On Tuesday, Boston Celtics head coach Joe Mazzulla made some unique NBA history by winning the NBA's Coach of the Year award. That honor is just one part of a very successful award season for Boston, which saw Jaylen Brown get named to the NBA's All-Second Team and finish sixth in the MVP voting. Derrick White won the league's Sportsmanship Award and was named First-Team All-Defense, and Brad Stevens won the NBA's Executive of the Year for the second time. 

All the accolades underscore just how successful the Celtics were in the regular season, and how disappointing it was to see the C's exit in the first round of the playoffs against the Philadelphia 76ers. 

With regards to Stevens, who previously served as the Boston head coach, there was an interesting anecdote about him that was shared on Tuesday by Ronald Nored, who is the current head coach at Butler, where Stevens also coached.

Speaking with CBS Sports's Jon Rothstein, Nored shared his reaction when he found out that Stevens was going to jump right from Butler to the NBA in 2013.

"Incredibly shocked. I will never forget where I was. I was at a movie, I was an assistant coach at the University of South Alabama...I left the movie early and my phone was blowing up, it was an absolute wild time. I was completely shocked."

Nored played at Butler from 2008-12, meaning he spent all four years with Stevens, who was there from 2007-13.

Through those six seasons at Butler, he went a whopping 166-49, making the NCAA Tournament five times. He won the Horizon League four times and made trips to back-to-back Final Fours. His 2009-10 team advanced to the national title game, falling just short against Duke.

Stevens was undoubtedly a hot commodity after his success at the mid-major, but it was still surprising to see someone in their mid-30s get a job as prestigious as the Celtics. All told, Stevens spent eight years as the head coach of the Celtics, also maintaining solid success.

He went 354-282 (.557), finishing over .500 in six of the eight seasons. He was 36-36 in 2020-21 when the season was only 72 games because of the COVID-19 pandemic. He made the playoffs in seven of the eight years in Boston, advancing to the Eastern Conference Finals three times. He also helped the Celtics play through the Isaiah Thomas era, the Kyrie Irving era, the Gordon Hayward era, the early Jaylen Brown and Jayson Tatum era, and the Kemba Walker era.

Following the 2020-21 season, Stevens transitioned to an executive role in the front office. The team hired Ime Udoka, who took them to the NBA Finals, and then brought in Mazzulla after Udoka was let go for non-basketball reasons. The C's won the title in Mazzulla's second year at the helm, beating Luka Doncic and the Dallas Mavericks.

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