The Celtics may have kept Joe Mazzulla’s staff largely intact, but that hasn’t stopped the case for one more addition from getting stronger. With the reigning Coach of the Year already in place and a young group around him, Boston still looks like a team that could benefit from a veteran assistant with real head coaching experience.
That kind of voice can matter most when the games tighten and the adjustments get sharper. The Celtics’ staff came up short in the playoffs, and an outside perspective could help in exactly those moments.
The point isn’t to challenge Mazzulla. It’s to give him more support, more ideas, and another proven mind on the bench.
Other teams have already shown the value of that approach. The Spurs brought in Billy Donovan as a lead assistant to help Mitch Johnson, a young coach who came up short in the biggest moments. The Warriors, meanwhile, added Frank Vogel to Steve Kerr’s bench even though Kerr has already won four titles and has seen nearly everything the league can throw at him.
That’s the model Boston should be studying. From the most experienced coaches to the least established, adding a veteran can make a staff stronger and more collaborative. The Celtics have been sitting idle while strong options keep coming off the board, and that’s why this feels like a missed opportunity.
Names like Donovan and Vogel would have fit that idea perfectly, but they’re not the only ones who make sense. Tom Thibodeau, Mike Budenholzer and Terry Stotts are the kind of long-time head coaches who could bring a different level of experience to the room. Whether any of them would take an assistant role in Boston isn’t clear, but it would be worth making the call.
None of this is a knock on Mazzulla or the staff he already has. He’s not on the hot seat, and adding a respected veteran wouldn’t send any kind of warning signal. It would simply be another way to strengthen an already good group, and the Celtics should be looking at every possible avenue to do that.
In Other News...
Hugo Gonzalez Is Forcing Celtics Fans To Revisit One Massive Decision
Hugo Gonzalez has given Celtics fans a reason to look twice at a decision that once felt easy to file away. After a summer league stretch that showed real growth, the young wing has started looking less like a developmental piece and more like someone who could force his way into a bigger role sooner than expected, which is exactly the kind of progress Boston hoped to see when it brought him in.
The buzz around Gonzalez has only intensified because of the broader chatter surrounding what the Celtics were and were not willing to put on the table in a major offseason discussion. His recent play has added another layer to the conversation, since it is one thing to value a prospect in theory and another to watch him start flashing the kind of upside that makes every future roster call feel a little heavier. [Read more 🡒]
Celtics Summer League Win Put One Roster Battle Under A Brighter Light
The Celtics fourth game in Las Vegas offered another useful snapshot of a summer roster that is still taking shape, and the win over Sacramento only sharpened the focus on a few players who keep showing up in the right moments. Hugo Gonzalez was again central to the action after a slow start, while John Tonje continued to make his case as a steady scoring presence, and Amari Williams and Chris Cenac Jr. each added more evidence that Boston has some real developmental pieces to monitor beyond the usual headline names.
Amari Williams, in particular, looked more comfortable after a rough Sunday outing, rebounding and pushing the ball with more confidence while also flashing the kind of passing touch that can make a big man stand out in this setting. Cenac Jr. kept building chemistry with him and gave Boston another look at size and rim protection, the sort of internal competition that can matter in July even if the final answers are still a little ways off. [Read more 🡒]
The Jaylen Brown Trade Could Have Left Boston Looking Very Different
When Boston explored moving Jaylen Brown, the conversation stretched beyond a simple star-for-star swap and into the kind of roster reshaping that can alter a franchise for years. Minnesota was part of that process, and the Celtics were weighing a path that would have changed the balance of the roster at a time when they were still sorting out how to build around their core and where the frontcourt fit would come from.
What makes the idea so interesting now is how different the Celtics could have looked if that route had gone through. The center rotation, the need for another big, and even the way the wings would have been deployed all would have shifted, while Minnesota eventually moved in another direction and Boston had to keep building along a different track. It is the kind of near miss that says as much about a teams long-term planning as any finished deal ever could. [Read more 🡒]