The Boston Celtics are looking to bring some tradition back to their group dynamic this year as new head coach Ime Udoka looks to name two team captains heading into the season.
There’s a surplus of leadership among this Celtics team this year and there are a few prominent names currently in the running.
“We’ve talked about it,” Udoka said after wrapping up the Celtics’ fourth day of training camp Saturday, per MassLive’s Brian Robb.
“I’ve talked about it with the staff. You got guys who have been here, the core guys, with Marcus (Smart), Jaylen (Brown), Jayson (Tatum), they’ve been here forever. But you got a guy like Al (Horford) who’s coming back and is a veteran presence, veteran voice that they all respect and listen to.”
The Celtics have not named formal captains in five years, as former coach Brad Stevens never felt the need to put a label on the team’s leaders.
“We got a lot of great leaders on our team,” Brown told reporters. “Even if I weren’t selected I wouldn’t look at it as a bad thing… I think identifying voices to listen to throughout the process is going to be fantastic. We’re definitely going to need, in moments of adversity, a strong voice to carry us through the waves. My vote — Al’s got my vote right now.”
With Smart being the longest-tenured Celtic, he seems to have received a vote of confidence coming from the franchise as he was offered a four-year extension during the offseason. But he isn’t putting much credence into labels.
“Anybody can be a captain,” Smart told reporters. “We’re all captains out there. We lead and we show our captain-ism in different ways… We’re all grown here. Gotta go ahead and do your job, plain and simple.”
