BOSTON -- Joe Mazzulla's Celtics predecessor has returned to the NBA coaching ranks.
Ime Udoka has agreed to a deal to become the Houston Rockets' next head coach, ESPN's Adrian Wojnarowski reported Monday. It's Udoka's first job since the Celtics suspended him has their head coach in September 2022 for violating team policies.
Mazzulla took over as Boston's interim head coach for the 2022-23 season and held that title until February, when he was promoted to full-time head coach. When asked Tuesday how he felt about his former boss landing another job, Mazzulla gave a thoughtful answer.
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"I'm happy for him in a sense that I think it's important," Mazzulla said before Game 5 of the Celtics' first-round playoff matchup with the Atlanta Hawks at TD Garden. "Second chances are important. Grace is important. Forgiveness is important. I'm a product of a second chance, and I think it's important to have that in society.
"I texted him congratulations and that I was grateful just for the time that I had to learn from him as a coach."
Mazzulla was arrested twice while he was a student-athlete at West Virginia, including an incident of domestic battery in 2009. The 34-year-old has been forthcoming about learning from his transgressions, however, earning the trust of Celtics president of basketball operations Brad Stevens when he first joined the organization in 2019.
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"He has been very open about how those moments impacted him in every which way," Stevens said back in September. "You can see it in the way he carries himself. He's been working with us for three years, and you've probably seen articles from that time, and that I saw three years ago when I hired him.
"I believe that shaped him to who he is today in a really good way. He'll be the first to tell you he's 100 percent accountable for that, and I'll be the first to tell you that I believe in him."
Udoka will get his own second chance in Houston next season in his second NBA head coaching job after guiding the Celtics to the NBA Finals in 2021-22.