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Celtics Shut Out At NBA Awards

By Matthew Geagan, CBS Boston

BOSTON (CBS) -- As expected, the Boston Celtics didn't get any love at this year's NBA Awards.

Much like their championship aspirations, we'll just have to wait until next season. But that doesn't mean Celtics fans shouldn't feel a tad bit slighted.

Jayson Tatum turned in an incredible rookie season for Boston, playing in all 82 regular season games and averaging 13.5 points. He was thrust into a bigger role when Gordon Hayward went down in the opening minutes of the season, and the moment was never too big for the 19-year-old rookie. He even elevated his game in the playoffs, leading Boston at an 18.5 point per game clip.

But the Rookie of the Year rightfully went to Philadelphia 76ers point guard Ben Simmons, who averaged 16.3 points, 9.4 rebounds and 7.7 assists per game in his first NBA season. Yes, Simmons was the No. 1 overall pick two years ago, but he missed the entire 2016-17 campaign with an injury and was considered a rookie this season. Argue against that rule all you want, but it's the rule. However silly you may think it is, that shouldn't take away from an incredible "rookie" season for Simmons, so Tatum's loss doesn't sting too much, even if he did finish third behind Simmons and Utah's Donovan Mitchell.

What does sting is Brad Stevens getting snubbed for the Coach of the Year award. Again.

Stevens lost to former Toronto Raptors head coach Dwane Casey (now with the Detroit Pistons). Casey did indeed have a very good season with the Raptors, winning 59 games and finishing as the No. 1 seed in the Eastern Conference. Casey was promptly fired after the Raptors were swept by the Cavaliers in the Eastern Conference semifinals, but what happens in the postseason doesn't matter for a regular season award. The polls were already closed when the Raptors went through their annual postseason collapse.

One benefit of Casey's win is this awkward Twitter moment, and who doesn't love a good awkward Twitter moment.

And at least this time around Stevens received some votes, unlike when fellow NBA head coaches voted on their COTY and Stevens was completely shut out (Casey also won that iteration of the award). But even though Stevens received more first-place votes than Utah's Quin Snyder for Monday night's honor, he still finished third in overall votes. Such a travesty. Stevens seemed like a clear-cut favorite for the award after leading the injury-riddled Celtics to 55 wins in the regular season, but the NBA media thought otherwise.

Apparently, losing a star player five minutes into the season, and another with 15 games to go before the playoffs, and still guiding the Celtics to a 55-win campaign isn't as impressive as it sounds. Maybe the writers forgot that the Celtics had just four returning players from last year's squad, which also made it to the Eastern Conference finals. Even last year's success meant little to NBA scribes, who left Stevens off the ballot all together despite Boston finishing as the No. 1 seed in the East.

So getting snubbed for Coach of the Year is really nothing new for Stevens, and really, he probably cares very little about it. Stevens wasn't even in attendance in Santa Monica, with Jaylen Brown (who finished seventh for the Most Improved Player award) and Aron Baynes Boston's representatives at the festivities (Bill Russell was there, too, as you may have seen). The C's head coach was likely hard at work focused on next season, crafting up plays for Brad Wanamaker. In Stevens' mind, a good film session is much better than a night out in Santa Monica.

It was rumored as the season wound down that Casey would be the 2017-18 Coach of the Year, so Monday night's snub was expected. But at the same time, you were kind of hoping NBA writers would have recognized the incredible job Stevens did for 82 games. He not only re-imagined Boston's playbook after watching 11 players depart last summer, but he had to do some late offseason revisions following the acquisition of Kyrie Irving. All of that went by the wayside when Hayward went down in Game 1 of 82, but the Celtics still persevered. Not only were they in the hunt for the No. 1 seed for 90 percent of the regular season, with Irving's late-season injury the final nail in that coffin, but they remained one of the best defensive teams in the NBA throughout. It was an all-around admirable job by Stevens, and he deserved some accolades for guiding Boston through every bump in the road.

NBA Coach of the Year is one of the more forgettable awards in all of sports and chances are Stevens will be in the conversation for the foreseeable future. But at some point, it'd be nice to see him actually win the darn thing rather than just be part of the conversation.

Maybe next year. Maybe.

 

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