, you know, you could ever be prepared. You know, you look at some games as a coach or a player, and you realize how difficult they're going to be just because of where they're the knights in a row. You know, Steve Kerr, hold on. Steve Kerr calls those skis Schedule losses. Do you call it? You just like you look at the schedule and go, oh, my God. Fourth and five nights, we're flying from L.A. to Dallas.

We have no chance in this game. You know, one of the things that I think we have tried to do with that, though, is turning around and say, hey, you know, if you want to be, like, special and you want to maximize yourself as a team, then you look forward to that as a choose. Yeah. And I think that this group, looking at it that way, question is that when I came here, you know, I was 36 years old. I had only coached at one place in my life,

but I had not to look at it through differently. They were so well. Coming here, you know, you talk about, you know, the cowl. Yeah. You know, we couldn't score on either. We couldn't score on offense, and we couldn't stop him on defense. And, you know, a lot of times it is the situation you're in. It is the commitment every day to get better.

It's hopefully going to happen if you just keep, you know, pounding the rock and grinding on it. grinding on it and drove the up and downs of an 82 game season, that job, and it's not like that everywhere. You know, one thing that really hurt Petino was they paid him so much money and made such a big deal about hiring him. I really felt like the players resented it a little bit, and there was a little bit of, hey, we're the ones playing.

Where are the stars here? Who are you? And with you, once you started to have success with Boston, I was really interested to see how you were going to handle that because people like me are calling you the president. and everybody's like, this guy's unbelievable. And you kept such a low profile. Were you conscious of not trying to get any attention whatsoever? No, you know what?

A guy that hasn't played as another team, they are in the NBA for a reason. They can do things you can't do. And sometimes it's just about piecing those guys together as you work to get, probably just gotten bigger when they didn't get opportunities elsewhere, opportunity, but maybe not, you know, maybe was an even better fit here than anywhere else. I will say this from, you know, and people, you know, the pressure, we're only as good as the guy.

Right. And it does seem like you mentioned about guys with a chip on their shoulder. Now, this can go one or two ways in the NBA, right? Like sometimes guys have a chip on their shoulder, and they're also crazy, and they just can't fit into a team framework. You guys seem to have targeted over and over again competitive guys who, A, just hadn't found the right team yet, or B, just weren't being used.

used correctly. And I think Evan Turner is a great example. I had a built-in opinion of Evan Turner when the Celtics got him. I was like, this guy, I watched him in Indiana. He seemed completely lost. He was on his way out of the league. You figured out he needs the ball in his hands. Why do you guys figure out how to use players correctly? And yet, you know, now you're going to weasel out of this answer. I got to ask this differently. Yep, I sure am. I'm already working on my way. Yeah, yeah. I'm not letting you weasel. How much time do you spend when you get a player thinking about how to play their strengths toward what you're doing? You know, we talk all the time and honing in what their strengths are.

Is it is it one strength? Is it one strength or you looking at like two or three? Yeah. Well, it can be. I mean, you know, sometimes you get a, you know, a guy that's just a, how he impacts from a guy that wasn't overly, highly thought of. Yeah. To a guy that struggled his freshman.

You know, I guess, been a. on the recruiting and knowing that, hey, this guy. Yeah. And I think the one thing that, you know, no, we're not immune to is, right? I mean, we and what he was able to do and what he signed for and everything else, utilized within our... And what was cool about where he went, he went to Portland for, I think, like $70 million. It's actually a good team for him, because I think he's going to have the ball on his hands

because their guards like to play off the ball. I was really worried he was going to go to a team that had a ball-dominant point guard, and he'd be in the situation he was in in Indiana, where he's still. standing on the side because that's not his game. Have you had a guy you've been there three years now? Was there a guy you brought in that you just couldn't totally figure out how to play to their strengths and you're frustrated about it now? It's a really good question.

You know, I think that any time that you are no longer here that may be there, you're. Yeah. I don't know. I think that's a really good question. Oh, that was a real. You weasled out of that one. Yeah. I knew you were going to do that.

I'm good at that. It's the political side, right? No, I know. That's why you're the president. There you go. But the other thing is, I think you think about that with your own players all the time. You think about why can't we and we do to make, you want to make it so that they. One guy that we had, I'm going to say we like I'm on the team, even though I'm not.

But my family said season tickets for 42 years, so I feel like I get to say we. Brandon Wright, we didn't have him very long. He's somebody that I would have loved to have seen you tinker with for like a year. Because he's one of those like certain really strong strengths. And he kind of came in the middle of the year. The team's already set. If you'd had a whole training camp with him, I think that one would have been interesting. You can weasel out of this if you want.

Yeah. And, you know, it's done really well throughout. We just needed to leave on the roster, right? You just needed. And everybody's impact move might be. And I didn't get to know him well. We were only together in a great way. You've had the rosters that the Celtics have had,

especially the last two years, where minutes has been the lingering issue the whole time. There's on 48 minutes in a game. And I think one thing fans forget a lot of times is some guys just have trouble playing in a little short eight-minute stints. You know, I think people are really surprised how Terry Rozier. year played in the summer league. I never get carried away with Summer League because I'm still burned about Kejerk

Brown. You probably don't remember. But, um, Rozier looked like a point guard in Summer League and was really good. Now, this Celtics team already has a point guard and Marcus Smart's on the team and Avery Bradley. And if he's going to succeed on this team, it's got to be an eight-minute stints. Um, do you think that, first of all, I'm sure, I'm sure you have high hopes that he'll be able to do that.

but do you think just some players aren't meant to come off the bench? I think, you know, effective. Even though they're probably playing against, you know, obviously better play. You know, you feel good about the rhythm of when you're going to go in the game, you know that you're going to get multiple opportunities. And what happens is when you're not is you push, right? You're trying to force things to make a positive impression. And I think one of the hardest night, you know, but when they, you know,

always, you know, as a low, level player, you know, in division it. Yeah. Of what it feels like to feel like you, the negatives that come with that, being out quickly. That's one of the benefits of the D-League for us, you know, being able to sending as many minutes at the year, so of playing and building.

Marcus, who is one of my favorite players, and I get in arguments with people in my life all the time about him because I'm a big believer. He's one of those guys that when you bring him off the bench, he's trying to have a 40-minute game. 18 minutes. Like he's trying to do everything. Like what you were talking about, the pressing. And he got, eventually he figured out how to kind of calm himself down a little bit.

But he's definitely somebody that's meant for, you know, I think a long form thing. I also thought Evan Turner was the same. I always felt like if he was 30 to 35 minutes, he was a different player than somebody who could just heat up in an instant. And, you know, it's one of the hardest things. That's why I was always amazed by, you know, when you look at the Warriors bench, The way Sean Livingston was able to just come in and run the team, like he had been playing the whole game,

and he could just do it in these little eight, nine minutes spurts. Really hard. I voted for him for six men of the year. I thought for him to kind of steer that Warriors plane when Corey was out, that was one of the hardest jobs in the league, and he could always do it. But I just don't think people think about that enough. But on Marcus Smart, what happens to him these next three years?

What do you see the arc being? one of the things Marcus is here you know he's in the room you know he's that he just he can live in a room and he's got a great competitive

and defense is any guy that I mean clearly had great coaching growing up and he just knows think that you know as he continues to progress in year two

getting into the paint finishing kicking out making pipe right he just has the effect garden a garden of Milton Porzingas for six anything you ask to help this team win

How long did you think about putting him on Millsap before you actually did it? I was sitting on my couch going, we might have to put Marcus on Millsap, but that's just crazy. And then you did it. The thing, and Millsap had 45, and I thought, you know, I probably should switch and give somebody else a shot. But sometimes your guys can be playing great defender. You guys could be playing great defense, but the guys just get in such a rhythm that you just have to look. Yeah. And Marcus, you know, the one thing about Marcus is he is going to.

to do everything in his power. That's one thing. You know, he may be smaller. He may be whatever, but he's going to be, he's going to do everything in his power. He is a real. That's one thing I've noticed that you'll do from time to time. If you feel like the other team is clicking too well, you basically just shake the snow globe on them. We're like, I'm going to play five point cards right now.

You're going to be freaked out by this, and it might knock you out of what you're doing. It does seem like you, that is a tactic. You're going to deny it. But I watch all the Celtic games. I've never heard shake the snow globe. Yeah. But I do believe in it a little bit. I do believe in it a little bit.

And sometimes that works out, and it looks like a good idea, and sometimes everybody looks at you like you're crazy. You know, sometimes they look at you at you're crazy, and it does work out. But, you know, defenses are constantly on the attack, you know, as part of a team that's trying to stop one of these 29 other offenses. I'm giving you 30 seconds to talk about how excited you are to throw out Bradley, Smart, Crowder, Jalen Brown, and Horford at the same time defensively. You have 30 seconds.

I think that you could really be able to move around, you know, fly around. Been in the situation before where we're coming off of a very good year defensively, statistics our team is. And you can take one of two ways. I mean, you can take the approach that we've arrived and not commit to the details and just as we get ready for training. Oh, you're way more excited than that. You totally downplayed that.

I know you have to do what you have to do, but first of all, you have two adults. You have Amir and you have Horford now, Manning that kind of the five spot, the low post defense, they're always going to know what to know what. That's great. And then Jalen Brown is one of the greatest toys an NBA coach could be handed to.

It's like, hey, here's a 6-8 phenomenal athlete with good defensive skills who's raw, but can be thrown at. at everyone from 5 foot 10 to 6 foot 10. And you get to just mold this person for the next four years. I mean, I know. I know from my inside sources, you were pushing for him. Yeah, you were pushing for him a little, right, in the draft room?

I'm looking. Well, I think the idea of having, you have to have guys that can guard the one and the two, that's probably more normal. But if you can guard, you know, against maybe that becomes really unique. Yeah. So those guys are in value. Jayland's in a good situation. You know, some, that should be the best 19.

He's one year removed from one year of college. Right. Let's take a quick break to talk about the ringer.com and all of our great NBA coverage we have. Kevin O'Connor, Jonathan Jarks, Danny Chow, Shea Serrano, Jason Concepcion, Chris Ryan. I could just keep going and going and going. We are going to really step it up with the NBA,

not just with this podcast, but on the BS podcast. And then with all the coverage we have. We've been writing about the NBA, August, September. A lot of good stuff. A lot of good pieces. We wrote about Derek Rose. We wrote about... What else do we read about Tate?

We've had so many good ones. DeAngelo Russell, Carl Anthony Towns. Like, name a player. We've probably written about them over the less. Miles Turner. All kinds of stuff. So we're going to take it up a notch. Training camp's coming.

We're coming. The ringer.com. Check it out. And don't forget to subscribe to this podcast because once Chris Vernon joins us, we're taking it to another level. Back to the podcast with Brad Stevens. What did you do? You played the Warriors twice last year and you had more success against them during the regular season than anybody.

The second game where the Celtics won in Golden State, which was shocking because they only had like six or seven losses. That sent them into a little bit of a spiral. They were never quite the same. did you figure out something in that game defensively, offensively, whatever, that you feel like other teams tried to copy after that, or was it a fluke? You know, I didn't feel like it was by any means. Our deal going into those games, we want to be, we're running disadvantaged, you know, want to home.

But I think that's right, it's just a waste of time. You know, make that. You just got to go down the floor. You can't. But, you know, I think everybody's a little bit different and you play to the strengths of your team, you know, as you go and you watch, like, Oklahoma City play against them. They played them completely different series. And I just think you play, you think your team doesn't.

There's any doubt that the job of being in position, but our goal. The one thing I noticed that the Celtics did against them, which I thought the Quippers emulated in Oklahoma City definitely in Cleveland definitely was you just made Curry work. You just, from 94 feet, everywhere he went, you had somebody, you were pushing him, you're chipping him off picks. you try to wear him down a little bit and I thought by the last two rounds once that was happening to him game after game

you know you could see the effects on him and it's going to be really interesting to see I'm interested to see how he handles that this summer because now you know 10 teams 12 teams are going to do that against him this year I got to ask about Durant you went to the Hamptons Tom Brady was on the plane

I heard Tom Brady was like super detailed and prepared What was Brady like on this trip? Didn't even know the evening before. It was a great example of a guy that is he loves good he feels about rating. You know, he really came across as just a normal guy. But he's accomplished. A really down-to-earth person.

Yeah. By all accounts it had an effect on Durant that he was there. And I think the whole presentation went very well. When you left, did you think he was coming? We presented ourselves. I felt having been through 13 years of, you know, I felt really good that we had, you know, left no-star. So you were devastated. I took that answer to me.

You were completely devastated. You couldn't believe it didn't come. What was your lasting impression of Durant after spending two hours with them? The one thing that I'd say is, and this goes, it's young player, work on the game. Yeah. About the game and everything else. And, you know, hey, that, you know, are very. The Celtics did end up getting the second best free agent in the summer of 2016.

How much of the appeal of Al Horford to you was talent and how much of it was character slash chemistry? Both point line. He's always been a guy that has made a couple of positions. You know, I, and he's just, and you know, you just feel like after sitting, it's not about my environment. How can eyes like that that have achieved like that? You know, he's been, I think, the national championships at Florida. A really good guy as a pretty young team. Yeah, and you have a really close team.

Isaiah Thomas just got married, and I heard, like, most of the team was at the wedding. Like, that doesn't usually happen in the NBA. So I'm sure you guys have to put a lot of thought and care into who you're adding to this because you don't want to mess it up, right? Well, that, you know, one of the – You know, I feel like I had a partial. even though I didn't go to any home games last year. I think I went to one.

But for all the Boston fans, big win, because he said one of the reasons he wanted to come to Boston was every time he played a big game in Boston, he was so impressed by the crowd that he just wanted to be involved in it, you know, eight, nine months a year. I was like, oh, what a kudos to the Celtics fan. Because you rarely hear free agents say, I just like playing here.

It would be fun to play here all the time. I thought that was very successful. I think we should throw a party for her. ourselves. I think this. I think that I don't eat said that or whatever the case may be, but they stood a coach and play. Well, I think, you know what it was? I think his dad said it, but he didn't disagree. So I feel like he said it. Because if my dad said something about me, I would, he would, you know, dads represent the kids. All right, we're doing, we're doing a speed round. You ready? Uh-oh. Yeah. There's no way to weasel out of some of these.

best home crowd NBA that's not Boston one that you feel like affects the game the most you have to pick one you can't name six that's always the best crowd you're a genius of this team is playing the best so yeah so you can process of elimination so this is my goal is to try to

quickly give you the weasily answer this would be hilarious there's something you're going to have to answer single single most unstoppable player you've played against last three years since you got to Boston. Stoppable player. Yeah, the one you're just in a meeting with...

Now, that one I'm weaseling out of because what happens is you... Okay, I'm going to answer that one for you. I'm weaseling out of that one for sure. You go ahead and answer that one. I'm going to answer that one for you. It's LeBron James because in the last three years, Crowder was the only one who could really even bother him a little bit. Now we have Jalen Brown to throw it on.

But you'll answer this one. What is the biggest rule change that the NBA actually needs? You know, the one thing, so I've been fortunate enough to... and for each of the last two minutes of each quarter. I'd be most interested in. Yeah. The D-League is messed with. It would be a cool little twist.

I would make halftime four minutes longer. I would get rid of... I would make half-time... Half-time, sure. Interesting. I could never get back to my seating time. Well, because they have to cover the TV money, right? So the two timeouts that bother me the most

are the 10-minute mark of the second quarter and the 10-minute mark of the fourth quarter. I just don't think we need them. Put those minutes toward halftime. and then near the end, I would make 20-second timeouts, 20 seconds, instead of an hour and 20 seconds, which is how long they take usually. And I don't understand how coaches are allowed to call a timeout after a time-out.

We just had a time-out. How am I calling time-out from a time-out? That makes no sense. I know coaches are that. We need more time to think. No, you don't. I like less time to think. I like the FIBA, the flow of the FIBA games I thought was really.

kind of interesting. I wish the NBA would learn from it. I heard it we're always talking about. Yeah. And, you know, like you said, not a lot of people are back to their seat. What's your ideal number for an NBA regular season for games? Because we can all agree, it is too many. If you could pick any number, what would you pick? It's a good question. I would say, you know, I understand most on each of these teams, and I think a lot of teams, and, you know, certainly us included are putting a lot of resources into trying to help this, help us maximize this.

this 82 game schedule because it is tough on their bodies. I sit there on many nights as a coach and think, you know, these guys are awfully special to be doing what they're doing night in, night out. That was a misdirect. You took the answer and then you answered another question. That was really impressive. I would say 75 games. I think you get rid of seven, four out of five night situations.

if you just got to 75 or 76, I don't think this season loses anything. And I would like to see them do that. Will you ever get used to coaching against former Butler guys? Yeah, I mean, I hope we get used to coaching against a bunch of Butler guys for a long time, right? I mean, that's the college team that I'm completely all in, rooting for every game. and everything else. No, it's fun to see not only, you know, our former players doing well in the NBA, but we've got guys that are, you know, I'm watching them on synergy playing in leagues

overseas against, you know, potential draft eligible players every year. Right. And so it's fun to watch them. Quick break to talk about our friends at Slink TV. Slink TV, the best way to watch live TV on your turf. For $20 a month, get more than 20 live channels, including ESPN and TNT, plus your favorite entertainment and news, AMC, CNN, Adult Swim, IFC, other top networks. You can also add on channel packs like the sports extra package for just $5 a month extra.

No installation, no extra gear, no annual contracts, and easy online cancellation. You just need an internet connection. You're ready to go. Start watching for seven days free at sling.com slash Bill Simmons. Get sling TV on your favorite device. Restrictions apply. How many times a day do you think of the half-court shoddy missed by a half inch? I don't think of it any time.

not that many a day because I just think about that game in and of itself probably once every other week and then anytime I am watching a championship game of any kind, whether it is the NCAA tournament,

you know, FIBA, whatever the case may be, and it's getting towards the end and there's any, I feel it again. It was the sports movie that had the wrong ending. It had 99% of the,

the right movie and then they screwed up the end. They shot the wrong ending. Who was more disappointed that night? Butler fans or North Carolina fans? Yes. So when I was coached that in that final four, I would say unknown, but we weren't. And so my email at Butler was still on the website and 48 hours. And I didn't get a chance to read really many of them and certainly not respond to any of them. It was entertaining reading the rest of that week. They certainly were rooted in. They certainly were rooting for us. Luckily, they didn't send me any after the game, like killing me. That would not have been as enjoyable, and I might have responded to those.

Well, I mean, you couldn't have done, you guys couldn't have done more in that game. Is there a world in which you just stayed at Butler for 40 years and just retired when you were 70, and that just would have been your life? But I think that if you're going to coach anywhere in college for that long, it's got to be a super special place. and the town has to be really meaningful. The school has to be really meaningful. And so for me, that was that place. And, you know, and it was really hard to leave.

We looked in a way, and that's been, you know, a new fun adventure for our entire family. Yeah. But the best, one of the very best parts about taking this job with regard to Butler has been that we can still be, it comes to being a fan. She actually spends four weekends. a year there that I don't even get to go there.

And you don't always get to do that if you take a new job in college. I get to do that. Sixth year at Butler, if I was going to leave, it was going to be for the NBA. So, yeah, I was going to ask that. So you must have been courted, especially after you made the championship game. You must have been courted by all these other big universities. Did you ever even tiptoe close toward one of them or was just always Butler, Butler, Butler.

called by people you know I had I had talked to people or heard from people but I'd never met with another school you know and and the point of that was is that you know I just felt like if you're if you're if you're if you're if you're Pete against Butler and that was always the part that came back to me like I just wouldn't be able to do that yeah and Butler had treated our family so well um they had gone out of their way for our family you got to remember this is a place that I started working at I was a volunteer when I started, you know, $17 or $18,000 when I was finally hired on the staff. I mean, you get a, you get, you work for, for nothing, but you're, you're living with your buddies and you're just trying to make ends meet, but you're learning so much.

You know, we, we really felt a great deal of debt towards Butler. How many, how many end of the game in-bounds plays, end of the quarter, end of the game, in-bounds plays, do you have on some crazy Rolodex and your master? computer in the Brad in the Brad Stevens layer. It's all computerized, right? We have

we have all the after timeout plays from each year and... The ones you've already used? So you have the ones you've already used? All that we've already used? Just kind of go back to

refresh as you start a new year, some things that work, some things that didn't, etc. Sometimes you see something within a play that you wish you would have done a little bit differently. But then I get so much from watching other teams attack them. Every coach that is coached against has taught me something or given me a wrinkle that I've stolen to try to use for our team. And that also goes for, you know, hey, everything that happened in the Olympics that we saw and that we have on film.

Part of the fun of coaching is there's constant challenge in the change because you can run a play, but if that play doesn't fit your personnel, it's not a good play. You can run a much more simpler play that every right guy doing it. Well, you know who's on your corner is Steve Kerr, because the year before he decided he was going to coach the Warriors, he studied all these games and he was jotting down plays and all this stuff. And it seems like you and him and maybe Popovich are the ones that enjoy, artistry is the wrong word, but I'm using anyway,

the artistry of the after-timeout plays. Like it's, it's, you, you both seem to get real joy out of when they work. More than any coach I've seen. I know you're not going to answer that, but I just had to say it. Is that right? Yeah. Yeah. I was hoping I wouldn't show my cards.

Yeah. No, the end of the day is, you know, you, uh, you draw some up and some work and you draw some up and some don't work. But it's, it is a fun part of the game. And, you know, again, it's, it truly is like, like every single. scouting report or every single time you watch somebody else play. And maybe it's something you've used in the past, but you know, you'll watch another one of these coaches, you know, twist the screen around or just do something with a different

angle. And I mean, at some point you would think after 16 years in coaching, that would all be the same. But you start watching tape. And it's a fun part about the game? Is it true that you talk to Popovich and Belichick every once in a while to pick their brains? You know, I have been fortunate enough to meet with both of them. Yeah.

But, you know, I think they're both at the reason. I think they're other people, but all the size things to just what makes and what they need to do. Yeah. You know, it's easy to get your focus. It looks like they're able to operate in this area where actually what needs to be done to be successful. And they know when they need to change. They know when they need to stay the same. they know what to emphasize,

they know how much to emphasize it. You know, Belichick, even though you guys handle the media so differently, and you're just different people, and he's a lot older than you, a lot of the stuff that he does is the stuff that you do. Like, for instance, after the Pats beat the Cardinals, there was a post-game speech that he gave to the team, and he was just like, hey, we didn't win this game in the last three hours.

We went it all week with the preparation and the practice and how hard you guys worked, and that's what we wanted. And it was like exactly like something you would say. He's always about do your job, prepare, be ready, be ready for any situation. It's not that complicated and yet not that many people do it. That's the part I don't understand about coaching. Like it would just seem like just copy the people that are doing the best, right? But nobody does that.

I think the hardest part is not getting in there. Yeah. And oriented you are, no matter how task you can be, that's one of the biggest challenges in this game, in my opinion. And that's, you know, I'm sure as he's walking into that, we're starting a year, and you're thinking, okay, number one is anything unless we keep doing it. Yeah. And so, like, even, you know, after the biggest wins that I've ever been a part of,

walking the locker room and you have, like, the line is you're thinking about the next game on the schedule, not necessarily what just happened, because you know that there's a, you know, human nature can... Two more questions than we're going. Yep. Basketball's changed. The NBA's changed so much the last thing. 10 years from 06 to 16 with the three-point shooting.

The fact that people are just throwing away long twos for the most part, for the fact that basketball's gotten smaller, we've seen the power forward, not become irrelevant, but being phased out in a lot of ways, people only playing one, teams only playing one big at a time. Where do you see basketball 10 years from now? What do you think the next trend is? question. I think the three-point thing is probably going to be hard to argue against just become the math. You know, the simplest point shot made one out of three times is equal to a two-point shot made one out of two times over the course of time in a large sample. So I think it's probably going to be hard. I think the game will

always be dependent elite level at that time when in Russell and people like that, then everybody's going to have to find people to account for those guys. And when you have to have to find people to account for those guys. and when you have this basing and speed and everything else, it's going to take the way the game is played because forced to be different. Yeah. And that was because we couldn't recruit in the country. And so we had to recruit smaller guys to play up a position. And it really turned out to be beneficial.

And one of the things that I learned is that, man, in a 48-minute game, speed wins on the floor. You're forced as a try your best advantage of it on the other end. you might score once or twice in the post, but, you know, that may not be sustainable as teams start to swarm and use their speed versus size. That's a great point about how the talent pool determines the style of play. I wish I had thought of that. I'm stealing that from you.

Because, like, in the- We literally, yeah, I mean, we didn't recruit. We made a major emphasis to run. Yeah. And we ended up only recruiting that I got my entire time there. And that was Andrew Smith. But the one thing that he could do is he could fly up and down the court, and he could really move laterally. And so he fit with how we played.

And we were in a good way, kind of forced into that. I guess we were fortunate to be forced into just playing faster and smaller and more skilled. Because in the 80s, there were so many good centers. Everybody was like, centers, oh, Twin Towers. And everybody trying to match up with the Celtics. And then you had Ewing and you had Elymouth and Shaq coming and Morning coming. and it was this whole era, and it dictated however I'm played. And now I think there's so many guards that can create

that it seems like we're shifting into this new era a little bit like what you did the last couple years where it's like, yeah, we're just going to play Isaiah, Thomas, Marcus, Spartan, every Bradford did the same time. They're three of our best players. Why wouldn't we? Yeah, and I think that's really true. But I also think there's a, you know, there's the reality that, you know,

those guys, regardless and no matter, no matter who's in the game or what are you in, the more that you can space, spread the floor and have multiple, you know, the better. But inevitably, back in the game, but that's not the way that kids are growing up wanting to play. I know. And I saw that kids from, you know, late middle school into the high school. I don't think I ever recruited a kid. Even though it would have been totally beneficial for his career to play the five

because he would have been playing against slower people that he would have, Tombo wanted to be a one, a three-one. to be a two, a four, one to be a three, a five, want to be a four. And that's just the way that, for whatever reason, that kind of feels that way. And everyone wants to shoot threes. Everybody, if Shaq, young Shaq right now would be working on his three-point shot instead of his jump hook. Last question, then you have to go. Could you ever coach your son like Doc Rivers has been doing the last two years? I was told by somebody to ask you this. Okay. No, so my son, my son, I did get asked the other day, who's my favorite? Even though my son is

10, I was having him do some, you know, he asked to work out because I want to be very careful that I'm not, you know, the dad that's a coach that's telling him to work out. So he asked to work out. We're doing shooting and all that stuff. And then said, all right, we'll just drive a few off of the catch and maximize your steps and maybe take a long step and finish on the other side of the rim. And he was struggling because it was a unique concept. And, you know, he kind of muttered under his breath. Somebody knew what he was talking about, you know. And that was a, that was an eye-opening thing that, you know, even with my favorite, I learned once again that coaching can be a challenging profession.

Brad Stevens, I really appreciate the time, really looking forward to watching the team this year. People forget, 48 wins last year. Added the number three pick in the draft, added Al Horford. So I have high hopes. I'm sure you do, too. Thanks so much for the time. Good luck this season.

Anytime y'all want to see me again. Appreciate it, Bill. All right. Rewan this track right here. Close your eyes. Pitching me rolling. All right, that's it for the podcast. Please subscribe to the Ringer NBA show, especially with Chris Vernon coming.

Don't forget to subscribe to my podcast, the BS podcast, and don't forget about any given Wednesday on HBO. Don't forget about the ringer.com. Don't forget about the Ringer podcast network. Don't forget about Seatkeek. Remember, download the free Seatkeek app or just go to Seatgeek.com. And on the BS podcast, it looks like every late Wednesday night, early Thursday, that's when we're guessing the lines with Cousin Sal.

just in time for the Don Julio shot of the week on Thursdays. And then on Fridays, Mike Lombardi has joined the PS podcast every Friday along with Joe House where we do the Callaway Part 3. We pick three games. And I'm going to try to sneak a third guest in there every episode. We'll see how that goes. But that's my schedule. Wednesday, Friday, mostly football until NBA starts.

Thanks for listening. Thanks to Brad Stevens. And check me out on any given Wednesday and on the BS podcast later in the week. Sayonara.