Mannix: ‘If the Celtics made an offer to Sam Presti he would have taken it’

Did Boston’s brass bungle their offseason shake-up by hiring Brad Stevens as team president?

Did the Boston Celtics miss out on an opportunity to land one of the NBA’s top executives? At least one prominent NBA analyst believes this could be the case.

Sports Illustrated’s Chris Mannix thinks that if the Celtics had reached out to current Oklahoma City Thunder general manager Sam Presti that they could have poached the Thunder exec. While it is not clear from public statements whether Boston did indeed do their due diligence with regards to discerning whether Presti might indeed be available and disposed to decamping to the Celtics, recent comments on local sports radio by lead Celtics owner Wyc Grousbeck appear to suggest they did not.

“I believe unequivocally that if the Celtics made an offer to Sam Presti he would have taken it,” shared Mannix on a recent episode of the Bill Simmons podcast via SI.com’s Ryan Chapman.