The Athletic: Celtics ask Mike Conley to fill new role during preseason

Veteran guard Mike Conley got a taste of coaching with the Celtics this preseason.

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BOSTON —

Boston Celtics guard Mike Conley wore the apparel of a player Wednesday night, but the sheet of paper folded in his hand made him look more like a coach. That’s because he was operating as one for the night.

Throughout the Celtics’ 114-93 preseason win against the Charlotte Hornets, Conley could be seen pointing to teammates when it was time for them to check into the game. He said head coach Joe Mazzulla put him in charge of Boston’s substitutions for the contest.

“Joe approached me before the game and said, ‘What would you think about doing the rotations tonight?’” Conley said. “I was like, ‘S—, I’ll do whatever.’ I told him I had never done that before and it was cool for me to experience that.”

Though the Celtics played their expected regulars, Conley didn’t appear in the game. Set to enter his 20th season, the 39-year-old saw the game from a new perspective instead. Participating in such an exercise for the first time, he didn’t need long to gain a greater appreciation for some of what coaches go through on the sidelines. Even with the help of the staff to map out a rotation pregame, he ran into several circumstances that required adjustments or near adjustments.

The first big decision for Conley arrived early in the first quarter. When Derrick White picked up his second foul 2:05 into the game, Conley needed to choose whether to stick with the planned rotation or throw it away to ensure White would avoid further foul trouble.

“That kind of blew up the whole cheat sheet,” Conley said. “I was like, ‘Oh, no, now I’ve got to make a sub.’”

Instead, Conley settled for a conversation with White to emphasize that the guard needed to steer clear of a third foul.

“You have two fouls,” Conley told White. “You cannot foul. Coach is trusting me right now. I’m gonna leave you in.”

White rewarded the faith by avoiding his third foul. Conley was able to sub in Payton Pritchard a minute later without leaving the Celtics’ rotation in bad shape.

Later, Conley encountered other predicaments. When he did, he said he picked Mazzulla’s brain on how to approach them.

“It’s a lot harder than you think sometimes,” Conley said. “You’re looking down, and you’re trying to follow a strict regimen, but then you look up and a guy is winded. Or a guy maybe made four or five buckets in a row, and it’s like, I don’t want to sub him out yet. It’s just feeling out the game. So, I got to sit next to Joe, and he walked me through some things. Just (things like), ‘I wouldn’t take anybody out right now. This five is rolling.’ So, it’s just really learning the mindset of coaching and what it’s like kind of being in control of that.”

Entering their first season together, Conley and Mazzulla are still in the early stages of building a player-coach relationship. Conley believes they took another step forward on that front Wednesday.

“From day one, he’s kind of been a guy that’s empowered everybody around him,” Conley said. “I knew when he texted me today, he said, ‘Hey, can you come to my office before you get started working out and stuff?’ I knew he was going to have me do something. I don’t know if I’m going to be coaching, if I’m going to be just anything. So, he definitely keeps us all engaged, and I think the relationship just continues to build because of it.”

Conley said that while he and Mazzulla sat together on the bench throughout the second half, they spoke not just about the rotation, but also about deeper basketball topics and how they viewed the game. With the Celtics ahead by double digits during the fourth quarter, Conley said, Mazzulla brought up how well the players were functioning despite using minimal structure compared with what the staff would use in a regular-season game.

Recalled Conley: “He was like, ‘We haven’t called a play. We haven’t drawn up anything. We haven’t gone over anything on the scout. And just, look, it can be done. Guys can work it out themselves. And if we can get this kind of connectivity going forward, it makes everybody’s job easier.’

“Obviously, we won’t go through every game without a scout or without plays, but it was just kind of seeing the game from his perspective and what kind of gets him going. Different defensive plays, different possessions that he flagged as, ‘That’s one of my favorites right there. And this is why.’ And he was kind of just explaining that to me. So, that was cool to kind of get in his mind.”

Conley’s unusual role also served as another window into Mazzulla’s team-building mentality. He has used the preseason as an opportunity to amplify other voices within the locker room. During the team’s preseason opener, he allowed assistants Tony Dobbins and DJ MacLeay to split the head-coaching duties. Mazzulla wanted each of the assistants, who received head-coaching interviews over the offseason, to gain experience in the top chair.

Even if Conley’s playing role is diminished this season, the Celtics want to empower him as a leader.

“He’s been around 20 years,” Mazzulla said. “Great teams, great coaches, so being able to pick his brain and at the same time, all of us being on the same page about how we want to attack. And I think it’s always good, especially when you get new guys and in the preseason, you always want the players to be able to see what the coaches see and vice versa, so that you just have more alignment when decisions need to be made.”

One of the NBA’s most respected veterans, Conley already has the Celtics’ ears. Several new teammates have stressed how much they pick his brain and lean on his wisdom. Presumably, his natural leadership traits are why Sam Hauser thinks Conley would make a great coach after his playing career.

“You’d be a hell of a coach,” Hauser piped up from nearby when Conley was discussing whether he would eventually want to enter the profession.

Though Conley quipped back, “Yeah, I know I would, thanks,” he’s not sure whether he will eventually want to follow that career path.

“It’s harder than people think,” Conley said. “A lot of hours. … But I don’t know if it’d be right away or something I would have to work myself up to do, but I do want to be in the game, whether that’s management or coaching or whatever. I don’t want to leave the game behind.”

Whatever Conley chooses for his next step after his playing career, his willingness to serve as a coach of sorts Wednesday underscored why he should be a great culture fit in Boston. As long as his résumé is, he was eager to step into whatever role Mazzulla wanted him to fill.

“(The role in Boston is) new, it’s a learning experience, but it’s one I’m going to snatch and roll with it,” Conley said. “And I’ll take it by the horns and do the best I can with it, either being a player, being a coach, being a teammate, whatever that may be for the night.”

Jay King

is a staff writer for The Athletic covering the Boston Celtics. He previously covered the team for MassLive for five years. He also co-hosts the “Anything Is Poddable” podcast. You can follow Jay on X

@ByJayKing

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