Mazzulla named NBA Coach of the Year despite dismissing the honor months earlier
Boston Celtics head coach Joe Mazzulla has been named the NBA's Coach of the Year, the league announced Tuesday, completing an unlikely arc for a coach who publicly dismissed the award as "stupid" in March. Mazzulla guided Boston to a 56-26 regular-season record and the No. 2 seed in the Eastern Conference, finishing four games behind the top-seeded Detroit Pistons.
Mazzulla's March comments were rooted in a philosophical objection rather than indifference. He argued the honor should recognize an entire coaching staff rather than a single individual. Upon accepting the award Tuesday, he returned to that position, crediting assistants, video staff, and support personnel for the collective effort behind each win. "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 told NBC. "It starts with the players, but it goes to our staff." Celtics president of basketball operations Brad Stevens echoed the sentiment, calling the recognition "well-deserved" and praising Mazzulla's ability to develop the roster under significant uncertainty entering the season, a reference to the extended absences of key players including Jayson Tatum.
At 37, Mazzulla is the youngest head coach to receive the award since Phil Jackson won it in 1975, according to the NBA. He becomes the fourth Celtics coach to claim the Red Auerbach Trophy, joining Auerbach himself, who won it in 1965, Tom Heinsohn in 1973, and Bill Fitch in 1980. Mazzulla led Boston to its most recent NBA championship in 2024, when the Celtics defeated the Dallas Mavericks four games to one in the NBA Finals. Detroit Pistons head coach J.B. Bickerstaff finished second in the voting - the same position he occupied in the previous season's balloting - while San Antonio Spurs head coach Mitch Johnson placed third.
The award arrives against a difficult postseason backdrop. Despite the late-season return of healthy players, the Celtics were eliminated in the first round of the 2026 playoffs, losing Game 7 to the Philadelphia 76ers. The early exit leaves Boston facing an offseason reset, with Mazzulla now entering his fifth year as head coach carrying both the league's top individual coaching honor and the weight of an unexpected playoff failure.
