Nigerian basketball national team, D’Tigers’ former player, Ime Udoka is set to become the next head coach of Boston Celtics in USA’s National Basketball Association (NBA), megasportsarena.com gathered.
Udoka is currently an assistant coach at fellow-NBA side, Brooklyn Nets, but both clubs are putting finishing touches on a deal that would see him become Boston’s new head coach.
The 43-year-old Udoka is a longtime disciple of San Antonio Spurs coach, Gregg Popovich, having worked with the icon as an assistant for seven years, including same role at the 2019 FIBA World Cup.
Born in Portland, Oregon, USA, Udoka played a total of 316 games over seven seasons, averaging 5.2 points and 2.9 rebounds per game.
He achieved those stats while playing for Los Angeles Lakers, New York Knicks, Portland Trail Blazers, Sacramento Kings and San Antonio Spurs, before retiring in 2012 and joined Popovich’s staff at the last of those teams.
He was with Spurs for seven seasons, including in 2013-14, when they won the NBA title and, following his time in San Antonio, Udoka joined Philadelphia 76ers for a year before spending this past season in Brooklyn.
Udoka takes over a Celtics team that reached the NBA’s Eastern Conference finals in three of the previous four seasons before plummeting to the No. 7 seed this year and losing in the first round to Brooklyn.
After the five-game loss to The Nets, the team’s supremo, Danny Ainge retired and the coach, Brad Stevens gave up his spot on the bench to replace him.
Stevens’ first major move since taking over the front office was to trade injured point guard Kemba Walker to Oklahoma City for big man Al Horford, giving up the team’s first-round draft pick to save salary cap space.
Udoka now has an uphill task on his hands at the team that was once primed to compete for a spot in the finals, as The Celtics seem to be losing ground in the East.
Although Jayson Tatum and Jaylen Brown have emerged as stars, the team has struggled to find additional pieces that can challenge the assembled stars in Milwaukee, Philadelphia and now Brooklyn and Atlanta.
