ESPN NBA analyst Jay Williams might want to brush up on his Celtics history.
On Wednesday afternoon, Williams tweeted out his reaction to Boston's hire of Ime Udoka as its new head coach. The sentiment seemed nice, but he messed up one critical piece of information.
"The first head coach of color for the @celtics ... & even more importantly... he is one talented individual who has paid his dues," Williams tweeted.
The problem? Udoka is not the Celtics' first coach of color. Not even close, in fact.
Udoka is actually the Celtics' sixth Black head coach, putting them near the top of the NBA in that category. Three of those coaches led Boston to NBA titles.
The Celtics made Bill Russell the first Black head coach in North American professional sports when he became a player-coach in 1966. Russell was also the first Black coach to win a title, leading the Celtics to two in 1968 and 1969.
Tom "Satch" Sanders was Celtics coach for parts of two seasons in 1978. Another member of the '60s dynasty, K.C. Jones, took over from 1983-88 and helped guide the Larry Bird-led Celtics to a pair of titles in 1984 and 1986.
M.L. Carr coached the team from 1995-97. And of course, most recently, Doc Rivers coached the Celtics for nine years from 2004-2013, winning a championship in 2008.
Williams quickly realized his mistake and deleted the tweet. He has not tweeted since as of this posting.
UPDATE: Williams has now tweeted about the initial tweet and... well... you can decide for yourself if you believe him.
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