Psycho Joe Mazzulla Is Already Locked In After Dropping Perhaps The Greatest Quote In The History Of Sports

Maddie Meyer. Getty Images.

All across the NBA landscape right now, it's impossible not to hear how great the "vibes" are with every team in the league. It's part of the pandering and hype that happens every year as we're heading into a season, where things are so good that your brain couldn't possibly entertain the idea of things not working out or not being overly positive. Every single team and every single fanbase is guilty of it while we all wait for Opening Night. 

That is of course, unless you're Joe Mazzulla and you're someone who "gets it". While the rest of the league plays the "vibes are great" card, Joe Mazzulla kept it as real as it possibly gets

"Every team you lead is the most together team right now. Because we haven't traveled. No one's gotten benched. No one's been on a losing streak. No one's gotten blamed in the media. No one's had to go stand in the corner for 10 minutes and not get the ball. So, you learn those things as the season goes on, and you just learn how to work through those things together. And you can't simulate those. It just comes with time. And so, right now I would say all 30 teams feel great about themselves, and we got to wait till adversity hits. And adversity is even a strong word. There's nothing really adverse about playing in the NBA. But we got to wait until stuff doesn't go your way, and then you got to figure out who we are and how we're going to be at our best."

Giphy Images.

Giphy Images.

What an all-time quote from the well known quote machine Joe Mazzulla. Example #134579034857872390842903472890347 why Joe is so clearly "The Guy" it's not even funny. Forget having the highest winning percentage in NBA history. Forget about having the most playoff wins in the NBA since taking over for Ime Udoka. Forget Banner 18. That shit right there is exactly why I'll never want anyone else leading this team (other than Brad Stevens). The mentality gives you goosebumps, and guess what?

He's right!

Of course vibes are high with every team in the league right now, nobody has had to go through anything! I love that Joe isn't taking the bait and has this type of mental approach entering a new season, because navigating those downs and frustrations over the course of 82 games is a huge part of what goes into his role. The best of the best know how to do just that. Everything is great until shit doesn't go your way, then what? How do you respond? How do you stop the bleeding? How strong are your "vibes" as a team if you suddenly aren't meeting expectations or guys end up having roles they maybe weren't expecting at the beginning of the year?

People always say the NBA is a talent league, and all you need to do is create a team with the most "talent" and that's enough to compete for a title. Having lived through the 2018-19 Boston Celtics, I tend to disagree with that idea. Sure, having elite talent helps, but how those pieces fit together and how a head coach navigates everyone's personalities is more important. Guys buying into roles, guys remaining selfless throughout a season, and having everyone in the organization aligned for a common goal sounds easy, but it's very clearly not. A lack of chemistry can kill talent no matter how good it is. We see it all the time throughout NBA history where loaded teams don't win. Oftentimes, it's because they could not handle the "down" periods of the NBA season, and it eventually fractures everything. There will absolutely be teams this NBA season that have super high "vibes" in early October where that won't necessarily be the case come Christmas. 

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If you go around the league right now, you will not find another head coach who is this open and honest when it comes to this topic. Instead, they do the opposite. They feed into the hype. You can understand why that happens, but it's refreshing to hear Mazzulla basically call it all bullshit. That's a man who is locked in and understands what a marathon this NBA season is. That's someone I want leading my favorite team into battle. He's not buying their own hype. He's not buying the potential fit of the new roster and what a wagon it's set up to be. Weirdly, hearing that quote from Joe actually increases the vibes around this Celts team as far as I'm concerned. 

All I know is Thursday's preseason opener cannot come soon enough. It's also good to see Joe is already in midseason form when it comes to quotes, because just like winning basketball games, no current coach in the league does it better than Psycho Joe