Boston Celtics assistant coach Phil Pressey is headed back to Maine for a second season as head coach of Boston’s G-League affiliate. Pressey announced his return to the role with a post to his Instagram.
“Year 2 loading (Hourglass emoji),” he wrote. “Bigger moments. Bigger missions. Year One. COMPLETE. (Checkered flag emoji).
Celtics coach Phil Pressey announced he’ll be the head coach of the @MaineCeltics again this season.
— Bobby Manning (@RealBobManning) August 10, 2026
Maine reached the G-League playoffs for the 4th straight season in ‘25-26. pic.twitter.com/uzJ0itH4Bb
Under Pressey, Maine reached the G-League playoffs for the fourth time in five seasons. They logged a record of 27-24 throughout the regular season, including a 9-6 run in the tip-off tournament in late 2025.
Now, I know what you’re thinking. “A G-League Celtics update, it must be mid-August.”
Firstly, congratulations, you’ve nailed the sports news calendar. Second, this is a bit deeper than it may seem on the surface. Each NBA team has two full benches of assistant coaches. So many great basketball minds are out there starving for a chance at one of the 30 NBA head coaching jobs.
Yet, there aren’t many ways to get reps at the helm with full control of a team. Besides the G-League, that is.
The G-League offers valuable coaching experience
It turns out, Maine is part of the path to Boston for coaches, just like it is for players.
With Pressey heading back to the Portland Expo for a second-straight season, he’s getting valuable experience that’ll give him a leg up on the competition the next time there’s a coaching vacancy around the association.
Celtics assistant Tyler Lashbrook is a great example of this. Lashbrook held the Maine job down in the 2024-25 season. He led the G-League Cs to a 21-13 record which was good enough to have them slotted third in the Eastern Conference.
Fast forward to this summer and he was a finalist for the open Portland Trail Blazers head coaching job, which ultimately went to Micah Nori.
Experience matters. How many times have you seen news of a head coaching hire with no insight as to whether or not it’s a great hire? Oftentimes there’s no sample size for these guys. Think of when the Celtics hired Ime Udoka in 2021. All we, as outsiders, had to go off of was that the feeling around the league was that he was the next guy up for a head coaching opportunity.
Credit to Pressey for taking the opportunity separate himself from other potential hires around the league. There’s no doubt that it’s objectively more fun to live in Boston than Portland. Yet, the former Celtics guard is putting the work in to build his resume. It wouldn't be shocking at all to start seeing his name pop up when coaching jobs open up next summer.
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