One college basketball team was ready to give an NBA coach a ton of money to get them back to the national championship scene. According to Adrian Wojnarowski of ESPN, the Indiana Hoosiers were prepared to offer Boston Celtics coach Brad Sevens a seven-year, 70 million contract. However, Stevens wasn’t interested, which led to Indiana hiring Mike Woodson.
“That Indiana University job that opened a few weeks ago,” Wojnarowski said. “I was told that Indiana was prepared to offer him seven years, $70 million.” If Stevens took the job, he would have been the highest-paid coach in NCAA men’s basketball. The highest-paid coach currently is Kentucky’s John Calipari, who makes $8 million per year. On Monday, Stevens talked about the report from Wojnarowski and said an offer was never made.
Videos by PopCulture.com
.@wojespn says that Indiana was prepared to offer Brad Stevens a seven year, $70m contract.
Stevens wasn’t interested. @abc6 #bleedgreen
— Ian Steele (@IanSteeleABC6) April 18, 2021
“First of all, I was never offered a package, so that’s all news to me,” Stevens said per CBS Sports. “Secondly, I wasn’t going to leave anyways. And the reason being is because this place, regardless of it was a pro organization or college, has been so good to our family, so good to me. And we owe them, especially in the middle of a very trying season that is, you know, right in the middle of a pandemic, we owe them to stay the course. And so I don’t know how long I’m going to coach.”
Stevens continued: “I don’t know how long I’m going to coach in the NBA. I don’t know how long they’ll want me to coach in the NBA. I don’t know what I’ll do after that. Maybe I’ll figure out something new, but right now I am thrilled to be the Celtics head coach. It is a great challenge and a great responsibility. And so, you know, try to minimize all the distractions around that but, you know, I was never offered that so I don’t know where that came.”
It’s not clear how much Stevens is making currently after signing a contract extension with the Celtics in August. The 44-year-old joined the Celtics in 2013 and has led the team to the playoffs the last six seasons. During that time, the Celtics has reached the conference finals three of the last four years. Before joining the Celtics, Stevens was the coach at Butler and led the team to the NCAA National Championship game in 2010 and 2011.
