The Boston Celtics announced Friday that they have signed head coach Joe Mazzulla to a multi-year contract extension. The team didn’t disclose the terms of the deal, however.
“We are very excited that Joe has agreed to extend with the Celtics,” Brad Stevens, the Celtics’ president of basketball operations, said in a team statement. “He understands the job and has a passion for the Celtics that is only rivaled by our most die-hard fans. He’s worked hard and accomplished amazing things in his first three years as a head coach — including averaging over 60 wins per season and winning the 2024 NBA Championship.
“Joe is a gifted leader who brings a consistent commitment to learning, improving and maximizing each day we get to compete for the Boston Celtics.”
[Join or create a Yahoo Fantasy Football league for the 2025 NFL season]
Mazzulla guided the Celtics to their 18th NBA title in his just his second season leading the franchise. He coached a dominant playoff run that saw the Celtics go 16-3, including 8-1 in the final two rounds. Mazzulla famously did so on a torn meniscus.
After defeating the Western Conference champion Dallas Mavericks, Boston hoisted the Larry O’Brien championship trophy with the league’s second-highest playoff winning percentage since the first round expanded to a best-of-seven series during the 2002-03 season.
In the process, Mazzulla, then in his final days as a 35-year-old, became the youngest coach to win an NBA title since Boston icon Bill Russell won one as a player-coach for the Celtics in 1969.
Now 37, the native of Johnston, Rhode Island, has added another 60-plus-win regular season to an already super-impressive résumé that began under unusual circumstances.
Before he was thrust into the TD Garden spotlight, his only previous experience as a head coach came at Division II Fairmont State in West Virginia. There, he made the NCAA tournament in his second and final season atop the coaching staff. That two-year stint was sandwiched between a pair of jobs with the Celtics organization: first an assistant gig for the franchise’s G League team and the next an assistant role on the Celtics’ bench, initially under Stevens and then under Ime Udoka.
Udoka coached Boston to the NBA Finals in his first year at the helm, but just 15 months after he got the job, he was suspended for the 2022-23 season after he reportedly engaged in an improper, consensual relationship with a team staffer, violating the team’s code of conduct.
Mazzulla took over as interim head coach and took the Celtics to Game 7 of the Eastern Conference finals that season. Along the way, Boston removed his interim tag and named him the team’s permanent head coach.
Mazzulla has become a beloved, and inspirational, sports figure in Beantown. Known for his serious-yet-quirky personality, he harnessed the talents of Jayson Tatum and Jaylen Brown — a tandem that now has a combined 10 All-Star appearances — and brought another banner to the Garden.
The Celtics have been “retooling” this offseason after Stevens made a concerted effort to get Boston under the second apron.
They’ll be without Tatum for significant time as he continues to recover from the torn Achilles he suffered during the Celtics’ Eastern Conference semifinals series versus the New York Knicks this past season.
But Mazzulla will still be captaining the ship, this coming season and for the foreseeable future. He currently owns a 182-64 regular-season record and a .660 postseason win percentage.
“This is truly a blessing,” Mazzulla said in a Celtics statement. “I would not be here without my faith, my wife, and my children. We are thankful for the partnership with our ownership groups, Brad’s mentorship, and the support of our staff.
“Most importantly, I am grateful for the players I have been able to coach the past three seasons. I look forward to competing for the Celtics and the city of Boston.”
