Brad Stevens has only improved the Celtics since he took over as president of basketball operations in Boston.

After coaching this team and core for the eight years prior to joining the front office, Stevens hasn’t hesitated to make a change to improve all aspects of the team.

In the two years Stevens has been POBO, he has retooled his team and made deadline decisions to put them in the best possible position to be a successful group. Acquiring Derrick White might be one of the greatest deadline acquisitions in Celtics history.

The aftermath of firing Ime Udoka just days before the start of the regular season was something that negatively carried within the team throughout the season, as we heard players like Marcus Smart and Jaylen Brown openly express their confusion of it all.

This also led to Joe Mazzulla being named interim head coach and eventually was promoted to head coach by midseason. So now we have the Celtics trying to run it back to the NBA Finals while being led by a rookie coach who went through many trials and tribulations throughout the season.

It eventually led Boston’s coaching staff to become depleted as the year came together and progressed. Udoka was fired, Will Hardy accepted the Utah Jazz head coaching position, Damon Stoudamire took a head coaching job of his own at George Town, not to mention the remainder of Udoka’s staff— Ben Sullivan, Aaron Miles, and Mike Moser— all left Boston to join him in Houston.

Throughout the 2022-23 season, there were many opportunities for Stevens to bring in other players to strengthen Boston’s depth in the frontcourt, as well as giving Mazzulla an extra hand coaching on the sidelines in the playoffs, as he oftentimes was lost and confused during the battle of a game. 

The two missed opportunities from Stevens in the 2022-23 season was not coaching on the sidelines next to Mazzulla in the playoffs and not promoting one of the Maine Celtics players to the active roster despite having the room to do so. 

JD Davison and Mfiondu Kabengele have been groomed all year to produce the way Boston needs them to in executing the pick-and-roll offense and being active on defense. I could argue Kabengele should have been on the Celtics 15-man roster for the playoffs, not Justin Champagne.

The player I believe the Celtics missed out on is Luka Samanic, who was signed by the Utah Jazz after a pretty elite season in Maine. He averaged 21.5 points on 48/33/76 shooting splits, along with 9.2 rebounds, and 1.9 assists per game. 

Although Boston didn’t have him on a two-way contract, they could have found a way to sign him to their roster as they did Champagne who wasn’t even playing for Maine. 

The Celtics suffered from a lack of big men depth down the stretch in the playoffs. Al Horford and Rob Williams are a great duo, but when they share the court together, it leaves Grant Williams as the next center, which takes him away from being more of a natural wing player, which the Celtics also lacked depth behind Jayson Tatum and Jaylen Brown. 

I’m not saying by adding Kabengele and Samanic that Boston would have won the NBA Finals, but I do believe the pair from Maine could have made an impact in some way by being available to Boston in the playoffs.

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