Celtics' Brad Stevens wins NBA's Executive of the Year

For financial reasons, Celtics president of basketball operations Brad Stevens needed to tear down a championship-caliber supporting cast over the offseason. He built it back well enough for the NBA to name him the Executive of the Year. The league announced Tuesday that Stevens captured the award for the second time in three years. He also won Executive of the Year during the 2023-24 season while guiding the Celtics to a championship. Stevens earned 11 first-place votes to beat out second-place finisher Onsi Saleh of the Atlanta Hawks and third-place finisher Trajan Langdon of the Detroit Pistons. Unlike most NBA awards, which are determined by a media vote, the Executive of the Year is voted on by each team's top executive. Stevens' ability to pivot from the 2024 championship roster and quickly remake a contender allowed him to win the award again. With Boston facing severe apron issues, he began the offseason by trading Jrue Holiday and Kristaps Porziņģis largely for financial savings. The Celtics wanted to keep Al Horford and Luke Kornet, but couldn't offer enough money to convince either big man to stay. Including Jayson Tatum, who missed most of this season with a torn Achilles, Boston needed to replace more than half of its regular rotation. Thanks to Stevens' shrewd moves, the Celtics finished the regular season at 56-26 anyway. The team's young supporting cast proved far more capable than anyone outside the organization realized entering the season. Neemias Queta emerged as a quality starting center. Baylor Scheierman, Jordan Walsh and Hugo González -- three of Stevens' recent draft picks -- showed they could contribute. Luka Garza and Anfernee Simons, two of the team's offseason acquisitions, helped fill in for some of the lost production. And when Stevens traded Simons to Chicago before the February deadline, the Celtics picked up an established big man in Nikola Vučević while also shedding enough money to escape the luxury tax. Considering Boston's payroll at the beginning of the offseason, it was a huge undertaking for Stevens to maneuver all the way out of the tax. He somehow found a way to do so while keeping the Celtics as a contender.