Picks 'n Pops: Spike Ball, a starting lineup, and a league in revolt

Every week I gather some thoughts about the Celtics, the NBA, and beyond and dump them here. Because all my finger-weight lifting in the offseason is paying off.

- Joe Mazzulla is already making an impact on the new guys. Here’s Josh Minott on Mazzulla: 

“He’s amazing. He's inspiring, truthfully, a little bit of a weirdo, but he's a great dude.”

There really isn’t much media spin with Mazzulla, nor is there any subliminal, self-aggrandizing element to him. He is certainly something different with his players than what he is in the media, but that's because it’s players first with Mazzulla.

“I can't even explain the relationship,” Anfernee Simons said. “It's like almost as a mentor, in a way. Obviously, he's our coach, technically, but out there, he's pushing us to be the best, no matter how that looks. It's really not a coach relationship, more like a mentor.”

He’s maintained close relationships with all his players, but Mazzulla has gone out of his way to get to know his new guys this year. It allows him to figure out how to coach certain guys. Some guys need more encouragement, and some guys can take getting their balls busted … which is where Mazzulla shines.

“Obviously in his Joe way, he’s going throw jabs at you and talk smack to you, but I enjoy it,” Simons said. “That’s what he's challenging me with, so I'm taking on the challenge and he can talk smack all day about it and I’m going to take it in and try to be better the next day.”

I’ve obviously been high on Mazzulla for a bit now, and I think this is the season where others get on board. Between the stylistic change that proves he’s not just about firing 3-pointers and guys over-performing expectations, I think a lot of people are going to develop a new appreciation for how good Mazzulla is at this job. 

- It’s funny, though, to hear how coaches twist themselves into pretzels in the media when it’s clear they are not expected to win a championship but you have to still sell guys on maximum effort for the season. 

“If my expectations aren’t consistent every single year, then I'm cheating the current roster, and I think I'm cheating the profession itself,” he said during an appearance on Zolak and Bertrand this week. “My expectations are always the same. It’s put us in position to have a championship-like process. That's it. It's like a championship-like process to where we develop a system, we develop a mindset, we develop our approach that gives us an opportunity to win every single night, and it puts you in position to be successful.”

It’s both true and, as my 16-year-old stepson might say, it’s cope. 

Yes, build the process so you’re always playing the same whether you’re the best team or the worst team in the league. That process should always be the same. That is all true. 

Calling it a “championship-like process” is like saying Kraft singles are cheese-like. We know it’s not the same. We just hope the food it’s on is delicious enough for us to look past it.

- The Celtics opened a recent practice with a spike ball tournament, which is both fun and, I think, functional. Pairing guys off, forcing chemistry and communication, tapping into competitive juices is great. And then you factor in the side-to-side movement, reading the opponent, playing angles … it’s all translatable to the game. 

“I think it's the closest thing to a 2-on-2 situation that you have to communicate,” Mazzulla explained. “It's a read. You have to read the angle of where it's being put at. You have to read the angle of your teammate. You have to be able to get through a 2-on-2 situation. That's a lot of what the game is. You're in 2-on-2, 3-on-3 situations. Very rarely are you in a 5-on-5 situation, maybe if you're switching everything at the end of the game. But the game is a constant ecosystem of small 2-on-2s, 3-on-3s, and being able to create those an advantage and a disadvantage. So those 2-on-2 games create that. They test your reaction time. They test your ability to communicate. They test your ability to create angles. So I think those things, it's another way to simulate what you're going through on every possession of the game.”

Mazzulla said he got the idea from soccer-style rondo drills. 

“We can’t really do that because of our guys are probably inept from a soccer standpoint, but I think Spike Ball is the next-closest thing to a rondo-type situation that you could be able to do,” he said. “So however many ways you could test the communication and the reads of everything that’s going on in the game, and try to find ways to do that.”

Mazzulla has gotten creative like this in the past. Last year he incorporated a relay-style baton handoff to show how much teamwork and precision is necessary to win a long race. This year’s focus is all about quick decisions and movements, so he went in a different direction. There's even a method to how the teams were chosen. 

“Our strength staff does a great job of helping to come up with that, so they kind of take ownership of the warmup stuff,” Mazzulla said. “They see individual dynamics when there’s eight guys lifting in the weight room every day. So they have a good understanding of what interactions with the guys are – who needs to be around each other and who flocks to each other. So we rely on the strength staff a lot to kind of see what the dynamics of the team are when it’s not just on the court, because I think that’s important.”

When I first saw the Spike Ball stuff, I though it was a perfect way to get guys warmed up. Joe is right on the money with reasoning behind it, and on top of everything it gets the competitive juices flowing right away. Guys want to win no matter what they're doing, so starting practices off with this is really smart. I’m sure they’ll move past it quickly, but it’s a great example of thinking creatively to get better results. 

- Boy this really looks like they're shooting Jayson Tatum’s part of the team intro video. 

(Doing my best Brian Windhorst imitation) Now why would they do that?

- I never though I’d be interviewing Bill Nye the Science Guy at media day, but life is weird. 

When I grow up, I want the same power Jaylen Brown has to tweet wanting to meet someone into existence. 

- Doing some sleuthing from the Celtics social posts, I see Brown, Derrick White, Payton Pritchard, Sam Hauser, and Neemias Queta in green practice jerseys during scrimmages. I think that's the starting lineup, at least when the preseason opens up on Wednesday. 

- Charles Barkley, to Steve Bulpett, saying he doesn’t believe the second apron is why the Celtics made their offseasons moves: 

“I don’t think it had anything to do with the second apron. They had the apron last year, right? So I just think they realized that they’re going to take a step backwards. JT’s out pretty much the whole year, so they’re not winning a championship next year.”

First of all, I don’t think Barkley has spent any time analyzing the second apron. I don’t think he even knows the penalties. I think this is a classic case of “hey a big name said something, everyone listen.” I don’t think he knows what he’s talking about here. 

Secondly, While Tatum’s injury certainly greased the skids, the second apron was still the predominant reason why the Celtics did what they did. Teams can’t go down reckless roads of wonton spending anymore. I will acknowledge that a healthy Tatum might have changed a couple of decisions, but getting under the second apron was going to happen one way or another. 

Also, let’s not forget that as much as Kristaps Porziņģis helped the Celtics during the past two regular seasons, his illness last year and injury the year before made it clear that his salary was prohibitive if he couldn't be counted on in the postseason. A healthy Porziņģis would have completely changed the Knicks series, and that would have made him worth the money. But not knowing whether he would be available when it matters most made his salary situation untenable. Teams can’t spend that much money on “what ifs” anymore. 

- Sam Cassell called this year’s training camp the toughest he’s ever experienced. Mazzulla isn’t buying it. 

“I don’t really believe that,” he said. “Everything in this world today is about recency bias. Every time it’s like, oh this is the best ever. We don’t remember the way we felt last year or two years ago or three years ago. So that’s just a classic recency bias of whatever you’re going through right now is the biggest, the best, the most important, hardest, easiest. None of that really matters. It’s all the same. It all depends on where you’re at in the moment.”

Okay, so we asked White what he thought about camp so far. 

“It’s been hard. It’s been fun. A lot of competition. Not a lot of breaks. So it’s been fun.”

The guys are getting after it. There's no doubt about that. The edict about increased pace is being hammered home. That should make a lot of people happy. 

- Al Horford is officially a member of the Golden State Warriors. And even though he was only here for a few years, seeing him in that uniform is still really weird to me. 

I think the #42 will ultimately be retired by the Celtics. Horford will be a Hall of Famer who won his one championship with Boston. He was an immeasurable part of the franchise in ways that are hard to quantify. 

Then again, as Mazzulla said, there could be some recency bias there. And the team is already short on available numbers. We know 0 and 7 are going up. If Horford’s goes up then we have to ask if Derrick White’s 9 does as well, especially if he sticks around a little while and has a few more great seasons. 

What SHOULD happen is the Celtics take a page out of the Patriots book and they build a Celtics Hall of Fame. Horford as a Celtics Hall of Famer but with 42 still in circulation would be a fine result. It also allows for the honoring of those fringe guys whose numbers aren’t in the rafters but who clearly were massive parts of Celtics lore (cough, cough, Ray Allen, cough, cough). 

I think it would be a great addition to the TD Garden complex. 

- People are saying that the Jonathan Kuminga saga is over now that he agreed to a two-year, $48.5 million deal. I say the saga is only beginning because the second year is a team option and everyone, including his own camp, expects him to be traded. 

I think it’s interesting that Horford left Boston partly because he didn’t want to be part of a transition year but now he’s on a team that could face some serious drama. Horford might think it’s a strong locker room, but we’ve already seen drama derail them in the past. It doesn’t take much to set that powder keg Draymond Green off. I think Kuminga might very willingly light that fuse.  

- If the Celtics get meaningful contributions from Minott and Xavier Tillman, this will be a much better season than I expected. 

- Napheesa Collier’s takedown of WNBA commissioner Cathy Englebert is incredible.

I called for a change of leadership when the whole sale of the Connecticut Sun mess happened. The league is blowing a great thing with that in order to manipulate the process. 

Now hearing how Engelbert is interacting with the players? It’s obvious the league needs new leadership right away. This is a CRITICAL time for the league. It’s experiencing a boom in popularity, accentuated by generational interest in Caitlin Clark, and further fueled by an influx of some of the best talent the league has ever seen. This is when the whole league should be operating in unison to take it many levels beyond where it is now. 

The NBA can’t let Engelbert’s attitude drive a wedge between the league and players. Silver needs to step in and dump Engelbert immediately. Other stars have lined up behind Collier, which means the rank-and-file will line up next. This is no different than a coach who has lost a team. Once that happens, the coach is gone, and it’s never a question. 

Engelebert has to go. 

- I’ll be happy for Alyssa Thomas and DeWanna Bonner if they win a championship with the Phoenix Mercury. It will also make me question why they couldn't do the same for the Connecticut Sun.

- I’m sure when Cam Schlittler was growing up in Walpole, he didn’t envision his big start in Yankee Stadium to clinch a playoff series would involve wearing pinstripes. It must be weird to be celebrating eliminating the Sox as a Yankee, especially as the absolute dominant starter who crushed their hopes. But then again, we watched Los Angeles native and lifelong Lakers fan Paul Pierce become the ultimate Celtic. 

There's nothing stronger than being a part of a team, no matter what that team is. We’re tribalistic by nature as humans, so pinstripes be damned. Cam was a beast. 

- Watching 18-year-old Cooper Flagg try to recognize guys from my era of NBA basketball hurts my feelings. 

At least he remembered Antoine Walker. 

- I keep hearing how the Sixers are confident they’ll have their full team this season. I also keep hearing that they're the only ones who are. 

- The ESPN story on Sam Presti making everyone go on a tour of the OKC bombing museum is a must-read.

- The Las Vegas Aces went from the middle of the pack to the WNBA Finals this season, powered by now four-time MVP A’ja Wilson. We don’t know if she’s going to win her third championship in four seasons, but I do know that she’s having the Best Week Ever!

- This week’s AI-generated image: Joe Mazzulla is prepared to take this fast-pace style to the next level if he has to. 

- Here’s my latest podcast, if you’re bored.