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Brad Stevens discussed Kevin Durant, Jaylen Brown, why he feels ‘really good’ about Celtics’ roster
"My job is to know what costs are and then ultimately determine whether or not we want to be involved in any deal with any team around the league."
As it appears the Kevin Durant trade saga portion of the NBA offseason has concluded, perhaps Celtics president of basketball operations Brad Stevens could offer a conclusive account of the team’s reported pursuit of the Nets’ superstar?
In reality, Stevens could only discuss the trade talks in general terms. Asked about Boston’s interest in Durant — a subject that was widely reported starting in July and continuing through August — the Celtics’ executive told WEEI’s “Merloni, Fauria & Mego” on Tuesday that he could only offer an overview.
“Listen, at the end of the day I’m not going to go into any conversations that we had because I don’t think that’s appropriate,” Stevens said. “But my job is to know what costs are and then ultimately determine whether or not we want to be involved in any deal with any team around the league.
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“But since the [Malcolm] Brogdon trade we’ve felt really good about our team and we’ve felt really good about building around these guys that we’ve been building around,” Stevens continued, “trying to accentuate our best players and we’re excited to move forward with our team. That’s really been our focus for a while here.”
Stevens also seemed to imply that the talks with Brooklyn were not as involved as reports indicated.
“You say it’s been busy and there’s been a lot of talk, but it hadn’t been for me,” he said. “Hopefully it gives everyone something to talk about, but it’s been pretty quiet on our front for a while now.”
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One of the more prominent players in the NBA linked to a possible Durant deal was Celtics forward Jaylen Brown. Stevens said that the two met in Los Angeles recently, and that he’d been in touch during the period of time when trade rumors were floating around.
“Jaylen’s been through this from the standpoint of listening and the noise has been around him for a long time, big names over the years,” Stevens said. “You’ve got to be able to ignore the noise and know what’s important but also be able to reach out and have candid and transparent communications with the people that are involved. And so yeah, we’ve had those, made ourselves very open from the get-go as all of this has been going on for any of our guys.”
As far as a possible contract extension, Stevens noted that the team can’t speak with Brown about that until the fall due to NBA rules, but is hopeful that Boston can sign the 25-year-old to a long-term deal.
“Obviously he is a huge core piece of what we’re doing, has been for six years now. We’re excited to hopefully put our best foot forward [and] have him here for a long time.”
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