Celtics Champion Backs Boston’s ‘Great Hire’ Of Sam Cassell

The Boston Celtics didn’t wait too long before revamping their coaching staff ahead of next season.

Just weeks after the Miami Heat put an end to Boston’s playoff run in the Eastern Conference finals, the Celtics added former guard Sam Cassell to head coach Joe Mazzulla’s staff. The flaws in Mazzulla’s coaching style were evident, most notably during the final stretch of the regular season and in the playoffs, arguably costing Boston a return to the NBA Finals. Now, with a trio of assistants reportedly out the door, joining Ime Udoka with the Houston Rockets, the C’s are under a slight rebuild on the coaching front.

Eddie House, who played alongside Cassell on Boston’s 2008 championship team, supported the team’s decision to bring the now-53-year-old on board.

“I think it’s a great hire for this reason,” Eddie House said, according to NBC Sports Boston. “He brings a sense of understanding what it takes to actually get over the hump and win the championship. And that last year he was (in Boston), he contributed to the team. But more so than that, he was very similar to what Udonis Haslem is to the Miami Heat, to where he was an ambassador of what the head coaching was saying, relaying that message down to us.”

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Cassell, who has plenty of years of playing experience in the NBA (15 years) plus the awareness of winning (three-time NBA champion), has also worked to gather plenty of coaching experience, having worked from the sidelines since first becoming an assistant for the Washington Wizards in 2009. He most recently worked under Doc Rivers’ staff with the Philadelphia 76ers (2020-23).

Having plenty of what Mazzulla lacks, adding Cassell should pay off as the Celtics have positioned themselves to work toward a response next season after miserably fumbling a clear path to the finals, falling apart against a Miami team that nearly missed playoff contention.

The dialect of being an individual who’s undergone the NBA journey, unlike Mazzulla, is a factor that House believes sits within the Celtics, while it doesn’t get vocalized.

“They need somebody that has been through it so they believe in him,” House explained. “It doesn’t matter if it’s this generation, any generation. You play all your life and you get to the NBA, and somebody’s telling you who hasn’t played basketball, you start to look at them in a different way, like, ‘Man, you don’t even know what it’s like to play on this level.'”