Given the location, that’s expected.
Celtic green sprinkled across the packed theatre. For the series’ raffle, the award was a silver, signed basketball. Elders dominated the crowd, but if Stevens glanced at the edge of the front row, he’d see kids donning Jayson Tatum and Payton Pritchard jerseys — there were no Brown jerseys.
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Talks of the stunning move brought light to a room clearly expecting him to break the ice at some point. Even Stevens knew it’d come, flashing a smirk any time a question was asked that could relate to the trade.
Honaker, who is Butler University’s associate athletic director for development, was sure to pick Stevens’s brain on it, even if not directly. He asked how Stevens, who is the Celtics’ president of basketball operations, can trust his instincts when making unpopular decisions.
“Well, obviously, I’m sure a lot of people immediately got to Jaylen Brown, right, or immediately go to [Marcus Smart] a couple years ago, and that’s a really hard part of the job,” Stevens said. “And, you, again, try to be as upfront and honest as you can, but there are a lot of factors when you end up making a decision and you’re leaning on a lot of people, leaning on a lot of information.”
Stevens added it’s important in leadership roles to understand that decisions like that will be painful.
“I get a lot of emails and a lot of people that ask about wanting to be a GM,” Stevens said. “I’m like, ‘I wish you would’ve been around last summer when we basically had to trade Jrue Holiday.’ That’s like brutal. Or we go through this long arduous process and ultimately decide to trade Jaylen, whose numbers will likely go up in the rafters in Boston. Not fun.”
While Stevens was more detailed and basketball-focused in the first go-around, Stevens’s comments weren’t much different than from his July 6 news conference.
Though Brown wasn’t specifically mentioned Tuesday, Stevens — a noted “numbers guy” — even discussed his mind-set on analytics, which many speculated became a factor into the decision to move the five-time All-Star.
“Data is an important part of learning about what you’re capable of, and learning about your team, but it is a part of it. Not all of it,” Stevens said. “I do think that there’s a lot of room for eyes, feel, preparing for curveballs so you’re ready for that in any scenario.”
Stevens also spoke about things like growing up in Indiana, his time coaching at Butler, and learning from former Celtics executive Danny Ainge.
After the first wave, questions regarding Brown seemed to dissipate. That was until the crowd got its turn.
Stevens had talked about learning to sell Prozac, an antidepressant, during his time at Eli Lilly and Company — the job he quit to pursue coaching — so a fan asked him to use his experience to sell Prozac to Celtics fans.
“Give him that mic to drop it,” Stevens said. “That’s a good question. I can’t say that I slept well, or have slept well, but those are the hard decisions sometimes that come with the gig.”
Avery Hill can be reached at avery.hill@globe.com.