Celtics media day is at the end of the month, which means practices and preseason games are coming up quickly. With that in mind, and with the Celtics entering the season with the highest expectations, we’re spending the rest of the month looking at 10 big questions for this team heading into training camp.
Question 3: How will Ime Udoka evolve in his second season?
One of the common approaches to writing a long piece or a book is to take a step back after a long stretch, let the words sit, and then read it again to see if what you’ve done makes sense.
The same can apply to a lot of professions, including being the head coach of a sports franchise.
A lot can happen over the course of the season that makes sense at the time but maybe, upon review, could have used another approach. A fresh look back after some time away could reveal some new perspective that could ultimately help a coach, especially a new one like Ime Udoka, evolve.
Udoka will be the first to tell you he’s been in the league a long time, even though he’s new in this role. But no matter how much he observed or was involved day-to-day in San Antonio, Philadelphia, and Brooklyn, being a head coach is always a bit different. From new obligations to new responsibilities, even the most prepared coach faces some sort of learning curve.
And so one of the more fascinating elements of training camp and this upcoming season is how Udoka reacts to his summer review of himself. And while I’ve already explored the question of Udoka’s potential changes as a coach, the question has only grown more important since July.
Brooklyn’s implosion has been delayed and the Cleveland Cavaliers have acquired Donovan Mitchell since then. The Philadelphia 76ers added Montrezl Harrell last week, adding some depth to a dangerous team.
In July, I wrote about the need to manage minutes, but with other teams improving around the East, there is pressure on the Celtics and other contenders to avoid falling to the middle of the pack. The Celtics and Bucks are the early favorites in the East, but the Nets, Sixers, Heat and now the Cavs are trying to mount serious challenges. And you can’t forget the Hawks and Raptors, two teams who have also improved even though they're still in the “oh, by the way, don’t forget these dangerous teams” class.
That's eight teams to be worried about, which means half of them will lose a first-round series. That will be a tough pill to swallow for one of those top four or five teams, and it makes seeding and home court much more important. Not only do teams want the more favorable matchups at the top of the conference, they want as much time off planes and in their own homes as possible.
So Udoka faces the dual challenge of winning as much as possible while not running his guys into the ground. How does he get the most out of Al Horford, a critically important player last season, without over-taxing his 36-year-old legs? How does he make sure Jayson Tatum and Jaylen Brown are as close to 100% at the end of next season so they can fuel another deep playoff run? How does he do it all while claiming one of the top two seeds?
Evolution is necessary to prevent stagnation. There will always need to be some new wrinkle in the game plan in order to keep other teams guessing and keep the guys on the floor engaged. With a year of Udoka in the books, guys can come into training camp significantly ahead of last season. And with only Malcolm Brogdon as the new guy in town, it’ll be easier to avoid a long learning curve. It’s just easier to assimilate one player.
That one player also happens to be pretty smart, and he brings some of his own tricks to the table. He’s almost like a seed that stuck to someone’s sock and fell off to take root in a new area. He’ll add a bit to the overall picture, giving it a little bit of a new feel without being disruptive overall.
Udoka can lean on Brogdon to bring new elements and work that into what he’s been working on in Boston. At the same time, he can look back at some of the ways he’s handled his team and tweak that to get more out of his guys. His players, a year older and wiser, might require less discipline since they know the expectations ahead of time.
Basically, a team only has the capacity for so much from their coach in a given day. The less that needs repeating from last season means more room for new stuff this season. So as much as it is on Udoka to grow as a coach, it’s also on the players to allow for that growth by not having to repeat much from last season.
Udoka’s growth as a coach is a major focal point this season. He had a tremendous debut and will be one of the favorites to be the Coach of the Year. It might feel easy to say “just do it again,” but that's not really how it works in basketball. Each year brings new challenges and players have new motivations. Things change, so the team and the coach have to roll with that every year.
It’s like a pilot flying the same route every day. Weather and other conditions change almost every trip, and flight number two is much different than flight number two hundred. The accumulated tricks learned every time the wind changes direction makes every pilot better, even if they were pretty good right away.
Flight number two for Udoka will be different from his first. The question right now is how different it will be.