Fans of the Boston Celtics might be surprised to hear that the head coach of their favorite ball club had the New York Knicks sniffing around to see if they might be able to poach Joe Mazzulla away from the team, per recent reporting from The Stein Line’s Marc Stein. Per Stein, “it has also been whispered that the Knicks likely did some backchannel exploration to determine if there was any pathway to pursue Boston’s Joe Mazzulla.”
Then again, given the very public and at times cringeworthy manner in which Knicks owner James Dolan and the rest of the New York front office went about their very public coaching search for the Knicks after moving on from Tom Thibodeau, Celtics fans might not be so surprised to hear about New York’s interest.
Another interesting tidbit buried in Stein’s reporting on Mazzulla being a potential target for New York this summer was the fact that Boston had extended him.
That particular aspect is not news at present, of course, with it having been reported in August 2025. But the length of the extension is news, with Stein reporting that Mazzulla reached an agreement with Boston to remain in his current role until well into the next decade.
“Terms were not formally announced on Mazzulla’s new pact beyond the Celtics terming it a multiyear contract extension, but there is a belief in coaching circles the new deal is a six-year pact,” writes the Stein Line, which likens the move to what Boston president Brad Stevens “signed to be Boston’s coach when he left the college game in July 2013.”
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