During the first half of the Milwaukee Bucks’ NBA preseason basketball game against the Chicago Bulls on Tuesday, October 11, 2022, in Chicago, assistant head coach Charles Lee makes signals. Charles Rex Arbogast/AP Photo
To defend their championship, the Celtics will return the great majority of their team, but they will still need to fill a few bench spots. Leading assistant Charles Lee is moving to Charlotte to take over as head coach of the Hornets, bringing with him a few assistants from Boston. The Hornets said on Wednesday that former C’s point guard Kemba Walker, along with Jermaine Bucknor and Blaine Mueller, will be joining Lee’s staff.
After leading the Maine Celtics to their most successful season in G-League history last year, Mueller’s team fell one game short of a championship following a defeat to the Oklahoma City Blue in Game 3 of the Finals. After a fruitful pro career abroad, Bucknor worked his way into the NBA coaching ranks and spent one season as a member of Joe Mazzulla’s coaching staff. Last month, Boston also lost senior consultant Jeff Van Gundy to the Clippers, where he was hired as an assistant coach.
Boston Celtics: A Team on the Verge of Triumph
Due to the departures, Joe Mazzulla will be able to promote a few members of his own coaching team internally for the forthcoming campaign. God Shammgod Jr., a former collegiate player of Mazzulla’s, is already joining the team as
Sam Cassell was being pursued hard as an assistant and was a candidate for available head coaching positions throughout the league, according to sources. But it looks like he’ll be returning with Mazzulla for the upcoming season. Next week, a sizable portion of the Celtics coaching staff will return to work as the team gets ready for NBA Summer League competition in Las Vegas, which gets underway on July 13. In the upcoming days, the team is expected to reveal the roster and name of the Summer League head coach.