Brad Stevens Explains Harsh ‘Reality’ Of Celtics Heading Into Offseason

The Boston Celtics are in a unique, albeit challenging position this offseason.

Immediately after getting bounced by the New York Knicks in the Eastern Conference semifinals, the focus is redirected from championship pursuit to offseason blueprint. Celtics president of basketball operations Brad Stevens understands the situation at hand, the outside speculation and the challenge that’ll come with a team payroll that, as it sits, would tag the organization for a record $500-plus million next season.

That leaves Stevens with a handful of decisions to treat delicately as the franchise begins to undergo its transition from majority owner Wyc Grousbeck to owner-in-waiting Bill Chisholm. Stevens admitted and elaborated on the team’s “reality” during Monday’s end-of-season press conference at the Auerbach Center.

“The reality is we have a lot of good players,” Stevens told reporters, per NBC Sports Boston. “We’re in a unique situation. They’re all under contract, and obviously, there are several basketball penalties that will come with that amount of salary. So we just have to weigh it all and make those decisions, and I’ll have more clarity after we meet and talk and go through it.”

Boston committed contract extensions to the entirety of its premier core responsible for raising its 18th banner, and that effort included signing Jayson Tatum ($315 million) and Jaylen Brown ($304 million) — which were both record-setting at the time of their respective signings. Kristaps Porzingis, Jrue Holiday, Derrick White, Sam Hauser and Payton Pritchard, too, cashed in on their paydays and the league’s collective bargaining agreement has officially caught up to Stevens and the organization’s brass.

Chisholm led a $6.1 billion purchase of the Celtics, the largest price tag for a franchise in North American sports history, that still needs an approval stamp from the NBA’s Board of Governors this summer. Since the luxuriously-priced C’s failed to overcome the subpar Knicks and choked back-to-back 20-point leads to start the series, the incentive to keep everyone aboard has disintegrated before Chisholm’s eyes.

Does that mean Stevens intends to move the goalpost? Not exactly. Even though changes are expected, Tatum’s injury poses a challenge in itself and the offseason is anything but certain. Stevens is committed to fulfilling the duty of his job: architecting a Celtics team built to contend for another Larry O’Brien Trophy.

Rest assured, Stevens won’t relinquish that pursuit anytime soon.

“My goal is always and will always be to try to best position us to compete for championships,” Stevens said.

The Celtics had the talent, but the execution ultimately anchored the team. Tatum’s ruptured Achilles tendon was a devastating blow, but Boston showed in Game 5 that New York was still the inferior team, and the series spoke more about the failure of the Celtics than the success story of the Knicks. The season was a wasted opportunity in which the players and coaching staff failed Stevens and his efforts, forcing his hand this go-around.

That could mean trading nearly anyone from Porzingis to Holiday to Hauser to even Brown, as unprecedented as it might sound.

Stevens is adamant about approaching the offseason with a purpose. The plan isn’t clear and the circumstances are unlike anything the former head coach turned executive has ever experienced with the Celtics, but the higher powers are entrusting Stevens. Boston’s activity was minimal last offseason due to its restrictions and now, just a year later, the franchise could be the most interesting to keep an eye on.

“The North Star is to have a championship contender, right?” Stevens said. “So you have to do what’s best to give yourself the best opportunity to do that when you can do that, and so we just have to look at it all and decide how feasible that is on any given year.”

The NBA Finals matchup still isn’t set and the 2025 NBA Draft is over five weeks away, leaving Stevens with plenty of time to evaluate Boston’s next step.