As they took their seats at the 2010 NCAA men's national championship game, Danny Ainge, the Boston Celtics' director of basketball operations, made a declaration to team owner Steve Pagliuca. They were about to watch Mike Krzyzewski’s Duke Blue Devils take on the upstart Butler Bulldogs, coached by then 33-year-old Brad Stevens.
“I said to Steve at the time, ‘That’s the best coach in college basketball right down there,’” Ainge recalled years later. “He thought I was talking about Coach K.”
Ainge, like much of the basketball world, was enamored with Stevens.