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Celtics' Brad Stevens Denies Rumors of $70M Contract Offer for Indiana HC Job
April 19, 2021
To hear Brad Stevens tell it, Indiana University never offered him a seven-year, $70 million deal to become its next men's basketball head coach.
"First of all, I was never offered a package," the Boston Celtics head coach said, per Tom Westerholm of Boston.com. "That's all news to me ... I was never offered that. I don't know where that came from."
Stevens was asked about the report, which came from ESPN's Adrian Wojnarowski during an appearance on NBA Countdown on Saturday.
"[Stevens] publicly ... came out to say that he was not interested in that Indiana University job that opened a few weeks ago," Wojnarowski said. "I was told that Indiana was prepared to offer him seven years, $70 million."
The Indiana job was temporarily available following the 2020-21 college basketball season after the Hoosiers fired Archie Miller. Miller failed to make the tournament during any of his four seasons at the helm.
Stevens seemed like a potential replacement for Hoosiers fans hoping the school would make a home run hire considering he is from Indiana and coached at the collegiate level with Butler from the 2007-08 season through the 2012-13 one.
However, as Westerholm noted, Stevens shot down any apparent interest in the job:
"It means a lot. Listen, I've got a lot of friends back there. I've got a lot of people that are really important to me there. My dad's still there. That does mean a lot. I won't act like that doesn't. Like I said earlier today, it's flattering.
"I'm not a kid anymore, I'm a 44-year-old Masshole. I swerve around others when I'm driving, I eat Dunkin' Donuts and I root for the Patriots. I've, unfortunately, been skewed in a lot of ways I guess."
Stevens has been with the Celtics since the start of the 2013-14 campaign and led them to the playoffs in each of the last six seasons. They have made the Eastern Conference Finals in three of the last four years although have not gotten over the hump to reach the NBA Finals under Stevens.
Indiana ultimately hired Mike Woodson, who played for the Hoosiers prior to an NBA career that included stops with the New York Knicks, New Jersey Nets, Kansas City Kings, Sacramento Kings, Los Angeles Clippers, Houston Rockets and Cleveland Cavaliers.
Woodson has coached the Atlanta Hawks and Knicks and was most recently an assistant coach in New York.