The Way Ime Udoka Is Talking About The Upcoming Celtics Season Has Me Ready To Run Through A Wall

Brian Babineau. Getty Images.

My immediate reaction after seeing these quotes from this morning

I'll tell ya, there's nothing quite like the honeymoon phase. We've all been in this situation before, it's glorious. Things are positive, everyone is saying the right things, and the possibilities of your future together are endless. That is what life is like right now with Ime Udoka as the new head coach of this team. He's saying all the right things, he's talking shit to KD

and as we inch closer to the start of the season we're starting to see his approach and style. That's one of the biggest questions about this hire too. What the hell is he going to run? How is he going to have this play? Both he and Brad keep talking about maximizing Tatum/Brown, so how is he going to do it? What will his rotations look like? Who starts? Can he even succeed as a head coach? There are absolutely legit questions heading into the year. But at this moment in time, it's impossible to not be excited based on what he's told us. Take these two little nuggets for example. Both are extremely important to consider moving forward. Let's start with Smart

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As you may have read, I've covered the Marcus Smart situation not too long ago

The general point being, we've never seen Smart in this role before when everyone is healthy. Ime is telling us that through both his contract and how he plans to use Smart, that he has a defined role. He trusts Smart with the ball in his hands more and feels that as a primary playmaker/defender, he can really improve the offensive ceiling of this team. It's important to remember that when it comes to Smart that people tend to have a skewed view of what he actually does on the floor and then what Twitter and the radio says he does. It's actually pretty interesting when you see his production playing next to both Jays and without Kemba. The role where he's the primary playmaker

When the normal roster is out there, I think we all would take those numbers from Smart. His FGA is in line with where it should be, his assists go up, and not to mention both Jays see an increase in their production when playing next to Smart as my blog points out. This isn't to say Smart will never make a mistake or never take a bad shot, but you can see what Brad/Ime are thinking when it comes to his future and his role. 

While that was exciting to hear, it was the second quote that really stood out to me and was absolutely music to my ears.

One of the more frustrating parts of watching the 2020-21 Celtics was the fact that their offense flat out stunk at times. It was so bad, Ime had no problem telling Brad to his face that his offense fucking stunk

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and here we are a month later and he is still stressing that point. Team basketball. This is important once you see how bad things got once the Celts stopped playing with that approach. You know what I'm talking about. The everyone stand around and watch Jaylen/Tatum dribble for 20 seconds in isolation only to miss a jumper. It was gross. The actual numbers support this opinion, since the Celts as a team ranked in the 20th percentile in isolation offense. That's an issue considering they ran it the 8th most in the league last year. Their points per iso possession (0.85) ranked 24th, and they shot just 36.6% in iso sets. They scored just 37.7% of the time when running isolation, which was tied for 29th in the NBA. It's honestly hard to be this bad, but it's a style I don't think anyone who watches this team will miss if they move away from it. 

It's also important to note that if the idea is to get the best out of the Jays, getting away from isolation will only help. Tatum really struggled in this area, ranking in the 41st percentile and shooting just 34% from the floor despite an 18.6% iso frequency. He scored just 34.7% of his iso possessions. That wasn't great. Jaylen wasn't too much better either, ranking in the 39th percentile, shooting 36.5% and scoring on just 37.8% of his iso possessions. 

The best Brad offensive seasons came when we saw ball movement. That's clearly what they want to get back to. It's the first time in a long time their starting point guard isn't a score first player. Ime mentions playing with a toughness and edge, and that's all they've added this offseason to help beef up the depth with actual NBA talent that are defensive minded players. When you need to re-establish a culture/approach, addressing your defense is a great way to start. Look at the teams that have made a jump in recent years, they all took leaps defensively and play with a toughness and edge. I think it's fair to say at times, the Celts played soft last season. 

What I really am interested in seeing with Ime is how players respond to him, but also how he approaches holding guys accountable. Whether that's Smart, Tatum, Jaylen, or the last guy on the bench. Defining roles is important, but making sure guys are sticking to their role is even more important. We don't know if he can do that yet, but given the best players on the team all wanted him as the head coach, my thought is they'll listen.

As we know, everything sounds great at this time of the year. Let's see how things look when the team hits a little adversity, but given what we know, it's hard to not love what you're hearing.