Report: 'Prominent' Celtics Exec Wanted to Fire Brad Stevens During Regular Season

The Boston Celtics' reported shakeup might have been a long time coming.

According to ESPN's Adrian Wojnarowski, president of basketball operations Danny Ainge is stepping down, and head coach Brad Stevens will move into a front-office role.

The pressure appears to have been building on Stevens, with Ian Begley of SNY reporting that "a prominent member of the Celtics organization wanted to fire Stevens immediately" midway through the regular season.

Begley's report isn't necessarily revelatory considering Celtics majority governor Wyc Grousbeck said in February that Stevens and Ainge's jobs weren't in danger amid an underwhelming year. A public vote of confidence typically comes when there's some level of internal and/or external pressure.

Boston finished 36-36 and had to qualify for the postseason through the play-in tournament. Upon reaching the playoffs, the team was overmatched by the Brooklyn Nets.

That's undoubtedly a disappointing outcome for a franchise that had reached the Eastern Conference Finals in three of the previous four seasons.

Firing Stevens during the regular season would've been an extreme step and arguably an unfair assessment of his performance on the sideline.

The Celtics were noticeably thin on the wing entering the season after losing Gordon Hayward in a sign-and-trade and doing little to replace him. Kemba Walker was also absent at the start of the season due to his recovery from a stem cell procedure on his knee.

As if that wasn't enough, Jayson Tatum was diagnosed with COVID-19, with the effects lingering after he returned to the court. Evan Fournier experienced similar issues.

Jaylen Brown's season-ending wrist injury was the capper on a year in which little went right.

It's likely no coach would be able to thrive in this situation, and a first-round exit was all but inevitable when Brown was ruled out.

Now Stevens is out as coach, and the next few seasons will serve as a referendum of sorts as to whether the desire to jettison him as head coach was justified.