The Boston Celtics are doing fine without suspended head coach Ime Udoka — and that might be bad news for his coaching future in the NBA, according to CBS Sports’ Bill Reiter.
The argument, in essence, is that if Boston is doing so well — better, really, than when Udoka helmed the team at this point last season by quite a bit — the case can be made that a fair amount of that success for Boston under Udoka can be credited more to the players growing into their respective primes more than anyone leading them.
The Celtics’ “surge under interim head coach Mazzulla might just be enough to reach a different conclusion,” wrote Reiter. Why? Per the CBS analyst, teams might believe hiring him “simply won’t be worth it.”
“We often conflate a coach’s greatness with that of his team’s,” suggests Reiter. “The magic, or happenstance, of a coach’s impact on a team is so hard to parse.”
“I think the most heartbreaking thing about all of this was seeing my son’s face when the Boston Celtics organization decided to make a very private situation public,” she related. https://t.co/ImamJojCRF
— The Celtics Wire (@TheCelticsWire) December 3, 2022
“Yes, Udoka coached that team. But Mazzulla’s short tenure and the Celtics’ blazing start sure seems to suggest this is a team that can succeed under a range of coaches.”
With the season barely a quarter finished, this perspective may prove grossly premature. But it will certainly be something other squads will be thinking about if they are considering a coaching change — and could be the difference between Mazzulla’s interim tag being lifted sooner than later.
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