Danny Ainge and the Utah Jazz took one assistant coach from the Celtics this summer when they hired Will Hardy to be their head coach.
Apparently they wanted to take a second, too. Appearing on The Greg Hill Show Tuesday morning, Boston owner Wyc Grousbeck revealed that Ainge also wanted to bring Joe Mazzulla -- whom the Jazz had also interviewed for the head job -- to Utah to be part of Hardy’s staff.
Grousbeck said he stepped in to block the move. And it’s a good thing he did, because Mazzulla is now the Celtics’ interim head coach following the suspension of Ime Udoka.
“I prevented Danny from stealing him this summer, because I told Danny I’d fly to Utah and personally strangle him if he did. You can quote that,” Grousbeck said. “You can take one person, an assistant, and make them a head coach, which they did with Will Hardy. Then they also wanted Mazzulla, and I was like, ‘That’s it, you’re crossing the line, and we’re not having it.’ And that was just when Joe was senior assistant with us, and now all of a sudden he’s interim head coach.”
This will be the first NBA head coaching job for the 34-year-old Mazzulla, who had been an assistant in Boston since 2019. It could be a daunting task taking over a championship-caliber team, led by stars, from a popular coach whose ability to connect with players and hold them accountable was clearly a key factor last season.
However, Grousbeck says he sees a lot of those characteristics that made Udoka successful in Mazzulla, including how he connects with players.
“That’s a really interesting point you made about relating to Ime. I think that there’s a lot of relationship as well, very naturally, with Joe,” Grousbeck said. “Joe’s a point guard out of West Virginia. Really tough is the first word that comes to mind, but focus-driven, super smart. He’s got nuclear energy. He’s almost like -- I don’t know why I would say this -- a mini-KG [Kevin Garnett]. He’s not a mini-KG. He’s very different from KG in a lot of ways, but just the intensity of the eyes is all I’m really thinking of right now. He’s not a Hall of Famer or anything like that, but he’s got intensity.
“For being a small-sized guy, point guard, assistant but never a head coach in the NBA -- now he’s interim head coach of the Celtics -- it’s a big ask for a 34-year-old. Except then you meet Joe Mazzulla and you’re like, ‘All right, this could really work.’ … We believe in him, and I think the players believe in him for sure.”
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