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The Celtics' other coaches and Jason Terry's role

Doc Rivers will no longer be the head coach of the Boston Celtics. So what about his staff?

USA TODAY Sports

As Doc Rivers exits stage left (or West as the case may be), it leaves a lot of people with undefined futures. Doc's staff, for the most part, are free agents. It will be interesting to see who he brings with him to L.A. and who gets left behind (and who finds work elsewhere regardless of Doc's interest).

Boston Celtics fans still waiting to hear Doc Rivers' explanation - ESPN Boston

Rivers' top assistant, Mike Longabardi, already took a similar position with the Phoenix Suns, joining the staff of first-year coach Jeff Hornacek (and reuniting with first-year general manager Ryan McDonough). Will Rivers be taking some of his other assistants out west, like Kevin Eastman and Ty Lue? Much of Rivers' staff will soon be free agents and it will be interesting to see if any portion is retained for the next administration to help ease the transition process.

It is expected that the Celtics will hire an up and coming assistant coach to be their next head coach. Brian Shaw is off the board now (hired by the Nuggets), but there are other potential hires like David Fizdale (Heat) and B.J. Bickerstaff (Rockets) that might find a home Boston and they'll need to fill out their staffs. Perhaps with people that are familiar with the team already.

It sounds like Ty Lue might end up with Brian Shaw in Denver.

Another random name to keep in mind, if not now, then for the future, is Jason Terry.

Vet Terry forced to reassess | Boston Herald

"From my perspective, I have to get healthy," said Terry, who had minor knee surgery earlier this month. "I’m thinking about my future, too, and I want to be a coach. I learned a lot from Doc last year. Next season I’m still going to be under Danny (Ainge), and it will be an opportunity for me to learn his side of the business. This is still a great organization to be part of." Terry has been asked to help coach the C’s’ entry in the Orlando Summer League next month. Jay Larranaga, the only assistant who will still be under contract on July 1, will run the team. "I’ll be helping a lot of things," Terry said.

I do think that Terry has a future in coaching at some level. He's got the personality and drive for it (at least as far as I can tell from here). I think he will play out his contract first though (he's not likely to walk away from $10M+ guaranteed). So assuming he isn't traded or somehow bought out, I'd expect him to take on a valuable leadership and mentor type role with the (probably) young Celtics teams of the next few years.

Oh, and just for fun, here's another "candidate" interested in coaching the Celtics. Antoine Walker.

Antoine Walker ‘serious’ about wanting to become coach of the Celtics - Celtics - Boston.com

"I want to be back in the game, I love the game and am a student of the game," he said. "I want to stress seriously that I do want to become a coach . . . there’s a lot of guys starting to get opportunities and so the league is getting younger coaches. Obviously I’m lacking in experience but we’ve all got to start from somewhere."

Thanks Antoine, but no thanks.

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