Who was the youngest coach to win an NBA championship?

The Boston Celtics are back in the NBA Finals, taking on the Dallas Mavericks and head coach Joe Mazzulla has a chance at a title in just his second season.

The Boston have a chance to make NBA history by capturing their 18th title in team history. If they can beat the Dallas Mavericks in the Finals, they would jump the Los Angeles Lakers and become the first franchise to ever attain that feat.

Should the Celtics win, their head coach Joe Mazzulla will create his own chapter in the history books of the league. The 35 year old is in his second season as Celtics coach, and is four wins away from joining shortlist that would include just him and one of the most legendary names in the game, Bill Russell.

Mazzulla started coaching soon after concluding his undergraduate career at West Virginia in 2011. He wanted to continue playing but after no meaningful offers arrived, in the NBA or overseas, he resorted to coaching. His first work as an assistant gig at Glenville State University in West Virginia.

He would relocate to Farimont State just a couple years later before the jump the G-League with the Maine Red Claws. After a short tenure there he went back to Fairmont State where he was offered the head coaching post. He lasted two years as coach of the Fighting Falcons, but then the NBA came calling with an offer he couldn’t refuse.

Boston selected him assistant coach for Brad Stevens in 2019, and he would stay on staff even after Stevens decided to stand down from his post as head coach and focus completely on his general manager duties. Ime Udoka kept him aboard in his one and only season as the Celtics coach.

In that season, Udoka took his club all the way to the NBA Finals where they would finally fall to the Golden State Warriors in six games. Following the Finals defeat, Udoka was suspended by the Celtics for violating team policies for the entire 2022/23 season, and Mazzulla was named to interim coach.

Boston opted to permanently break ways with Udoka, selecting his replacement head coach midway through the season. After a sad exit in last year’s playoffs he has the Celtics back in the Finals.

Mazzulla, who turns 36 at the end of this month has a chance to tie Bill Russell as the youngest head coach to win an NBA Championship. The only difference was Bill Russell was playing 46.1 minutes a game during the 1969 season in which he led the Celtics to a title.

Russell had just turned 35 four months before winning the title, thus that would theoretically make him younger than Mazzulla, should the Celtics beat the Mavs.

Mazzula is two years younger than his oldest player Al Horford, who recently turned 38 on June 3rd, but he will be the first two tell you he doesn’t care how old Horford is or Russell was as long as the C’s bring a title back to Boston.