The NBA will announce the 2025-26 Coach of the Year winner Tuesday night ahead of Game 5 of the Western Conference finals, and Joe Mazzulla is one of three finalists standing under that spotlight.
Mazzulla, together with the Detroit Pistons’ J.B. Bickerstaff and the Spurs’ Mitch Johnson, was named a finalist for the award after guiding Boston to its fifth straight 50-plus-win campaign — an achievement that came despite an offseason overhaul and Jayson Tatum missing most of the season while recovering from a torn Achilles.
The numbers underline why this matters: Boston reached another long regular-season benchmark while Mazzulla, who became full-time coach in 2023 after serving as interim in September 2022, also led the Celtics to the franchise’s 18th NBA title in just his second season. At the same time, Johnson’s Spurs finished the regular season 62-20 and had made their first playoff appearance since 2019, a run that left them tied 2-2 with the Oklahoma City Thunder in the Western Conference finals as the vote approached.
On March 30, Mazzulla downplayed the idea of individual recognition, telling reporters, "I don’t need it," and adding, "I think it’s a stupid award. They shouldn’t have it." He pushed credit away from himself: "And it’s more about the players." He praised the behind-the-scenes work, saying, "It’s more about the work that the staff puts in." When pressed on his stance, he asked, "What do you think?"
Those remarks deepen a contradiction at the center of the story: Mazzulla has been widely considered a Coach of the Year contender all season, yet he has repeatedly rejected the premise of the award. Supporters have been blunt. Jamal Gomes said, "Right off the bat I said, ‘Listen, he’s special,’" and added, "Joe Mazzulla is special." Brad Stevens, who coached and later served in management with Boston, summed his confidence in a single word: "I know."
Background makes the final vote feel less routine. Mazzulla’s ascent has been rapid and unconventional: he completed a four-year playing career at West Virginia in 2011, spent two seasons as an assistant at Division 2 Glenville State in 2011-13 and three seasons at Fairmont State in 2013-16, served a year as an assistant with the Celtics’ G League affiliate in Maine, returned to Fairmont as head coach in 2017, joined the Celtics’ staff as an assistant in 2019, became interim head coach in September 2022 after Ime Udoka’s suspension, and was promoted to full-time coach in 2023.
The other finalists present competing narratives. Bickerstaff is attached to Detroit’s improvement, and Johnson’s Spurs posted the elite 62-20 regular-season record and reached the playoffs for the first time since 2019, punching a ticket to a deeper postseason run that had them level with the Thunder at 2-2. The award will be announced while Johnson’s team is still active, which is an uncommon timing for such a vote and adds an element of immediacy to the decision.
The tension is simple and sharp: does the league honor the visible, measurable improvement and resilience these coaches produced, or does Mazzulla’s vocal rejection of the honor change how the moment lands? If voters choose Mazzulla, they will be bestowing a formal recognition on a coach who has insisted publicly that he does not want the decoration; if they pass him over, they will be rewarding other narratives of turnaround and record-setting regular seasons.
The most consequential unanswered question now is whether the league will award Coach of the Year to a coach who has said, plainly and repeatedly, that he "doesn’t need it" — and how Mazzulla himself will respond if the NBA hands him an honor he has called "a stupid award."
