Joe Mazzulla of the Boston Celtics was asked a few months ago about the possibility of winning the Coach of the Year award this season, and his answer was succinct.
“I don’t need it,” he said in March. “I think it’s a stupid award.”
On Tuesday (local time), Mazzulla won a stupid award.
Mazzulla was announced as the NBA’s top coach for 2025/26, after the Celtics earned the No.2 seed in the Eastern Conference.
To be very clear, Mazzulla’s dismissal of the award in March was for one reason – he thinks it should be more of a “coaching staff of the year” than a “coach of the year” award.
“The long nights, the trips, game plans, the video guys that are clipping up the film and coding it, the assistants who are putting in the game plan, I think there’s so much that goes into winning one game,” Mazzulla said when accepting the award.
“It starts with the players, but it goes to our staff. I feel bad that they’re not here – but forever indebted to the guys that we have that give up time with their families and their time to give us a chance to win every day.”
The 37-year-old Mazzulla is the youngest winner of the award since Phil Johnson in 1975.
Fittingly, the Celtics coach receives the Red Auerbach Trophy, named for the legendary Celtics coach.
Mazzulla becomes the fourth Boston coach to win the award, following Auerbach in 1965, Tom Heisohn in 1973 and Bill Fitch in 1980.
Auerbach, a Hall of Famer, guided the Celtics to nine NBA championships, including eight in a row from 1959-66.
Detroit’s J.B. Bickerstaff finished second for the second straight year, with San Antonio’s Mitch Johnson third.
