It's been business as usual for Brad Stevens since the team announced it would be put up for sale. The Boston Celtics' president of basketball operations has spent his summer re-signing players from the 2024 championship squad and watching the young talent compete at the NBA Summer League in Las Vegas.
Stevens attended Wednesday's Celtics-Hornets Summer League showdown, where he spoke to the media for the first time about ownership's surprising plans to sell the team.
“Well, I mean, I learned not long before everybody else did that was going to happen,” Stevens said. “I obviously am very thankful for Wyc and his family and everything that they’ve done. I’m looking forward to seeing what happens from here.
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"I don’t want to get too far into the weeds of it all but how does it affect us? It doesn’t really right now. From the standpoint of the corporate side or basketball operations we’re just head down, doing what we think is best for the now of the Celtics and the future of the Celtics. We’re lucky we [have] a good team.”
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The Celtics' impending sale means Stevens will soon have a new boss. Long-time majority owner Wyc Grousbeck originally hired Stevens as Boston's head coach in 2013. After the 2020-21 season, Grousbeck named Stevens as Danny Ainge's replacement in the front office.
Grousbeck's group Boston Basketball Partners LLC bought the Celtics for $360 million in 2002. The team is now worth approximately $4.7 billion, per Forbes' latest valuation.
In a recent interview with CNBC, Grousbeck clarified the details of the impending sale.
"The expectation is to sell the team in two parts, 51 percent going fairly soon, 49 percent then closing in a second closing in 2028," he said. "I'm planning or expecting to stay on until '28, and we're going to hire bankers and advisors. This is going to be quite a bidding process."
Whoever buys the Celtics will immediately be faced with a challenging financial situation. With a bloated payroll, Boston is set to pay historic luxury tax penalties as soon as the 2025-26 campaign. If the new ownership is unwilling to pay the hefty price, Stevens will have to make difficult decisions regarding who to keep and who to let go.
For now, Stevens and the C's are focused on running it back in 2024-25. Free agents Oshae Brissett and Svi Mykhailiuk are the only members of the championship roster not currently under contract for next season.