Celtics coach Joe Mazzulla thinks the Coach of the Year award is stupid. That’s not an assumption. He really said that — and it shouldn’t come as a surprise to anyone. Mazzullais known for many quips that make you teeter between “Is he serious?” and “Is he trolling me?”
Add his latest remarks to that category. When asked what winning Coach of the Year would mean to him, Mazzulla responded with his typical deadpan delivery.
“I don’t need it, I think it’s a stupid award” Mazzulla said. “They shouldn’t have it, and it’s more about the players and the work that the staff puts in. It’s just that simple, I don’t really ever want to be asked or talked about it again. It’s just that dumb. The players play, the staff works their ass off and I’m grateful to have them.”
Wouldn’t expect anything less. The funny thing is, Mazzulla has the second-best odds to winning the award (+280 per FanDuel), behind Pistons coach JB Bickerstaff. Could you imagine Mazzulla winning the award and having to make some sort of speech about it? There isn’t a ton of pomp and circumstance around regular-season awards like there once was, and even if there was, Mazzulla probably wouldn’t even show up to accept it.
But you can bet that if he wins it, the Celtics will try to honor him at a game and we’ll get a classic Mazzulla moment where he takes the trophy and passes it off to someone like a ball boy or something just because he truly doesn’t care at all about that award.
As much as Mazzulla would hate it, seeing how he handles winning the award would be pretty entertaining to see. It would also be well deserved, as he’s led the Celtics to a 50-plus-win season in a year where many expected them to be a non-factor with Jayson Tatum sidelined for most of it with an Achilles tear. But here we are at the end of March, and the Celtics have the second-best record in the East, Tatum has made a shocking and triumphant return to the lineup, and the Celtics look just as formidable as they were when they won a championship in 2024.
