Jackie Mac: Nobody is Blameless!

“All I can tell you is Brad Stevens’s teams are predicated on defense, and their defensive rating has plummeted from last season,” noted the longtime Celtics reporter.

We all know this is true.  We all know how focused on defense Brad is, almost dwarfing his focus on offense.  If our defense sucks it isn't because Brad isn't attentive to it, of that I am sure.

I don't know if we can point to the precipitous collapse of our defense on the departure of Gordon Hayward alone, but it will be some of that.  Losing TRo didn't help neither.

Brad has refused to name a team captain since he came here.  The reason is because he wants every player to accept responsibility rather than putting someone in charge of making them accountable.  A very democratic (small "d") approach to team accountability, driving it down to the individual player rather than a more traditional hierarchical structure.  If there's a problem it's that when he started he had no All-Stars, now he has 2-3.  Kemba has been beating himself up with his performances.  That doesn't make them better, but it does show he's accepting personal responsibility for them.  Tatum and Brown talk about it, but I'm only seeing Brown step up after he talks about it.  No, I am not talking about trading Tatum, but someone needs to deliver some tough love to him and Jaylen and Kemba are the only ones with the stature on the team to do so.  Could Brad?  Sure, of course, but I'm talking about players policing themselves.  They should pick a leader, or they need to lead themselves.  I'm of the opinion that these are professionals, they know what they need to do and they shouldn't need someone chirping at them.  Tatum's weakness comes from his attempts to do too much, not too little.  Brad has told him he doesn't need to score 40 points a game just because Jaylen or Kemba are out, he needs to make everybody else better.  That's preaching good team ball to Jayson.  At 23 years old, however, can he do it?  How old was LeBron before he became more than just the best player on the team/league and became the player he is now, a facilitator and floor general?

For those who want Danny fired, the inclusion of Brad in trade ideas and/or signings would be a baby step in that direction since in increases the input Danny weighs and Wyc will weight Brad's opinion heavily.  Danny won't actually be fired but, if Jackie Mac is right about that, he's not going to be a solo Mad Scientist anymore either. Talk about accountability, it puts Brad in the barrel with Danny.


Bob


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