Joe Mazzulla’s fourth season as Boston Celtics head coach will be his most challenging yet.
The Celtics parted ways with key contributors Jrue Holiday (trade), Kristaps Porzingis (trade), and Luke Kornet (free agency) this offseason as they shed salary to get under the second apron of the luxury tax. Veteran big man Al Horford could be next to leave in free agency, and superstar Jayson Tatum will miss most if not all of the 2025-26 campaign recovering from a ruptured Achilles.
That leaves Jaylen Brown and Derrick White as the top two options on an otherwise underwhelming Celtics roster. Boston signed big man Luka Garza and forward Josh Minott in free agency, but they have been end-of-the-bench options in their last three seasons with the Minnesota Timberwolves. And while Anfernee Simons (acquired in the Holiday deal) has upside, his $27.7 million salary makes him an obvious candidate to be moved this summer.
So, how will Mazzulla handle the adversity during what’s likely to be a rocky season in Boston? Chris Mannix of Sports Illustrated shared his take during the latest episode of NBC Sports Boston’s The Off C’season.
“This is the most fascinating part of this season,” Mannix said. “Because I don’t think that Joe Mazzulla is hard-wired for mediocrity. Like, how is Joe Mazzulla going to handle a four-games-in-six losing streak? Or being a .500 team with no real chance to compete? Literally ever since he took over, this team was a championship contender. …
“The answer is, I don’t know. Joe is so intense and so focused on winning every single game and every single matchup every game. He takes losses personally. He is tormented by this stuff. I think this is going to be very interesting to watch how he handles all this.”
NBC Sports Boston’s Celtics insider Chris Forsberg offered an optimistic outlook, noting that Mazzulla has embraced challenges throughout his tenure.
“I’m the other way. He loves adversity,” Forsberg said. “Some of his happiest press conferences are when they got their butt kicked. … I think this actually plays right into what Joe wants to coach.”
This upcoming season, however, Mazzulla won’t have an elite starting five to lean on. The 2025-26 Celtics almost certainly won’t break any 3-point shooting records, so Mazzulla will have to find a new approach with players who probably wouldn’t have seen the court often with the championship core still intact.
“One thing coming off that first season that he did say was that he didn’t do a great job of necessarily leaning into the younger players. He was so focused on the core and chasing a championship that he maybe lost sight of the guys that he came up coaching and trying to develop,” Forsberg added. “Invariably, this year, the biggest thing for Joe is gonna have to be — he’s actually gonna have to like a rookie. Like, he’s gonna have to play Hugo (Gonzalez) and see what he can do, and play some of these younger guys.
“That’s gonna have to be a little bit of the switch for him, where he’s just hard-wired to just chase and win. He’s gonna want to play Jaylen Brown and Derrick White 40 minutes when that might not be the best thing for this team. He should lean into the (Josh) Minotts of the world and the (Luka) Garzas of the world and let’s see what you’ve got in potential complementary pieces.”
Mazzulla will get his first look at some of his new young talent, potentially including first-rounder Hugo Gonzalez, when Celtics Summer League begins on July 11.
Watch the full episode of The Off C’season featuring Mannix, Forsberg, Drew Carter, and Kevin O’Connor below:
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