Brad Stevens has won the NBA's 2023-24 Executive of the Year award, the league announced Tuesday. Executive of the Year, unlike most major awards, is not voted on by the media. It is instead voted on by the league's general managers themselves. Stevens is the first former head coach to win the award since Lawrence Frank did so during the 2019-20 season for leading the Los Angeles Clippers.
Stevens coached the Celtics from 2013-2021, amassing over 350 wins, but never leading his team to the NBA Finals. His track record since moving up to the front office, however, has been stellar. In three seasons with Stevens at the helm, the Celtics have reached the NBA Finals, lost in the Eastern Conference Finals, and now, hold the No. 1 seed in the entire NBA following a 64-18 season.
Stevens himself has acquired every player on Boston's roster except for Jayson Tatum, Jaylen Brown and Payton Pritchard within the past three years. His work this season was risky, but led to one of the best regular seasons in NBA history. First, he dealt team leader Marcus Smart to the Memphis Grizzlies in a three-team deal that landed center Kristaps Porzingis. That deal gave Boston an elite rim-protector that can score on all three levels, a badly needed archetype given Boston's late-game scoring woes over the past several years.
Three months later, the Celtics were granted a bit of good luck when the Milwaukee Bucks traded Jrue Holiday to the Portland Trail Blazers in a blockbuster deal for Damian Lillard. That gave Boston the opportunity to swoop in and land Holiday in a separate trade with Portland. The combination of Holiday and Derrick White has given Boston the NBA's best defensive backcourt.
Those two acquisitions paired with 2022 deadline addition White along with Tatum and Brown has given the Celtics one of the most fearsome starting lineups in NBA history. Now Boston is well on its way to returning the Finals, and with the roster Stevens built, there is a good chance they bring home championship trophy No. 18.
The Celtics are currently up 3-1 over the Miami Heat in the first round, but are awaiting news on Porzingis' availability after he suffered a calf injury in Game 4.
