It was obvious to Nate McMillan right away.
The now interim Atlanta Hawks coach at the helm of an improbable Conference Finals opening win over the Milwaukee Bucks (Bucks now lead 2-1) was the coach of the Portland Trail Blazers for Ime Udoka’s most successful season as an NBA player. McMillian was the only coach to make Udoka a full-time starter, but he could tell pretty quickly where Udoka’s NBA road would take him.
“He just had a really high basketball IQ, had a great feel for the game ... he understands X's and O's,” McMillan told Boston Sports Journal. “When you're coaching him and you're talking about situations and things you wanted him to do out on the floor, he understood exactly and could communicate that back to you. And I think I made some comment ‘One day you're going to be coaching.’”
Udoka would display a coaching curiosity as a player, mostly as an act of self-preservation. The other players on the floor were generally more athletic than he was, so he often had to beat them with his brains. McMillian saw that and decided to put the ball in his hands.
“I just felt you could put him in the game and he would be able to communicate what you wanted to be that extension of a coach out on the floor,” McMillan said. “He was a point forward, because he had a feel for what to do out there, running plays, initiating the offense.”
That Blazers team was in a rebuilding phase in Udoka’s lone season there, which meant there was a lot of coaching to be done. For McMillan, having Udoka on the floor was helpful because he understood the nuance of the game, and he’d act as a sort of coach on the floor.
“He would communicate, ‘No, come off the screen this way, hold for a second, give that big time to get to you, or this angle,’ so he was able to communicate that to his teammates out on the floor,” McMillan said. “A lot of times that was just basically a huddle and a stop ball situation, and communicating what they needed to do on both ends of the floor. Offensively, as well as defensively.”
This level of involvement carried over to his time in San Antonio, where he played three seasons with the Spurs (sandwiched around one season in Sacramento). Gregg Popovich recognized what McMillan did, though he was always coy about it.
“The first thing that I kind of recall, way back then, was Pop would always say, when asked, ‘Hey is anybody on the roster that has coaching potential,’ he never would say Ime,” said Spurs reporter and podcaster Jeff Garcia on the latest Locked On Celtics podcast. “He would say at that time, ‘Yeah there's a couple guys, there's probably one guy.’ Well lo and behold it was Ime.”
Popovich saw enough in Udoka that when his playing days were over, an immediate invitation was extended.
“It wasn't a situation where (Udoka asked) ‘Hey, Pop do you mind if I help out coaching now that my playing days are over?’” Garcia said. “Pop asked him to join the staff.”
Udoka rose in the ranks of Spurs assistants, moving from the back of the bench to the front fairly quickly and gaining a reputation for player development. He was part of the 2014 championship staff, and was also the key factor in signing free agent LaMarcus Aldridge, his former teammate in Portland. While Popovich danced around the topic when Udoka was a player, Popovich was glowing about him in 2015.
"He exudes a confidence and a comfort in his own skin where people just gravitate to him," Popovich told ESPN. "He's a fundamentally sound teacher because he's comfortable with himself, he knows the material and players read it. Often times, I'll say, 'Ime, can you go talk to so-and-so? Go talk to Patty Mills, go talk to Timmy, go talk to Kawhi.' And he'll do it better than I would do it -- and I'm not blowing smoke. The only thing I don't like about him is that he doesn't drink, so I can't enjoy a glass of wine with him. He's really boring at dinner."
Maybe if the legendary Popovich wasn’t in the rare situation of being a coach who decides when it’s time to stop on his own, Udoka would have stayed. His pursuit of a head coaching opportunity took him to benches in Philadelphia and Brooklyn before landing this opportunity in Boston.
He joins the Celtics with not only the approval of their core players, but the backing of his former coaches who knew this was his destiny all along. McMillan in particular is not only happy to see his former player join the coaching ranks, but also a Black head coach gets a unique opportunity.
“Normally, we are getting jobs where you're rebuilding,” he said. “That immediate success is not expected. This is going to be a job that he's going to be expected to do something right away. It's a big-time job, and I feel he has everything he needs to get that done. So it is great to see that Boston’s organization is giving him an opportunity.”
