Celtics Hire Butler's Brad Stevens as Coach

(AP) Celtics hire Butler’s Brad Stevens as coach
By JIMMY GOLEN
AP Sports Writer
BOSTON

The Boston Celtics keep getting younger–on the coaching staff as well as the court.

Less than a week after agreeing to trade Kevin Garnett and Paul Pierce to the Brooklyn Nets–and 10 days after shipping coach Doc Rivers to the Los Angeles Clippers–the Celtics hired Butler’s Brad Stevens as their next head coach.

Stevens, 36, twice led the Bulldogs to the NCAA title game, but has no NBA experience as a player or coach.

Stevens has spent the last six years as the coach of Butler, leading the Bulldogs to back-to-back national championship games in 2010 and ’11. He has a career winning percentage of .772 and never won fewer than 22 games in a season.

He takes over a team that is three seasons removed from an appearance in the NBA finals; the Celtics won their unprecedented 17th championship in 2008. But with Garnett and Pierce showing signs of slowing down in this year’s playoffs, when Boston was eliminated by the New York Knicks in the first round, Ainge has decided to rebuild.

He allowed Rivers to take over the Clippers, extracting a first-round draft choice in return. Amid last week’s NBA draft, the Celtics and Nets agreed to a deal that would send Garnett and Pierce to Brooklyn in exchange for a package of players along with three first-round draft picks.

Now Stevens, who is younger than Garnett, will be the one to work with those players.