C’s Udoka joins the club
Got call from Belichick, other local coaches after being hired
Based on the call he received from Bill Belichick shortly after taking the Celtics job, as well as the head coaches from Boston’s other pro teams, Ime Udoka has already been welcomed into the local fraternity.
CELTICS NOTEBOOK
And as someone who lives in downtown Boston, Udoka sees reminders everywhere of just how rabid this corner of the sports universe can be, with Tom Brady’s return to Foxboro Sunday night an interesting hot-button moment.
“That’s a known thing regardless of where you’re from or where you’re at in the country,” the Celtics coach said after Saturday’s practice. “You know the Boston fan base and you know how passionate they are about all their teams. Obviously they’ve had a ton of winning here so it breeds that success as well and carries over to all sports.
“So, as far as that, Bill Belichick reached out to me. Those guys have all kind of called and welcomed me into the city and into the franchise, and to say we’re a big family here,” he said. “And you can’t help but hear the hype about Brady coming back. Even though I’m not from here and not being from this part of the country, you know the importance of the history he has here and the winning tradition.
“Obviously it’s a huge story nationally, but you can feel it around the city. I stay in the downtown area where I see people come and go for the Red Sox games, so that’s what I love about the city in general. The expectations are high, they’re passionate about their teams. And the game tomorrow is obviously a huge thing so I’m looking forward to that.”
Captains to be named
Udoka said he plans to name two team captains. Jaylen Brown immediately offered up Al Horford as a candidate. Marcus Smart, who likely wouldn’t turn down the title, said he doesn’t care – that everyone can lead in their own way.
“It wouldn’t matter to me if I was a captain or not. Having that title of captain means nothing. It’s just a title,” he said. “Anybody can be a captain. We’re all captains out there. We lead and we show our captain-ism in different ways. I don’t think it was a problem last year because we didn’t have captains. We’re all grown here. Gotta go ahead and do your job, plain and simple. Everybody
is here to help each other and one goal in mind and that’s to help bring a championship to this team. If we do put out the captains, that’s fine, that’s great. We don’t, same thing. Doesn’t really matter.
“Yeah, definitely,” he said when asked if the title was overblown. “We’re all grown, like I said. Everybody is here for a reason, everybody is here because they can do something special. College, it’s a little bit different. We’re all in the NBA, we’re all professionals, so the captain, yeah it does get overblown here. It’s alright. It is what it is. We understand it. But like I said, you can’t let it really affect us, just go out there and do what we have to do.”
Juice for 7uice
Most of Brown’s teammates showed up for the grand opening of his store 7uice in the Seaport District on Friday, but this is no ordinary retail launch.
The Celtics forward’s hope, with his 7uice Foundation, is to donate most of the profits.
“I guess it’s important, the business side, but really, I plan on doing a lot of community stuff through my brand like giving a lot of stuff away for free to the people who need it most. Donating a lot of things,” he said. “For me, the business part of it is dope, but I plan on giving a lot of it away to people who need it the most and things like that in the community.
“The idea is just having a brand and having your family supported and the people around who support you is the doper concept in making a lot of money,” said Brown. “I plan on just trying to make a difference more than make money. So for me, I plan on doing a lot of giveaways to places in need. And the people who do pay for it, you’ll be paying for the people who need it. So the brand is going to be built around community outreach.”