Celtics building franchise using old school values

http://www.nba.com/2015/news/features/ian_thomsen/07/24/celtics-build-the-old-fashioned-way-from-bottom-up/



Celtics building franchise using old school values
With no centerpiece player, Boston developing young core
POSTED: Jul 24, 2015 8:57 PM ET

BY IAN THOMSEN
@IanThomsen | Archive

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Evan Turner Interview
Evan Turner discusses what he's done this summer to get better, as well as the future of the Boston Celtics.


The pursuits of Kevin Love and other All-Stars were dead ends. Rajon Rondo, unable to draw free agents to Boston, was dealt last season. Draft-night trades for any of the three perimeter rookies that the Celtics had targeted -- Mario Hezonja (who went No. 5 to Orlando), Stanley Johnson (No. 8 to Detroit) or Justise Winslow (No. 10 to Miami) -- went unfulfilled.

The Celtics were going to have to rebuild the hard way. It may yet turn out to be the best way.

While difference-making free agents LaMarcus Aldridge and DeAndre Jordan were being recruited by the Spurs, the Mavericks and the Clippers, the Celtics were opening their July 1 mini-camp in preparation for Summer League. For them the tournaments in Salt Lake City and Las Vegas were opening a door to the 2015-16 NBA season. As many as a half-dozen players on their Summer League roster could wind up playing for real in the TD Garden in the months to come. They prepared with an urgency befitting their unusual circumstances.

"They're getting on-the-fly learning,'' said Celtics assistant Micah Shrewsberry, who joined with fellow assistant Jay Larranaga to lead Boston's summer league coaching staff. "We're having walk-throughs like we would do during the year. We're try to keep a lot things similar so next fall, when everything gets going in a hurry, it's not that new to them. In terms of what we're going to run offensively, how we're going to travel, how we're going to eat as a team -- we're doing all of that stuff now to get them in the flow of how things are going to be this season.''

The ultimate goal is to return to championship contention as quickly as possible. And yet the process cannot be rushed. When Celtics president Danny Ainge was able to trade for Ray Allen and Kevin Garnett in 2007, he had been acquiring young assets for four years. Ainge was just now completing the second year of this new project. His young players were too raw to realize their eventual value on the court or in the trade market. The Celtics would need to invest patiently in their development.


Stevens molds players

The hiring of Brad Stevens as head coach of the Celtics makes more sense than ever. In little time - two years since his surprise departure from Butler - he has developed an identity in the NBA all his own. His relationships with players are based in a partnership of sincerity and trust that is unusual in the NBA. He is rebuilding the program in his own image from the ground up.

"I feel good about it,'' Stevens was saying during the Vegas Summer League. "It's a team that I just want to be part of - what it means to wear that uniform, and how you go about things, how you interact and how you cheer for your team and how you play. The most important thing for me is not the ball going into the basket right now. It's all those other little things.''

The Celtics neither wanted nor expected to keep all four of their draft picks last month. Three of them -- explosive point guard Terry Rozier (No. 16 overall), shooting guard R.J. Hunter (No. 28) and shot-blocking power forward Jordan Mickey (No. 33) -- are likely to be on the NBA roster in October. Shooting guard Marcus Thornton (No. 45), who played in Summer League before signing with the Sydney Kings in Australia, could be back with the Celtics by the end of the season.


Celtics on the Run

The Celtics force the turnover and R.J. Hunter delivers a behind-the-back dime to Jordan Mickey for the bucket.
Six days after the draft, they were all in the Celtics' suburban practice gym, where the floor is parquet and the walls are mounted with 17 championship banners.

"Jay did a good job of leading us in practice,'' said Shrewsberry. "We planned it out of how we wanted to introduce everything to them, knowing that they could be overwhelmed because so much is going on. So we focused on the defense first.''

"They were learning all of our terminology and our defensive concepts, because that is the thing that is most challenging going from college to the NBA,'' Ainge said. "Make sure they can defend their positions so they can get an opportunity. You can't get on the court if you can't defend your position. So there's a lot of time spent on our defensive schemes, and then slowly but surely our guys will get better offensively.''

The potential identity of the team is already beginning to form: Rozier joins with Marcus Smart and Avery Bradley to give the Celtics a trio of defensive-minded guards.

"We were picking the best guy available,'' said Ainge of his unpredicted investment in Rozier, "but I like tough guys that can defend. In order to win playoff games you've got to have guys that can match up with the Steph Currys and Kyrie Irvings and James Hardens - there's a lot of really good offensive players. Our three guys are really good defenders, and I think their offense is progressing.''

He envisions Rozier and Smart sharing the backcourt in a recreation of the two-guard front that Ainge himself played with Dennis Johnson in the 1980s.

"I could even see us going to a 1-2-3, where we play three guys who can handle the ball and initiate the offense,'' said Ainge in accounting for the versatility of swingman Evan Turner. "If DJ had somebody that was a great defensive player that was guarding him and making it hard, we just took the path of least resistance into our offense. Even though I was more the 1, I played the 2 many possessions, depending on the matchups.''

Before launching their team practices the Celtics broke into groups of two or three players for 15-minute sessions.

"We really slowed everything down,'' Shrewsberry said. "That way we could stop and teach them, so it wouldn't be in the flow of practice where you have to stop and your practice becomes longer. To do it beforehand or afterwards for a few minutes really helped us.''

Other young Celtics -- including Bradley, Smart, Jared Sullinger, Kelly Olynyk and Tyler Zeller -- have been training at the Celtics' facility this summer; when they've returned home, Celtics coaches have been flying out to work with them.

Bradley Finds Olynyk
Avery Bradley finds Kelly Olynyk who finishes with the dunk.

"We work a lot with our staff on coming up with a game plan for each guy, working with them on what they want to work on, and then hopefully everybody gets better individually,'' said Stevens. "It makes everybody better and everybody feels empowered. When they're with us, I want them to think that we invested everything we had in them - from me to strength (coaching), to athletic training, to Danny's group, to everybody else.''

"There's really no psychology to it,'' said Smart after a Summer League game in Las Vegas. "It comes down to you, but at the same time you got somebody there that actually cares and wants you to do good. It gives you a little motivation.''

Smart had an individual session planned with Stevens for the following morning at 10 a.m. -- with the understanding that few of his friends on rival NBA teams are able to work out privately with their head coach. Isaiah Thomas (26), Amir Johnson and Jonas Jerebko (both 28) are the only Celtics older than 25. As much as Stevens wishes for a team capable of contending immediately, he enjoys the process of building winning habits with one-on-one work.

"There's a lot of good coaches that have done it a lot of different ways,'' said Stevens. But he prefers to be hands-on. "To get in the gym and be putting in the sweat equity with them is important to it,'' he said. "They know you're going to work with them.''


A nurturing environment

After hearing relentlessly about the business influences of the NBA, Hunter was surprised by his opening weeks with the Celtics.

"These guys are always in the gym,'' he said of the coaches and support staff. "When you come in early, they're all right there, and all of them have a passion for basketball. I think that helps the younger guys. Everything is moving so fast.''

The practices and the three games they played in Utah (where they went 1-2) helped them win their first four games in Vegas. Smart was sidelined from the ensuing quarterfinal knockout game against San Antonio, but Hunter and Rozier combined for seven straight points in the final minute to even the score with 2.5 seconds remaining.

Then Spurs coach Becky Hammon drew up a play that ended with a successful runner at the buzzer by Shannon Scott. The Spurs went onto win the Vegas championship, while the young Celtics found themselves looking ahead to two more months of workouts before the next games, in preseason, against fully-formed NBA players.

"It's always about development, no matter what your situation is,'' said Ainge. "Sometimes you have to trade in your chips, but until you can, and until the time is right, you have to continue to develop players. You draft, you do deals - which is free agents and trades -- and you develop. I don't think you can be successful without doing all of those.''

When will the time be right? There is no sense in making predictions, not with so much work to be done in the meantime.




bob
MY NOTE:  I couldn't copy-and-paste the videos that are referenced in the piece, you have to follow the link at the top of the page and go there to see them.


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One of the things that has most drawn me to the Boston Celtics over the eras has been that the way they operate almost always makes plain sense to me. Perhaps there are fans of the other 29 teams who are echoing these sentiments even as I type these words. But, for the most part, I don't care about other teams. I care about the Celtics. And I've gone through the years feeling that, through the good times and the bad, and with only occasional exceptions, they've tried their utmost to do things the "right" way.

The result has been that the bonds of trust between Celtics players and management have been strong. I believe most ex-Celtics feel their basketball lives have been far better for the experience, regardless of the vagaries of championships or where they wound up in the league.

And the current iteration of the team seems to be following the pattern of the past. Yes, there may be players who don't want to come to Boston. But how many players who have gone that route regret the trip?

I'm very proud to be not just a Celtic fan but also a Celtic believer.

Sam