“They’re going to allow me to coach them, push them,” said Udoka, who was introduced alongside Brad Stevens, now the Celtics’ president of basketball operations, and owners Wyc Grousbeck and Steve Pagliuca at a news conference at the team’s practice facility Monday morning.
“The bottom line is they want to win and help us get No.
He spent the next seven seasons working under Popovich in San Antonio, before moving on to be an assistant under Brett Brown with the Philadelphia 76ers for the 2019-20 season and then working under Steve Nash with the Brooklyn Nets this year.
I go back to that he has a great basketball acumen, a great understanding, but that’s to me something a lot of people have.
“It’s his authenticity, his ability to be tough and yet very warm, and it’s his experience.
Udoka is the definition of a grinder, having spent several years with minor league teams as a player before eventually breaking into the NBA first with the Los Angeles Lakers briefly in 2004, before later spending time with the New York Knicks, Portland Trail Blazers, Sacramento Kings and, most notably, the Spurs, with whom he played three seasons across two stints with the organization before transitioning into coaching.
But that time across different organizations also gave Udoka the opportunity to get to play alongside many different high-level players from across the league, including Kobe Bryant, LaMarcus Aldridge, Tim Duncan, Manu Ginobili and Tony Parker.
“I take it back to my playing days, whether I was a role player on a team, I always connected well with the guys,” Udoka said.
Not surprisingly, though, much of the focus of Monday’s presser was around the team’s young stars, Tatum and Brown, and how Udoka could help shepherd them to the next level of development in their careers.
It’s a chance to be a better leader, more vocal at times, but don’t wait for anything.