BOSTON -- Boston Celtics coach Brad Stevens spent the August doldrums thinking about ways his team can utilize new personnel, such as free-agent signee Gerald Green. Stevens is simply glad to not have to game plan against the nine-year veteran for a change.

"I’ve been a big Gerald Green fan because I’ve been scared of him," Stevens said. "And I think that that’s a great way to figure out how good a player is. When you go into a game, he’s on your scouting report, maybe in a highlighted way because he could go off for a lot of points in a short amount of time.

"He can change the course of a game. Does he do it every night, historically? No. But he’s had moments and times where he has done that. So I think he brings a spurt-ability to us that we clearly needed from a scoring standpoint."

Stevens hadn't met with the assembled Boston media since the end of the team's summer league foray in Las Vegas in mid-July. After Boston made a big splash with the addition of Al Horford early in the summer -- then missed out on the Kevin Durant sweepstakes -- the team made a series of quieter moves near the end of July in signing Green and restricted free agent Tyler Zeller.

Coach Brad Stevens said he was pleased that the Celtics added the scoring ability of Gerald Green to the roster this offseason. Fernando Medina/Getty Images

Now Stevens is preparing for a training camp in which Boston will bring in 18 roster-caliber players, including 16 on guaranteed contracts, to fight for 15 spots. It's Stevens' job to figure out what each player can do well and what combinations will best fit the team.

"I think as a coach you get away a little bit [in the summer] but, at some point, you’re antsy to get back at it. Maybe you are rewriting the third version of what you’re [going to do at training camp] -- I don’t know. You think about it all year," Stevens said. "I’m just going to be ready for [the start of training camp on] Sept. 27, and ever since the end of July I’ve had a pretty good idea of what we’re going to look like as a team and who’s going to help us in what ways. It’s just a matter now of putting the pieces together and hopefully playing well."

Added Stevens: "I think you have to put a lot of time and thought into what your new guys have done well, how that plays within what you’ve done, or if you need to change some of what you’ve done to fit them better. And so you go through that and you make sure you come up with a plan that fits everybody the best to bring out all of their best strengths."

Some highlights from Stevens' seven-minute chat with Boston reporters at TD Garden before an ABCD Hoops Dream fundraiser that also featured former Celtics coach Doc Rivers: