Stephen A. Smith called out the Celtics for promoting Brad Stevens and he’s absolutely right

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Seemingly out of nowhere, Brad Stephens is the new head of basketball operations for the Boston Celtics.

He moves upstairs from his role as a head coach and will now make all of the important decisions for the organization. He’ll pick the head coach, decide which players get to stay and go and handle the overall day-to-day structure of one of the top organizations in the NBA.

It’s worth noting that Stevens got this promotion after the Celtics performed below expectations this season and despite him having no experience in the role at all.

And it’s for those reasons that ESPN’s Stephen A. Smith is rubbed that wrong way by the move.

For him, it’s just another example of white privilege showing up in the NBA’s hiring cycle.

“You get bounced out in the first round, albeit to the Brooklyn Nets who most people believe are the favorites and you didn’t have Jaylen Brown — that’s to be acknowledged. You had what can only be described as a suspect relationship with the Marcus Smarts of the world according to reports and things of that nature. And you’re moving upstairs to the front office? You see, it’s moments like this where I get on people’s nerves — particularly, white America and in the NBA community specifically, because I point out it’s beautiful to be a white guy.”

He wasn’t done there. He also pointed out that Masai Ujiri is the only lead Black executive in the NBA.

“The opportunities for African Americans continues to dwindle and dwindle and dwindle…We’re talking about the coach. We’re not even getting into Black folks in executive positions. We’ve got one Black man with power…I’m talking about one dude. And his name is Masai Ujiri in Toronto. We don’t even have in the NBA a Black dude that’s in the United States that’s making the final call on basketball related matters.”

Stephen A. is pretty spot on here. This situation is yet another example of how different doors are opened for white coaches and executives.

Now, there’s plenty of reasons why the Celtics may have made this hire.

This last season was disappointing and Stevens losing the Celtics’ locker room was a real conversation. But he’s certainly not a failure. He’s only missed the playoffs one time in his coaching career, has been to the Eastern Conference Finals twice and the only real knock on him as a head coach is that he couldn’t beat LeBron James.

The Celtics are familiar with Stevens. They know him as a personality and already have a working relationship with him. It makes sense to want to keep him around.

So none of this is to say Stevens will do a terrible job or this is something he isn’t up to. We don’t know how he’ll perform in this role.

But that’s the point Stephen A. is making. Yes, we know he’s good — but he’s been good as a head coach. Not an executive. There were certainly other qualified folks out there. Yet, still, they didn’t see interviewing other candidates as a necessary step here.

Stevens was able to just jump right into this next phase of his career because of familiarity. By and large, that’s not a luxury afforded to his Black counterparts.

They can barely hold coaching jobs, let alone get promoted into a front-office gig.

Let’s just go to Brooklyn where, after the Nets dismissed Kenny Atkinson, Jacque Vaughn took a depleted Nets squad into the NBA bubble where they made the playoffs as a 7-seed despite all of their injuries.

None of that mattered when it was time for the Nets to look for a head coach. Did it get him an interview? Sure. But Steve Nash was always going to be the Nets coach because of his relationship with Kevin Durant and Kyrie Irving.

Or we can travel across the country to Minnesota where they fired Ryan Saunders after a game and then hired Raptors Assistant Chris Finch shortly after, all in the same day. There was no process. They’d already had their guy picked.

Meanwhile, even Damian Lillard was asking why Timberwolves Assistant David Vanterpool couldn’t get a look.

This is just how it’s worked in the NBA. And we’re seeing the same thing here with Stevens and the Celtics.

Now, look. Stevens might end up being one of the best executives ever. But that’s also beside the point.

There were plenty of other candidates to choose from. None of them even got a glance. Many of them are people of color who are just as — or more — qualified to run an organization.

The difference is Stevens will get an opportunity to prove he can do it while on the job. The others won’t even get an interview.

And that’s just tragic.

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