Joe Mazzulla hates Coach of the Year, but it's his own fault he might win it
To be fair, he is right his Boston Celtics assistants and players play a major role too, though.
Before the start of the 2025-26 NBA season, most NBA analysts and many fans of the team expected a rebuilding season for the Boston Celtics. And understandably so given that the team lost star forward Jayson Tatum to an Achilles tendon injury vs. the New York Knicks in the 2025 NBA Eastern Conference Semifinals, triggering the exits of Al Horford, Luke Kornet, Jrue Holiday, and Kristaps Porzingis via trades and free agency as the team's from office worked to get under the luxury tax.
But the players Boston added to replace them -- players like Luka Garza, Josh Minott, Anfernee Simons, and Nikola Vucevic -- have meshed unexpectedly well with the former deep rotation players Boston has drafted or developed over the last few seasons. And it has all been possible thanks to the work put in by Celtics coach Joe Mazzulla and his staff of assistants. That a team which was seen as somewhere between jockeying for lottery odds and perhaps a play-in squad at best is now already a 50-win team before the end of the season speaks to the job Mazzulla and company have done on their end.
But when asked about his thoughts on what winning the league's Coach of the Year award might mean to him, Mazzulla replied, "I think it's a stupid award. They shouldn't have it. It's more about the players.
It's more about the work that the staff puts in. " "It's that simple, and I don't ever want to be asked or talk about it again," he added. And while the Rhode Island native might have a point, he is deservedly a frontrunner for the award.