Late last month, Indiana University appointed Mike Woodson to be the new coach of his men’s basketball team, which officially ended the speculation surrounding Brad Stevens. But while we have known for some time that Stevens would not leave the Boston Celtics to go back to study, we did not know how seriously Indiana was chasing him.
As it turns out, they really did not mess up. On Saturday, ahead of the Celtics game with the Golden State Warriors, Adrian Wojnarowski reported that the Stevens school had made a big long-term offer to accept the position.
“That job at Indiana University that started a few weeks ago,” Wojnarowski said. “I was told Indiana was willing to offer him $ 70 million for seven years.”
That’s a staggering amount that would make Stevens, to some extent, the highest paid coach in NCAA men’s basketball. The honor still belongs to John Calipari, who earns $ 8 million a year in Kentucky. In fact, the Duke’s Mike Krzyzewski and Jay Wright of Villanova are the only university coaches to earn more than $ 5 million a year.
It is not clear how much Stevens currently earns, as the terms for extending the contract he signed in August 2020 have not been announced. However, it can be assumed that it is less than $ 10 million a year, as Indiana would certainly not offer him a pay cut to convince him to leave the NBA.
While it’s a lot of money to turn down, Stevens made it clear in one of his many statements about the situation that he’s happy in Boston and that he has no interest in leaving soon.
“I’m so grateful for this organization and for the people here and for all they have done for us,” Stevens said. ‘I have incredible leadership in Danny [Ainge] and Wyc [Grousbeck] and [Stephen Pagliuca], and what they have done for us, as we are supported … I like to come to work every day. I like this area. People were great to us. My family is so happy. ‘
In addition, there are a number of challenges with being a college coach, as Stevens is quite familiar with from his days at Butler. The most important thing is to recruit, which is an exhausting exercise. If the actual basketball commitments weren’t enough, university coaches have to spend months and months each year convincing players to join the program. Clearly, Stevens has several reasons he did not want to leave the NBA, but that’s probably at the top of the list.