BOSTON (AP) — The Boston Celtics’ transition from a team that went from sitting just outside the top tier of the Eastern Conference to being four wins away from the franchise’s 18th championship began the moment Ime Udoka grasped the microphone at his introductory news conference last June.
Flanked by the Celtics’ co-owners and new president of basketball operations Brad Stevens, the first-time coach was asked what kind of stamp he hoped to put on his new team.
A smile on his face, Udoka didn’t hesitate to point out a shortcoming of his predecessor and new boss.
“We want to have a well-rounded team. I looked at the numbers overall, sorry to mention this Brad, but 27th in assists last year — we want to have more team basketball there,” Udoka said.
A year later, his pledge to build a culture on sharing the ball, accountability and gritty defense is no longer just an aspiration.
It’s the foundation of a team that’s back in the NBA Finals for the first time since 2010 and has Udoka on the cusp of becoming just the 10th coach to win a title in his first season.
Tyronn Lue (2016 Cleveland Cavaliers) is on that list, while Hall of Famer Bill Russell just missed it, winning the first of back-to-back titles his second season as a player-coach with Boston in 1968.
Like Udoka, who is of Nigerian descent, they are both Black coaches who carved their places in a league in which coaches of color have often had to wait for opportunities on the sideline.
That is even more underlined in a city like Boston with its complicated racial history, where Udoka can also join Russell, Doc Rivers (2008) and K.C. Jones (1984, 1986) as Black coaches to raise the Larry O’Brien Trophy.
It took a while for Udoka’s first team to buy in after typical challenges like injuries were complicated more by unexpected absences due to COVID-19. It added up to a team that was nowhere close to playoff bound following a buzzer-beating loss to the New York Knicks on Jan. 6, dropping the…
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