Ime Udoka gutting Celtics coaching staff

[Celtics2021]

not sure if this is a positive or negative development, as i don’t know much about these three assistant coaches.

one thing is certain, the C’s clearly didn’t manage Ime’s exit appropriately, as a non-poaching clause should have prevented this gutting. however, it is possible brad is allowing it, in order to completely retool the staff around joe, or exit joe and allow the new HC to select his own staff.

https://clutchpoints.com/celtics-news-rockets-ime-udoka-gutting-boston-coaching-staff-heat-elimination

Most assistants are only on 1-2 year deals anyway.  Wouldn’t be surprised if all the assistants Udoka brought in were free agents this summer regardless.

[Kernewek]

Most of this article doesn't say anything we haven't heard before (and some of it is downright lazy analysis) but this particular section speaks to a lot of what we've talked about in this thread before - and tampers some of the doomer speculation:

Three months later, Udoka’s suspension, which later turned into a dismissal, left the Celtics organization without a head coach just before training camp. Udoka’s punishment rocked a locker room full of love and respect for him. From the time the Celtics named Mazzulla the replacement, initially on an interim basis before he became the head coach in February, they were counting on his ability to connect with people and hold a locker room together.

In addition to the players who credited Udoka for their drastic turnaround and Finals berth one season ago, several Celtics assistants considered Udoka a close friend and joined the staff specifically to work for him. When Boston elevated Mazzulla, not even a front-row assistant last season, sources around the team said it could have created a divide between him and the other coaches with more experience and loyalty to Udoka. There was initially an “awkwardness” according to several members of the coaching staff, but Mazzulla worked to establish a culture of open communication and trust.

Damon Stoudamire, initially expected by several players and coaches to be a favorite for the interim job, later said Mazzulla contacted him upon earning the promotion. Mazzulla told Stoudamire he trusted him and considered him his right-hand man.

“Joe is a great dude,” Stoudamire said in December while acting as head coach for a game when Mazzulla was sidelined by an eye injury. “Got to know him a lot last year. Our friendship has just continued as we’ve moved forward this season.”

Beyond Udoka, the Celtics staff faced a depletion of talent that raised the difficulty of Mazzulla’s job. Will Hardy took over as Utah Jazz head coach in June and turned them into one of the NBA’s biggest surprises. Multiple team sources both on the roster and the staff said Stoudamire’s departure to lead Georgia Tech in March left a significant void in the team’s leadership structure. He was known for having a good feel for when and how to talk to players, understand their motivations, and pull from his own experiences when making recommendations for how the team should operate.

Of the remaining coaches, only Aaron Miles, who appeared in 19 games for the Warriors in 2005, reached the NBA as a player. Including Stoudamire, the Celtics essentially lost three coaches without replacing any of them.

“It’s not like Damon had a certain power, but players really respected him,” said one team source. “Joe used Damon to have a guy that’s been here that’s played that can speak to them. Damon could speak their language and no one else on the staff can do (it).”

https://theathletic.com/4569899/2023/06/01/boston-celtics-joe-mazzulla-wyc-grousbeck-season-recap/

[Roy H.]

Most of this article doesn't say anything we haven't heard before (and some of it is downright lazy analysis) but this particular section speaks to a lot of what we've talked about in this thread before - and tampers some of the doomer speculation:

Three months later, Udoka’s suspension, which later turned into a dismissal, left the Celtics organization without a head coach just before training camp. Udoka’s punishment rocked a locker room full of love and respect for him. From the time the Celtics named Mazzulla the replacement, initially on an interim basis before he became the head coach in February, they were counting on his ability to connect with people and hold a locker room together.

In addition to the players who credited Udoka for their drastic turnaround and Finals berth one season ago, several Celtics assistants considered Udoka a close friend and joined the staff specifically to work for him. When Boston elevated Mazzulla, not even a front-row assistant last season, sources around the team said it could have created a divide between him and the other coaches with more experience and loyalty to Udoka. There was initially an “awkwardness” according to several members of the coaching staff, but Mazzulla worked to establish a culture of open communication and trust.

Damon Stoudamire, initially expected by several players and coaches to be a favorite for the interim job, later said Mazzulla contacted him upon earning the promotion. Mazzulla told Stoudamire he trusted him and considered him his right-hand man.

“Joe is a great dude,” Stoudamire said in December while acting as head coach for a game when Mazzulla was sidelined by an eye injury. “Got to know him a lot last year. Our friendship has just continued as we’ve moved forward this season.”

Beyond Udoka, the Celtics staff faced a depletion of talent that raised the difficulty of Mazzulla’s job. Will Hardy took over as Utah Jazz head coach in June and turned them into one of the NBA’s biggest surprises. Multiple team sources both on the roster and the staff said Stoudamire’s departure to lead Georgia Tech in March left a significant void in the team’s leadership structure. He was known for having a good feel for when and how to talk to players, understand their motivations, and pull from his own experiences when making recommendations for how the team should operate.

Of the remaining coaches, only Aaron Miles, who appeared in 19 games for the Warriors in 2005, reached the NBA as a player. Including Stoudamire, the Celtics essentially lost three coaches without replacing any of them.

“It’s not like Damon had a certain power, but players really respected him,” said one team source. “Joe used Damon to have a guy that’s been here that’s played that can speak to them. Damon could speak their language and no one else on the staff can do (it).”

https://theathletic.com/4569899/2023/06/01/boston-celtics-joe-mazzulla-wyc-grousbeck-season-recap/

1.  As has been expressed many times before, not replacing the three departed coaches was hugely negligent of management;

2.  I think the "loyalty to Ime" narrative is probably a bit overblown.  Almost all people are going to select jobs based upon salary and security.  That said, I prefer the narrative that the coaches left because they know they are going nowhere under Joe, and realize that they will be tainted by their association with him.

[Kernewek]

Considering this thread started with a fantasy narrative about a non-poaching clause, I can't blame you.

Ultimately the best we can do is speculate, and this is going to cause people to disregard what they don't want to hear - I don't know if you've got an Athletic subscription, but I'm sure there are plenty of people who will read the quote from the team source who claims Mazzulla was "super hard" on the Jays as well as the role players behind closed doors and claim it's not rooted in reality because it doesn't fit their preferred narrative either.

[Roy H.]

I'm curious, what is the norm with assistant coaching contracts?  Is it like in the NFL, where assistants can leave for promotions, but not for lateral moves without team permission?  Could the Celtics have blocked these moves if they wanted to?  Would they be frowned upon if they did?

[W8ting2McHale]

Multiple team sources both on the roster and the staff said Stoudamire’s departure to lead Georgia Tech in March left a significant void in the team’s leadership structure. He was known for having a good feel for when and how to talk to players, understand their motivations, and pull from his own experiences when making recommendations for how the team should operate.

I was worried that Damon leaving would create a hole that couldn’t be filled right before the playoffs. I don’t know how the team would handle adversity or if they would have been better prepared and not shown up flat so many times if he had been there. His presence could have meant another win or two.

As for replacing him, I don’t think you can. Not right before the playoffs. A team is a tight knit group and you can’t just throw a new guy in and expect them to have chemistry with the team and then have the players immediately listen to them.

I think/it sounds like from reports, that Al Horford tried to assume that player/coach role. I don’t know how successful that was. The team didn’t make the finals so in that sense it wasn’t. I’m not a member of the team or staff so have no insider information. Most of the narratives here suffer from the same lack of knowledge.

I would like to see Al in the Damon Stoudamire role as a Celtics assistant after he retires. If he can’t get a ring as a player maybe he can as a coach?

[Roy H.]

Considering this thread started with a fantasy narrative about a non-poaching clause, I can't blame you.

Ultimately the best we can do is speculate, and this is going to cause people to disregard what they don't want to hear - I don't know if you've got an Athletic subscription, but I'm sure there are plenty of people who will read the quote from the team source who claims Mazzulla was "super hard" on the Jays as well as the role players behind closed doors and claim it's not rooted in reality because it doesn't fit their preferred narrative either.

Here's an excerpt of that section, and some commentary that follows:

It became clear early on that Mazzulla would take a different approach than Udoka. Where Udoka lit up players through the media, Mazzulla regularly showed support. But behind closed doors, he was still willing to hold everyone accountable.

“His leadership is second to none. From speakers to events, he hit all the buttons to galvanize the group,” said a team source. “Throughout the season, the things he did to call out (Jayson Tatum) and (Jaylen Brown) all the time, he was super hard on all of them. When they needed to be called out, he was the first to call them out. When the role players needed to be called out, he called them out too. He shot it straight how he saw it and didn’t care about how it should be done. I thought he developed great relationships with guys because of that.”

While the locker room generally supported Mazzulla’s leadership style, a key disagreement between the coaching staff and many of the team’s top players was rooted in the on-court philosophy. Defense carried the Celtics to the Finals last season, but Mazzulla focused more on offense than his predecessor did. He pivoted toward smaller lineups, normally starting Derrick White even after Robert Williams became healthy.

Some of the players started to believe Mazzulla prioritized the offense too much, according to team sources. Several veterans wondered why the coaching staff went away from Grant Williams, who had a significant role in slowing down Kevin Durant, Giannis Antetokounmpo and Bam Adebayo on the way to the Finals last season. Still, in early March, he received his first DNP-CD since the 2020-21 season. Williams’ playing time was sporadic from that point forward and he again fell out of the rotation when the playoffs began.

Disagreement over Mazzulla’s approach showed in a film session during the second round that dove into the offense, when Brown broke a huddle by saying, “One, two, three, defense,” according to several sources in the room. Multiple players told The Athletic that while Mazzulla had shifted the team’s identity to be more balanced down the middle between offense and defense, they felt that defense wins championships and that last season proved that should be the priority. Players noted they sometimes would come out of the timeouts uncertain about defensive coverages and Blake Griffin, Smart, and Grant Williams, among others, would help the team work things out heading to the court before play resumed.

Regarding quotes from team sources, I think it's always fine to be skeptical.  The sports media -- similar to the political media -- is agenda driven.  Just because somebody gives a quote doesn't mean it's a fair one.  And, when we're dealing with certain guys -- from Keith Smith to Peter Vecsey -- the quote is probably made up.

The theme running through that story, I thought, was that the team doesn't necessarily trust the coach.  That said, the players didn't rebel enough to actually play hard defense against the coach's instruction.  They just paid lip service to it while chucking up lots of ugly shots.

[mobilija]

Considering this thread started with a fantasy narrative about a non-poaching clause, I can't blame you.

Ultimately the best we can do is speculate, and this is going to cause people to disregard what they don't want to hear - I don't know if you've got an Athletic subscription, but I'm sure there are plenty of people who will read the quote from the team source who claims Mazzulla was "super hard" on the Jays as well as the role players behind closed doors and claim it's not rooted in reality because it doesn't fit their preferred narrative either.

Couldn't agree more. There is no basis in reality that Mazulla was soft on players or is a "players coach". I recall some quotes by RWill regarding his behind closed doors demeanor, he was pretty tough on the guys.

Plenty of other things to complain about with Mazulla but not demanding of the players is not one of them.

[Kernewek]

Agreed on the throughline - that some of the players don't trust the coach (I'm going to go out on a limb and say Smart, Horford, and Brown).

But two can play the selective editing game. Let's consider some of the many paragraphs we could have picked as 'some commentary that follows', regarding the on-the-court performance.

At first, the Boston players all seemed to recognize that they fell short in the playoffs last season because their offense disintegrated in the biggest moments. Even in the series they won, they dealt with excessive turnovers and stalled ball movement. Over the first two months of the season, the Celtics rode their new offensive principles to a 21-5 record and, to that point, what would have been the most efficient offense in NBA history.

As the usual starter, White gave the Celtics another layer of playmaking and outside shooting while earning a spot on the second-team all-defense. Malcolm Brogdon won the Sixth Man of the Year award as he willingly moved to the bench, but his acquisition left Boston’s roster even more skewed toward perimeter talent. With Williams in and out of the lineup, and often dealing with a minutes restriction when he did play, Mazzulla had reason to lean more on his perimeter players.

The spotlight on offense eventually produced cracks. Though the Celtics finished second in offensive efficiency and second in defensive efficiency, with the type of balanced attack that typically marks a championship contender, they lost some of the size and aggressiveness that made their defense so impenetrable last season. They counted on getting open 3s in transition to carry the offense, but late-game execution on both ends continued to be an issue.

For certain players, at least, that was more evidence that the emphasis should have been on defensive dominance all along. After all of the offensive shortcomings during last season’s playoff run, Mazzulla saw the Celtics puzzle differently. He wanted the players to reach a new level as problem solvers. He envisioned a more free-flowing transition game where offense and defense go hand-in-hand and trusted that the team had the talent to play more improvisationally on both ends than it had before.

He wanted them to learn how to diagnose any defensive coverage and come up with solutions on the fly.

And so on. Is the Mazzulla offense a bad fit with this roster? Maybe. But Udoka's hires following Udoka? That's a non-issue, I think.

[Roy H.]

While I would recommend that everybody subscribe to The Athletic (I only paid $15 for a year, I think), it looks like folks won't have to after the selective quotations by me and Kern.

I don't disagree with some of the problems noted.  And, shockingly, I don't place the blame on Joe for all of it.  I think Brad did a grave disservice going into the season with our backup bigs being Grant, Griffin, Vonleh and Kornet.  I think that Grant got unfairly buried, but none of the others should have been relied upon.  That's on Brad, and presumably, Wyc.  Joe gets blame for not incorporating Muscula, but he's not exactly a strong or athletic defensive guy, either.

Some of the other issues noted are philosophy differences that I'm not a fan of.  "Transition threes", as a concept, suck to me.  I'd almost always take the layup.  As noted elsewhere, the increase in 3PAs by our stars has led to decreased shooting efficiency from them; there needs to be more balance.  Joe never retooled the offense to recognize 2PT opportunities, where we ranked near the bottom of the league.

And that quote from Joe about 3PTA% being the most important stat in basketball?  I don't think that's true, unless you've got historically great shooters.  Tatum and Brown are average or below when taking so many 3PAs.  Outside shooting seems to have more variability than other shots; a team can play a "perfect game" under Joe's philosophy and still lose by 30 points, because the threes didn't go in and there was no alternative gameplan.

[Kernewek]

yeah it's less than ideal offensively - I think the roster/coach mismatch is that our guys aren't particularly exceptional at breaking down an offense on the fly (either with court vision or dribble penetration) so we end up with a lot of chucked threes, rather than good threes. It can look like an idiot's interpretation of Seven Seconds or Less when things aren't landing.

I'm curious, what is the norm with assistant coaching contracts?  Is it like in the NFL, where assistants can leave for promotions, but not for lateral moves without team permission?  Could the Celtics have blocked these moves if they wanted to?  Would they be frowned upon if they did?

I'm not sure if it's changed but as far as I know it's communicated through the coach's agent, if they have one, but if there's interest from another team the current franchise you work for will be asked for permission to interview you as you're still under contract.

[Vermont Green]

It is interesting what is coming out now.  Most of it is probably true, who knows, in any case, none of it is terribly surprising.  I have to speculate some, and read between the lines some, like all of us, but a couple of things seem to be getting clearer or more in focus.

First, the shadow of Udoka was there all season.  The players liked Udoka and did not fully understand why he was fired.  This made it harder for the players to buy in to what Joe was trying to do.  I think the offense did need another level of sophistication or nuance.  More secondary scheme or movement in addition to the primary, often pick and roll scheme.  In my opinion, the offense was too predictable.  Not sure why that would be mutually exclusive to focusing on defense too.  The reports seem to be implying that the players resisted the work on offense, that it was taking away from the defense in some way.  I know playing White over RWill was part of it, but I am not sure why this had to be a problem.  It probably wouldn't have been if not for the "Udoka shadow".

As to the assistants, first, the guy they came here to "coach for" was gone, suddenly and based on not fully revealed issues.  Then, many of them were passed over (or would have felt they were passed over) when they picked Mazzulla.  Fair or not, I can understand how these other assistants must have felt.  Now they are leaving, some to new opportunities, some back to Udoka.  The assistants appear to have not bought into Mazzulla any more than the players.

[radiohead]

I just watched Brad’s presscon. He mentioned that they would add at least one assistant coach with NBA experience to Joe’s staff. He said at least one. If it’s true that 3 assistants are leaving the team to join Ime, then for sure we’d need more than one new hire? Maybe these reports of the assistants leaving are just speculation at this point?

[Roy H.]

I just watched Brad’s presscon. He mentioned that they would add at least one assistant coach with NBA experience to Joe’s staff. He said at least one. If it’s true that 3 assistants are leaving the team to join Ime, then for sure we’d need more than one new hire? Maybe these reports of the assistants leaving are just speculation at this point?

In the last year we've lost Hardy, Joe, Stoudemire, Sullivan, Miles, and one dude whose name is slipping my mind.  Joe just finished his rookie season.

We need more than one experienced assistant.

[RJ87]

I just watched Brad’s presscon. He mentioned that they would add at least one assistant coach with NBA experience to Joe’s staff. He said at least one. If it’s true that 3 assistants are leaving the team to join Ime, then for sure we’d need more than one new hire? Maybe these reports of the assistants leaving are just speculation at this point?

I'm expecting him to add an associate head coach (maybe Vogel depending on what Phoenix decides to do) and then at least one more assistant with HC experience like Silas. From there, I think they'll focus on coaches with existing assistant experience.