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

With the Celtics’ teaching employees beginning to take form, listed below are 5 issues to learn about Charles Lee.

He’s spent his complete NBA teaching profession working below Mike Budenholzer.

When Lee arrives in Boston, he’ll have a brand new boss for the primary time since he turned 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 pinnacle 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 together with his boss, becoming a member of him in Milwaukee to work on the Bucks’ teaching employees.

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

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

“A number of 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 method the day-to-day is I’m imagined to be a trustworthy servant to Coach Bud and simply actually concentrate on how I may help these gamers get higher individually then it’s going to show over and be capable to assist us as a crew as effectively.”

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

With the Bucks successful a title and being probably the greatest groups within the league throughout Lee’s 5 seasons with the crew, he turned a commodity within the head coach market.

Lee started to be severely 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 practically 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 cope with Grizzlies assistant Darko Rajakovic on Saturday.

The Celtics “lengthy focused” Lee to affix Mazzulla’s employees whereas different groups additionally pursued him for high assistant teaching jobs, in response to Wojnarowski.

He was a star school basketball participant.

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

The previous guard not solely turned probably the greatest gamers on the Bison, however he additionally turned probably the greatest gamers within the Patriot League and amongst mid-majors. His 12.5 factors and 6.4 rebounds per recreation earned him first-team All-Patriot honors in 2005. He additionally helped Bucknell win the Patriot League Event that 12 months and was named MVP of the event. 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 recreation and was named the Patriot League’s Participant of the Yr in 2005-06. He additionally helped Bucknell win the convention event 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 below 40 collection,” Lee shared some perception into his philosophy as a coach.

Lee mentioned that he has three fundamental components of his philosophy: Each day enchancment, competitiveness, and togetherness.

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

“I’m a giant ‘energy of positivity’ man,” Lee informed The Athletic’s Mike Vorkunov. “Yeah, there’s some adversity, there’s some, quote-unquote, failures or losses, however how are we going to reply to that and the way will we simply develop this thicker pores and skin to have the ability to cope with these antagonistic conditions?”

That philosophy helped the Bucks during the last 5 seasons as Lee additionally noticed Giannis Antetokounmpo turn out to be one of many recreation’s finest gamers and win two MVPs throughout his time there.

Lee has a simple method to the right way 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 informed Vorkunov when he was requested the right way to get Antetokoumpo to belief him. Understanding the sport and doing all of your homework and watching the movie and going backwards and forwards, however then simply discovering alternatives to hit him on issues which might be simply sincere. Like, not all the time, ‘Hey, you’re the perfect. You understand, you’re doing this nice,’ No, he desires to be coached.”

He labored with a couple of 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 crew. However like with many NBA groups, some assistant coaches will work with a couple of 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 broaden Allen’s recreation 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 growth, significantly specializing in making him stronger for an 82-game season and a extra aggressive participant.

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