The NBA has announced that Boston Celtics head coach Joe Mazzulla has won the 2025-26 Coach of the Year award.
He led the Celtics to a 56-win regular season after losing multiple rotation pieces last summer and dealing with the long-term absence of superstar Jayson Tatum.
Boston finished the regular season as the No. 2 seed in the Eastern Conference, though they were upset by the Philadelphia 76ers in the first round, blowing a 3-1 series lead.
BSJ Analysis
This was inevitable. And it doesn't seem like a coincidence that the NBA decided to delay the Coach of the Year announcement as much as they did.
After the regular season ended -- and more importantly, before the playoffs even began -- it looked like Mazzulla was going to win this award.
Based on the choices of the media voters that were slipping out via podcasts, social media, or articles, Mazzulla's case quickly became more than a case. He was getting a ton of votes.
Obviously, those voters had no idea what would happen just a few weeks after the regular season wrapped up. The Celtics were up 3-1 on the Sixers, but a Joel Embiid return and a lack of shot-making resulted in their eventual doom.
And Mazzulla is not void of blame. Anything but. His reluctance to test out different lineups, trust the bench guys, and switch up coverages was a big reason the Celtics fumbled away their lead.
It wasn't solely his fault, but he definitely carried a big piece of the blame pie once the series ended.
That said, Mazzulla still deserves Coach of the Year.
He may believe the award is stupid -- and maybe it is -- but based on the way the honor has been handed out in years past, Mazzulla is the obvious selection this season.
"I think it's a stupid award," Mazzulla said before Boston's game against the Atlanta Hawks on March 30. "They shouldn't have it. It's more about the players. It's more about the work that the staff puts in. It's that simple, and I don't ever want to be asked or talk about it again. It’s just that dumb."
Hindsight makes past realities almost impossible to digest, but heading into the regular season, many people weren't even sure Boston would make the playoffs. And those who had the Celtics as a postseason team likely saw them getting in through the Play-In Tournament.
Instead, Jaylen Brown earned All-NBA Second Team honors, Derrick White was named to the All-NBA First Team, and Payton Pritchard enjoyed a career season, helping the Celtics land the No. 2 seed.
But Mazzulla's Coach of the Year case stretches far beyond that. In fact, his best attribute as a coach -- and the biggest reason he deserves the award -- has nothing to do with any of those three players.
Because Mazzulla is right about one thing -- it should be Staff of the Year, not Coach of the Year.
Mazzulla and his staff did an unbelievable job at developing Boston's bench unit. Playoff failure aside, this Celtics season helped identify pieces who could genuinely contribute to winning moving forward.
Neemias Queta went from a fourth-string center to a starting-caliber guy. Baylor Scheierman went from zero playoff minutes to a high-impact rotation piece. Jordan Walsh was a defensive pest. Ron Harper Jr. looks like he could be a two-way role player. Hugo Gonzalez -- the No. 28 pick in the 2025 NBA Draft -- may end up being a huge part of Boston's future. Luka Garza developed into a solid backup five.
Before he was traded, Anfernee Simons improved a ton on defense. Josh Minott was playing impactful minutes.
Almost every single player -- mostly minimum-contract players -- who Mazzulla and his coaching staff got their hands on turned into a valuable asset. That's not an ignorable feat.
If anything, the very reason Mazzulla's playoff struggles were so clear was that he had built a lineup with too many options to choose from. That's not to provide an excuse. It's still on him to figure out the best lineups and stick with them (which was a rocky affair). But had he and his staff not developed the bench in the manner they did, there would have been no options in the first place.
That's part of the reason Mazzulla should stick around. He needs to improve. Absolutely. But he's also one of the best culture-setters in the league when it comes to player development and community.
Players want to play under Mazzulla. They want to learn from his staff. They know that if they step foot into the Celtics locker room, they have a chance to improve.
And those truths are worth keeping around. They're worth the Celtics banking on Mazzulla's improvement while also giving him a better overall roster to work with.