How Jayson Tatum, Jaylen Brown Feel About Celtics Hiring Ime Udoka

The Celtics reportedly hired Ime Udoka as the organization’s next head coach, and news seems to have been received fondly by Boston’s stars.

Reports indicated how the Celtics consulted their core players including Jayson Tatum, Jaylen Brown and Marcus Smart prior to making the hiring. The organization, as the Boston Herald’s Mark Murphy reported, “wouldn’t do anything unless key players were on board.”

Yahoo! Sports’ Keith Smith took that one step further Wednesday afternoon.

“Udoka is the guy their main guys wanted and Stevens got him before anyone else could,” one source told Smith.

And while we’re somewhat splitting hairs differentiating the two reports, the fact Udoka was the candidate the players wanted, and not just a coach they were on board with, seems to be worth noting. After all, bringing in a coach that connects with and gain the respect of Boston’s young core probably should have been priority No. 1.

Tatum, Brown and Smart all played for Udoka during the summer of 2019 with USA Basketball. Udoka comes with rave reviews from San Antonio Spurs coach Gregg Popovich, too.