Every day seems like a different blast from the past at Celtics training camp. While former players have occasionally stopped by to observe from a distance, guys such as Paul Pierce and Eddie House have been holding 3-point contests in Celtics gear and talking enough trash for the whole organization to hear.
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Joe Mazzulla didn’t put out an open call to Celtics alumni to say a few words, but rather to come back to town and forge a real connection with his team. Mazzulla started his first year on the back foot, fighting for his job from the second he got it. But his comfort and confidence in the job has been a stark contrast to where he was five months ago.
That started to become apparent when Sam Cassell and Charles Lee joined the staff, two highly regarded assistants and frequent head coaching candidates. With a large swath of the staff departing to rejoin Ime Udoka in Houston, Mazzulla and the organization brought in the best staff they could. They didn’t hire career assistants who haven’t shown much affinity for the head chair. Mazzulla surrounded himself with guys who could easily replace him if things went south and sought to empower everyone even more.
At the onset of training camp, Mazzulla mapped out a revamped “tribal” structure for his coaching staff. His assistants are assigned into groups of three or four to improve the equity in how coaches communicate with players and how ideas move up the chain of command.
“By the time we get to a full team meeting, we’ve already had a group of people argue, go over and talk about their philosophy and what they want to do,” Mazzulla said on media day. “Then it’s my job to tell them no, but it’s my job to listen to them. So I think just creating that environment of that tribal leadership, that togetherness, that ownership. It’s something that I’m really excited to do.”
So while each player still seems to have a positional coach to do everything from development work to film review, it’s been apparent coaches like Cassell are trying to work with as many players as they can.
Jayson Tatum’s close friend Amile Jefferson has joined the staff and is part of the group working with him, but it was Cassell who met up with Tatum out in Los Angeles this summer to get a head start on the season. Tatum is the main orchestrator of the crunch-time offense, so it makes sense to have a former point guard help him take another step forward as a playmaker. His midpost game has started to return after years of reshaping his play to 3s and layups. But Mazzulla’s convoluted explanation for why he paired Cassell and Tatum was as simple as, “‘Hey JT, you want to work with Sam?’ Yes.’”
szn seven incoming ☘️ pic.twitter.com/ZhQzNCR5yq
— Boston Celtics (@celtics) October 15, 2023
When Mazzulla ran pregame drills with his players as an assistant over the years, he often got the same time slot as Cassell working with Sixers guard Tyrese Maxey — a player whom the Celtics passed to draft Aaron Nesmith. Maxey has been one of the best player development stories in the league and is a shining example of how Cassell can push players to grow.
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Tatum doesn’t need a push, but someone who can teach him something and keep it real. He is already so good that pairing him with someone who was an All-Star and a champion could be the best approach to help him push that ceiling just a little bit higher. It’s why Mazzulla says he doesn’t have to motivate Tatum to become an MVP.
“I don’t have to. He does that himself. So it’s just working together to find small areas to get better at every single year, every single day and every single day and it starts at him,” Mazzulla said. “So he has the mindset to want to do that and so we just collaborate on where we think he’s at and what we think we can do to create that environment to give him the best shot. But I know if you ask him, he’d much rather win a championship than win an MVP and that’s kind of the process that we’re taking.”
So while Cassell’s biggest player development role is to work with Tatum, Mazzulla is making sure his coaches are spreading their knowledge in the right places. Even though Charles Lee is his primary coach, Jrue Holiday and Cassell have been working on creating from the low post after most practices.
Whether it’s figuring out how to get his shoulder through the defender to get into the paint or knowing where to find his passing outlets, Cassell has deep experience operating from that spot on the floor and the staff is set up to make sure he imparts his knowledge on anyone who needs it.
“Sam’s just been around a long time and he’s been relied upon by really good coaches to just kind of navigate the roster because of all his experience,” Mazzulla said. “And so like, yes, he’s working with Tatum, but we really need him to navigate the roster, meet each individual guy where he’s at and then help them get to where we need them to go.”
Now they can throw Jeff Van Gundy into the mix, who has been brought in as a senior consultant for all basketball matters. He’ll be operating behind the scenes, sitting in on player and coaches meetings to provide a bird’s eye view and unbiased perspective, according to Mazzulla.
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“(I) try to run a lot of stuff by him. It’s good to get a guy who hasn’t been here before that can kind of have an unbiased opinion as to where he thinks things are, and where they need to go,” said Mazzulla. “And so he’s kind of like a fresh set of eyes because he’s not around all the time. And he’s looking at it from an unbiased position, which kind of gives us an advantage because you kind of see it in a different perspective.”
The constant theme has been that Mazzulla is more open-minded and confident in his position. He’s welcoming input from everywhere, even seeming to enjoy debating tactical approaches during press conferences in a way he rarely did before. If the Celtics are going to play with the mindset they claim, it starts at the top.
Mazzulla said Tatum, Jaylen Brown and the other key starters are going to have to lead by example. That’s obvious in most situations, but it’s an important focal point for a team that went through a big leadership shake-up this offseason. Pointing out the obvious is part of his job, as he lamented at the beginning of training camp that he forgot to constantly remind everyone last year that they, of course, have to prioritize defense.
That’s part of why Cassell makes perfect sense for Tatum. While there’s still room to grow his game, Tatum’s limit at this point of his development trajectory will be determined more by his mindset than skill. He needs someone there every day to remind him what it takes to lead a contender that actually goes all the way. If there’s anyone who will happily be in his ear every day, it’s Sam Cassell.
(Photo of Sam Cassell: Bob DeChiara / USA Today)
Jared Weiss is a staff writer covering the Boston Celtics and NBA for The Athletic. He has covered the Celtics since 2011, co-founding CLNS Media Network while in college before covering the team for SB Nation's CelticsBlog and USA Today. Before coming to The Athletic, Weiss spent a decade working for the government, primarily as a compliance bank regulator. Follow Jared on Twitter @JaredWeissNBA
