The impact of coaching in the NBA has long been debated, especially in a sport where the star players on the court seem to have way more value than those calling the shots from the sidelines.
That certainly makes the Boston Celtics an interesting case study this season with a vastly inexperienced and youthful coach in Joe Mazzulla stepping in as the interim head coach due to the Ime Udoka scandal.
Can the Celtics plug in an unproven coach and generate the same amount of success for a team that is plenty talented and has NBA title aspirations? We’re definitely about to find out.
Jayson Tatum, Jaylen Brown and many of the Celtics key rotational players will cover up for Mazzulla’s lack of experience early on. In the regular season, the referees can just throw out the ball and the Celtics can let their stars do what they do best. Mazzulla’s impact might be minimal early on, really only inserting himself if he needs to draw up a last-second play and deciding who will get to take that final shot. But his options are already pretty much picked out for him: Get the ball to either Tatum or Brown in those moments. Celtics fans on the couch watching even know that.
Maybe the best thing for Mazzulla, who is the youngest coach in the NBA this season, to do during the regular season is just not get in the way. Even though he’s been on the head coaching job for about a month now, Mazzulla has exhibited a good temperament, and seems to have a good understanding of the players on his team.
And while Tatum, Brown and company have the ability to carry the Celtics very far to make the team’s head coaching role mute, at some point they will need Mazzulla to step up.
It will most likely come in the playoffs when every possession is tightly contested and adjustments, even just minor ones, from game to game are of the utmost important. Will Mazzulla be ready by then to be able handle that responsibility? He also has a lot on his plate in the regular season, whether it’s deciding how to use an aging Al Horford, who played a ton of minutes last season, or figuring out who will close out games with the interesting question looming if he will choose Malcolm Brogdon over Marcus Smart in those situations.
Even with all of that, it feels like the NBA coaching theory that the coach doesn’t really matter if half true. Mazzulla won’t really matter too much in the regular season with Boston leaning on Tatum and Brown to continue their ascension. But come playoff time, that’s when Mazzulla could be possibly exposed.
That’s when the Celtics will find out if they would have been better off going with a more experienced coach. But that is still a far ways away and all Mazzulla needs to do at the moment is let his highly skilled cast of players go out and win games.
