Joe Mazzulla’s story is certainly an epic one. His whole career as a player and a coach, he always seemed to find people to tell him he was not good enough. However now, at just 35 years old, Mazzulla is an NBA Champion and the youngest head coach to be called so since Bill Russell in 1969.
Muzzulla started his playing career at WVU after being recruited by Head Coach John Beilein. In his freshman season, he played a small role in helping the Mountaineers win the NIT tournament back in 2007.
The following season, Bob Huggins would take over the program and see the impact Mazzulla could play for his team. That season, Mazzulla would show out with a near triple-double in the NCAA tournament to upset Duke in the second round.
After a shoulder surgery made him redshirt his junior season, it was a domestic battery arrest that really turned Mazzulla’s life around for the better. After that moment, he shared a phone call he received from the late Jerry West, another WVU alumni, about blowing his shot.
“My junior year in college, I wasn’t living up to anyone’s standards. I got a call. It’s Jerry. A lot of expletives, but he basically told me I was an F-up and had the opportunity to be great at something,” Mazzulla stated. “Just let me have it for like 10, 15 minutes. I thought it was one of the most impactful phone calls that I had really in my life.”
He also added, “The thing I remember about him is he had a tough way of showing that he loved you, but he was super, super competitive and he really, really cared about you. He showed it in a way that kind of spoke to my language.”
It’s safe to say now, that phone call helped shape Mazzulla into one of the sharpest, focused, and brightest coaches in the entire game of basketball.
After playing as the starting point guard in WVU’s Final Four run in 2010, Mazzulla entered his name into the draft but was told once again he would never make it and he was undrafted.
Quickly, the Johnston, RI native turned to coaching and in 2011 he took a job as an assistant coach at a DII school in West Virginia, Glenville State. He would spend two seasons at that destination before moving to another assistant job.
Staying in the state, Fairmont State was the next location for Mazzulla as an assistant yet again. He would spend three seasons coaching the Fighting Falcons before the next step came calling: the NBA G-League.
In 2016 Mazzulla took another assistant coaching job with the G-League Maine Red Claws but only spent one season there before heading back to Fairmont State to get his first head coaching position.
In two seasons as the head coach of the Fighting Falcons, Mazzulla took them to the NCAA DII Tournament with a 22-9 record but would lose in the first round. Finally, the NBA would then come calling.
In 2019, Mazzulla took the position to be an assistant coach for the Boston Celtics. His high basketball IQ was quickly noticed and he was asked to interview for the open head coach position of the Utah Jazz in 2022. He was once again told however, he was not good enough.
The position was filled by the other Boston assistant coach, Will Hardy. But when one door closed in Mazzulla’s face, another one came flying open.
A couple of months later, Celtics head coach Ime Udoka was suspended for the entire season and Mazzulla was named Interim Head Coach of the prestigious Boston Celtics for the 2022-23 season.
That year, the awards would pile in as Mazzulla had an NBA best record at the All-Star break which gave him the opportunity to coach a team in the All-Star game. He had also won two NBA Coach of the Month awards and was a finalist for Coach of the Year.
He took the Celtics to the Eastern Conference Finals before losing in seven games and was named the official Head Coach of the Celtics moving forward.
In just his first year as the official head coach, Mazzulla led the Celtics to a league best 64-18 record and dominated the playoffs, only losing a total of three games in four series in route to the franchise’s 18th NBA title and the first since 2008. The final record of the team was an incredible 82-21.
Postgame, Mazzulla showed his class by making sure to give credit to all the Celtics that came before this team,
“I want to make sure every person that’s worked for the Celtics, that’s played for the Celtics that didn’t win, knows that their work and what they have done has not gone unnoticed or play a part in where we are at today.”
When asked about the criticism and doubt he received all season long, Mazzulla mentioned how that narrative can spark a championship run.
“I feel like it’s going to be like that for the rest of my career, as it should be. Just having the understanding that praise and criticism are both just as dangerous if you don’t handle it well… It’s Boston. I wouldn’t want it any other way.”
Mazzulla has represented what it means to be a Mountaineer; what it means to be from the state of West Virginia. Doubted. That has been the motto on the former WVU point guard’s entire career.
From a DII assistant coach who was never able to find footing as a professional player, to one of the league’s best coaches, Joe Mazzulla is an NBA champion.
