Brad Stevens is not walking out that door.
As the Boston Celtics limp through Stevens’ second season as head coach — Thursday night’s last-second win over the Portland Trail Blazers notwithstanding — rumors have swirled about the former Butler coach eyeing a return to the college basketball ranks. These rumors refuse to die despite Stevens refuting them multiple times over the past two seasons.
The most popular theory has Stevens replacing Mike Krzyzewski at Duke, but more than a few Indiana alums have been holding out hope that Stevens will return to his home state to take over the Hoosiers.
Now that Tom Crean has IU rolling, though, a lot of that talk has quieted down — not that there was anything to the talk in the first place.
“There hasn’t been a Brad Stevens-to-Indiana story in more than a month,” Mike DeCourcy of the Sporting News wrote Thursday. “That’s progress, isn’t it? The media have moved on from the delusion that he would walk away from a guaranteed $14.7 million to accept a job that isn’t open.”
So, Stevens is stuck with the 14-26 Celtics — or as he might say, the Celtics are stuck with him, at least until the Hoosiers stumble again and Crean is back on the hot seat, which seems to be pretty much every other week.
Thumbnail photo via Robert Hanashiro/USA TODAY Sports Images
