Celtics reportedly rent Charles Lee to hitch teaching workers. Listed below are 5 issues to know in regards to the Celtics’ new lead assistant.

With the Celtics’ teaching workers beginning to take form, listed below are 5 issues to find out about Charles Lee.

He’s spent his total NBA teaching profession working underneath Mike Budenholzer.

When Lee arrives in Boston, he’ll have a brand new boss for the primary time since he grew to become an NBA coach in 2014.

Lee, 38, has spent the previous 9 seasons working as an assistant to Budenholzer. He first joined the veteran coach in Atlanta, when Budenholzer was the top coach of the Hawks. Budenholzer employed Lee in his second season teaching the Hawks after Lee was an assistant coach at Bucknell for 2 seasons.

Following Budenholzer’s departure from Atlanta, Lee remained along with his boss, becoming a member of him in Milwaukee to work on the Bucks’ teaching workers.

Lee continued his ascension throughout his time with the Bucks, changing into the workforce’s affiliate head coach this previous season after Darvin Ham left for a head coach job with the Los Angeles Lakers.

Regardless that Lee acquired a promotion this previous season, he felt his new job wasn’t too completely different from being only a common assistant coach.

“Numerous issues are actually the identical,” Lee mentioned in an interview with the Bucks’ web site in April. “I believe the title modified however how I strategy the day-to-day is I’m purported to be a devoted servant to Coach Bud and simply actually give attention to how I can assist these gamers get higher individually then it’s going to show over and have the ability to assist us as a workforce as effectively.”

He’s been a candidate for a number of head coach jobs over the previous few offseasons.

With the Bucks profitable a title and being among the finest groups within the league throughout Lee’s 5 seasons with the workforce, he grew to become a commodity within the head coach market.

Lee started to be significantly considered as a head coach candidate in 2021, when he was a candidate for the Pelicans’ job and a finalist for the Wizards’ job.

Extra lately, Lee interviewed for almost each open head coach place this offseason. He was a finalist for the Pistons’ and Raptors’ jobs, however Detroit opted to make a splashy rent and gave Monty Williams the richest contract in NBA historical past whereas the Raptors reportedly got here to phrases on a take care of Grizzlies assistant Darko Rajakovic on Saturday.

The Celtics “lengthy focused” Lee to hitch Mazzulla’s workers whereas different groups additionally pursued him for high assistant teaching jobs, in keeping with Wojnarowski.

He was a star school basketball participant.

Earlier than he grew to become a rising star within the teaching ranks, Lee starred at Bucknell.

The previous guard not solely grew to become among the finest gamers on the Bison, however he additionally grew to become among the finest gamers within the Patriot League and amongst mid-majors. His 12.5 factors and 6.4 rebounds per sport earned him first-team All-Patriot honors in 2005. He additionally helped Bucknell win the Patriot League Event that yr and was named MVP of the match. He scored 15 factors in Bucknell’s upset win over three-seeded Kansas within the NCAA Event.

Lee improved in his senior season, scoring 13.2 factors per sport and was named the Patriot League’s Participant of the Yr in 2005-06. He additionally helped Bucknell win the convention match once more and helped it pull off one other first-round upset within the NCAA Event. He scored 24 factors in Bucknell’s win over higher-seeded Arkansas earlier than it misplaced to No. 1 seed Memphis within the subsequent spherical.

Lee was inducted into Bucknell’s Corridor of Fame in 2017. He additionally performed 4 seasons {of professional} basketball in Europe.

He has three pillars to his teaching philosophy.

When The Athletic profiled him in 2022 as a part of its “NBA 40 underneath 40 sequence,” Lee shared some perception into his philosophy as a coach.

Lee mentioned that he has three essential components of his philosophy: Day by day enchancment, competitiveness, and togetherness.

There’s a particular strategy Lee makes use of to assist convey out essentially the most in his teaching philosophy.

“I’m an enormous ‘energy of positivity’ man,” Lee instructed The Athletic’s Mike Vorkunov. “Yeah, there’s some adversity, there’s some, quote-unquote, failures or losses, however how are we going to answer that and the way will we simply develop this thicker pores and skin to have the ability to take care of these adversarial conditions?”

That philosophy helped the Bucks over the past 5 seasons as Lee additionally noticed Giannis Antetokounmpo change into one of many sport’s finest gamers and win two MVPs throughout his time there.

Lee has an easy strategy to learn how to deal with star gamers like Antetokoumpo as he prepares to teach a pair of different stars in Boston.

“Being sincere. Not beating across the bush,” Lee instructed Vorkunov when he was requested learn how to get Antetokoumpo to belief him. Understanding the sport and doing all of your homework and watching the movie and going forwards and backwards, however then simply discovering alternatives to hit him on issues which are simply sincere. Like, not all the time, ‘Hey, you’re the perfect. You recognize, you’re doing this nice,’ No, he desires to be coached.”

He labored with just a few perimeter gamers particularly on the Bucks through the 2022-23 season.

Because the Bucks’ affiliate head coach this previous season, Lee clearly labored with each participant on the workforce. However like with many NBA groups, some assistant coaches will work with just a few gamers who play an analogous place all through the season.

The gamers Lee labored with essentially the most this previous season have been Khris Middleton, Grayson Allen, and rookie MarJon Beauchamp, who’re all wing gamers.

Lee shared with the Bucks web site that he labored on various things with every participant. He mentioned he labored to increase Allen’s sport to make him greater than only a spot-up shooter whereas with Middleton he targeted on his physique administration because the star handled accidents this previous season.

With Beauchamp, Lee mentioned all of his work with him was about improvement, significantly specializing in making him stronger for an 82-game season and a extra aggressive participant.

“These are form of like my guys so it’s a cool little dynamic too as a result of you could have two veteran gamers, Khris and Grayson,” Lee mentioned. “After which for myself like, [I] remind myself learn how to work with a younger man and the eye to element it takes and the consistency. They don’t choose issues up as a lot, so you need to have some endurance and actually clarify issues. It’s truly been actually good for me and my progress in addition to I’ve discovered a ton from MarJon.”