NBA training camps open in the final week of September, and between now and then, we’ll be trying to answer 20 questions about the Boston Celtics as we head into the new season. Today we look at what kind of connection Ime Udoka is going to make with his team in his first head coaching job.
There aren’t many people around who have been around more head coaches than Ime Udoka.
He played at two different schools before going pro, 15 different teams between his NBA, international, and G league stints, the Nigerian national team, and then he worked for three different teams as an assistant coach.
He’s seen coaching. He’s seen it work, not work, and sort of work. So it stands to reason that his apprenticeship for this job has prepared him as well as anyone has been prepared for their first NBA head coaching gig.
But there’s still something different about doing than observing. You can watch someone drive a stick all you want, but there’s still a good chance you’re going to stall out or grind some gears as you get a feel for the clutch. And some people just aren’t good drivers.
We can try to read the tea leaves with Udoka and postulate that he will be fine as a head coach, and if we were to put odds on it, they’d certainly be in his favor. But nothing is a given, especially in team sports where part of doing a good job is reacting to things out of your own control.
Udoka walks into as advantageous a situation as one will find in a first job. First, he has two young stars in Jayson Tatum and Jaylen Brown. In coaching circles, walking into a job where you get 23 and 24-year-old All-Stars as your primary building blocks is like hitting the lottery. Just by rolling the ball out onto the floor, Udoka can ride Tatum and Brown to more wins than losses.
He also shows up as both of those stars publicly campaigned for more opportunity for minority head coaching candidates. Instead of some newbie walking into his first practice to squinty eyes and tilted heads as players size up the new coach, Udoka walks into a situation where Tatum and Brown are motivated to ensure his success. This is their chance to put their money where their mouths are, and push themselves to be their best so he can be his best.
And he steps into this role with his predecessor, and all the institutional knowledge of every player’s quirks and foibles, in the office up the hall.
But even with all that at his disposal, Udoka still has to figure out that clutch so he can drive this thing the right way; he still has to connect.
If he doesn’t then all those things can easily be flipped into negatives.
Tatum and Brown will undoubtedly push themselves to give Udoka his best chance of winning, but it’s also very easy to go astray. They could try to do too much themselves, or overreact to coaching and lean too far into a directive and lose what it is that makes them great.
They could look at their own body of work and, if things go wrong, fall back into some old individual habits should they hit a rough patch. The “my turn, your turn” could return if they feel the pressure of a losing streak.
And while Stevens’ deep knowledge of players can be helpful, there is a risk of leaning too hard into that, leading to guys wondering who really is coaching the team.
Every advantage can dissolve if Udoka doesn’t make an actual connection with his team. Nothing matters if he can’t find that thing that makes the coach/player relationship work because all that other stuff goes away.
Tatum and Brown will settle into whatever groove they’re going to find. Stevens may not be here for much longer. Circumstances might change fairly quickly.
Udoka knows this all very well. He’s seen relationships at their best and worst. He comes into this job with an idea of how he wants things to go.
A lot of theories fall apart after being put into practice. Udoka has a rare opportunity for any new head coach. He has two young stars who aren’t even in their primes yet and a team that is hoping to become a championship contender in the very near future.
He’s been handed the keys at a critical time for the franchise. Whether he can actually get this team from first to fifth gear simply depends on whether he can work that clutch and make a meaningful connection with his players.
The 20 questions series: