How Ime Udoka’s Leadership Style Sparked Celtics’ Impressive Turnaround

The Celtics’ decision to hire Ime Udoka as their head coach, with Brad Stevens moving upstairs to replace Danny Ainge as Boston’s president of basketball operations, so far looks like a slam dunk.

The C’s are one of four teams battling atop the Eastern Conference standings, joining the Miami Heat, Philadelphia 76ers and defending NBA champion Milwaukee Bucks in duking it out for the No. 1 seed.

It’s been a remarkable turnaround for Boston, which hovered at or below .500 for much of the 2021-22 season before finding its stride around the new year, and Udoka deserves a ton of credit. The Jayson Tatum-Jaylen Brown combination never has looked more in sync, and the Celtics’ locker room seemingly has bought into Udoka’s coaching tactics.

“League personnel have pointed to Udoka as further connective tissue between Tatum and Brown, and Boston’s entire traveling party,” Bleacher Report’s Jake Fischer wrote in a piece published Tuesday.

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But what, specifically, has worked for Udoka, a former journeyman player who spent several years as an assistant coach on Gregg Popovich’s staff with the San Antonio Spurs before stopping in Philadelphia and Brooklyn en route to Boston?

“Udoka, sources told B/R, balances the line between establishing a level of seriousness and a loose environment while focusing on communicating clear roles and hierarchies for Celtics players and coaching staffers alike,” Fischer wrote.

There was a time earlier this season when one could question Udoka’s approach, as he sometimes called out his players through the media when they failed to meet expectations, and yet the results still hadn’t improved. Now, it’s nearly impossible to find fault in Udoka’s leadership, as Boston has looked like a legitimate NBA Finals contender for the better part of three months.

Robert Williams’ injury certainly is a blow to Boston’s chances of making a deep playoff run, and it’s always possible the Celtics simply are enjoying a hot streak. But the narrative surrounding the C’s has dramatically changed, for the better, and Udoka has been a driving force in that development.