It's been three weeks since Brad Stevens surprisingly retired from coaching the Celtics to move into the front office and the C's finally have their next coach in Ime Udoka.
What a move by front office Brad! If you haven't heard enough "it's all about 18" talk since 2008, prepare to be metaphorically beat to death with lines like "18th coach for our 18th ring" for the foreseeable future as Ime Udoka will become the 18th head coach in Boston Celtics history.
Udoka spent the last two seasons as an assistant with the Philadelphia 76ers and Brooklyn Nets, respectively, but what I love most about this hire (besides getting the seal of approval from the Jays) is that he worked under Gregg Popovich in San Antonio from 2012-2019. There are certainly worse coaching trees to break a branch off of!
In my instant knee-jerk reaction, I love this addition for the C's. I'm not going to pretend I knew this man existed before today because I didn't, but he's not Jason Kidd which is the 2nd most important thing after the Jays blessing. Apparently, he's a defensive guy, and we all know the C's could use as much help as humanly possible in that department. With how the NBA works, even though Jaylen and Jayson are both locked up "long-term" deals, I am in constant fear they'll want out and get traded for 33 cents on the dollar, so bringing in a guy who they like and respect is fantastic.
Oh, and he's engaged to Nia Long, aka Lisa from Fresh Prince. Super cool! Hopefully a bunch of players who were born after the show ended want to play for common law hubby.
P.S.
How can you work in sports when you know literally nothing about the history of the game? The Celtics were literally the first professional team in North America to hire a black head coach.
— Mark Schindler (@MSchindlerNBA) June 23, 2021
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