Current Celtics assistant coach Jerome Allen will interview for the vacancy left by Brad Stevens when the latter opted to step into a front office role with Boston, writes Keith Pompey of the Philadelphia Inquirer. Allen has been an assistant on Stevens’ staff for the last six seasons. Stevens will be leading the search for his replacement.
Pompey notes that Allen had an opportunity to become an assistant coach with the Mavericks during the 2020 offseason, but opted to remain in Boston, hoping to one day become the next Celtics head coach.
“For six years, I either sat behind [Stevens] or next to him and watched him not only work, I watched him prepare,” Allen said. “I watched him show-in to other people. Watched how he operated.”
Pompey writes that Allen has developed strong relationships with current Celtics Jayson Tatum, Jaylen Brown, Robert Williams, and Marcus Smart. Before transitioning to the NBA, Allen was previously the head coach at the University of Pennsylvania.
There’s more out of Boston:
- In a new piece, Adam Himmelsbach of the Boston Globe details how Brad Stevens emerged as the replacement for departing Celtics team president Danny Ainge. Ainge officially informed Celtics ownership of his intentions after the March 2021 trade deadline. Upon hearing this, owners Wyc Grousbeck and Steve Pagliuca approached then-head coach Stevens about transitioning into the team president role.
- There are several viable female candidates who could become the Celtics’ next head coach, writes Steve Buckley of The Athletic. Buckley examines the potential fits of former Celtics assistant coach Kara Lawson, as well as longtime Spurs assistant coach Becky Hammon.
- Outgoing Celtics team president Ainge has outfitted the team with plenty of promising players, but new president Stevens will need to make some key adjustments to bring Boston back to title contention, writes Jay King of The Athletic. “These last two years have been tough,” Ainge acknowledged. “In the [2020 NBA restart] bubble and all the rules and scrutiny and protocols that we had to go through has not made the job as much fun.” King notes that the 62-year-old Ainge may yet join another team’s front office in some capacity. Ainge drafted current Boston All-Stars Jayson Tatum and Jaylen Brown, but Stevens will need to figure out how to navigate his way around the league’s luxury tax while improving the roster around the Celtics’ two best players, writes King.
Kara Lawson, the Duke？
Duke is hot now
Kara Lawson isn’t a current assistant, she was head coach at Duke this past season.
I sat beside Brad and watched him lose in the playoffs year after year. I can do the same.
By lose you mean taking teams to the eastern conference finals 3 outta 5 years? We can agree things didn’t look great this year but come on let’s quit acting like he was some scrub coach
He wasn’t a scrub coach at all, but hiring one of his assistants is not the answer. They obviously need a new voice and a fresh approach.
What they need is a fresh approach from the front office… And they got that. I don’t blame last year on the coaching staff, I blame it on lack of health and lack of a supporting cast on the bench. Unless you have 3 first ballot hall of famers at or near their prime, you need a good bench and good health to win. Just ask LeBron.
100% agree ^
Yeah, excellent “research” on Kara Lawson in that blog entry.
Btw., the Lakers could use a female head coach. A nanny who can also diaper and breast-feed baby Bron Bron once he throws one of his notorious on-court tantrums and crying-fits. His constant bawling and sniveling during the Phoenix series puts a neonatal ward to shame.
I loved how he walked up and down the court over the final two minutes of the game, only taking time to berate the officials. He’s a nanny, not a goat.
Dumb
One of the bad things about that is because players look up to him and copy him and in turn, gives them license to do the same. Excellent well-regarded and players to look up to are doing it. Luka doncic cries to the refs when he doesn’t get a call. Damian Lillard cries to the ref when he doesn’t get a call.
The refs can’t see everything and if the whistle doesn’t blow then keep playing. Yes Lillard got smacked in the head, but the crying about it does no good. Love the player but hate the whining. Seems like guys are doing this more and more nowadays and I blame Lebron for this. In the old days they would cry when the whistle blew. Now they cry when the whistle DOESN’T blow LOL.
Jordan, Magic and Bird didn’t cry but they’d walk back to the other end telling the ref that they missed the foul, look for it next time and you better call it.
Lol.., exactly right !!
Huh, that’s exactly what the players do now. Jordan was famous for whining at officials. The bigger difference is more coverage of sports so not only do you see it in the game, you see outsized amounts of discussion about it. If there had been twitter in the 80s, we’d view jordan and bird that way too, and maybe Magic (who was always a bit more agreeable than the other two, so maybe he wouldn’t have had that reputation).
I don’t follow, why is a female head coach a nanny?
It’s hard to believe that being convicted of accepting bribes related to basketball isn’t automatically disqualifying for a potential NBA coach.