After seven-plus years of hard work and preparation within the Celtics’ basketball operations staff, Alex Barlow’s lifelong dream of becoming a head coach has finally become a reality.
On Tuesday morning, the 30-year-old Ohio native was hired as the next head coach for the Maine Celtics while his predecessor, Jarell Christian, was promoted to Director of Maine Basketball Player Development.
“I am very humbled and excited to be taking on the head coaching role in Maine,” Barlow stated upon his hiring. “I have been able to grow both personally and professionally in my time in Maine. I’m looking forward to making this next step in my career, and I can’t wait to get the season started at the (Portland) Expo.”
For Barlow, his journey toward coaching began long before joining the Celtics as a video assistant in 2015. Though, it did begin alongside another eventual member of the organization.
In the fall of 2011, Barlow enrolled at Butler University, where he walked onto a Bulldogs basketball team that was led by a 34-year-old head coach on the rise, named Brad Stevens. Between them both, it was the start of a longtime mentorship, colleagueship, and friendship.
“The only reason I went to Butler and walked on was because I wanted to coach,” Barlow told Celtics.com Tuesday afternoon. “I wanted to get into coaching, and I thought Brad would be someone who it’d be great to be a part of his program and learn from. And he was really open about that.”
For a Division I walk-on, Barlow also turned out to be a pretty solid player. A three-year starter, the 5-foot-11 guard helped to lead Butler to two NCAA Tournament appearances. He was a Bulldog both by association, and by nature, as he finished second in the Big East in steals per game in both his junior and senior seasons. And he even hit a game-winning shot during his sophomore year to take down top-ranked Indiana.
However, coaching was ultimately his calling, as was the case for several of his Butler peers. Ten percent of the G League’s current head coaches were a part of that Bulldogs group in the early 2010s, including the Oklahoma City Blue’s Kameron Woods, Barlow’s classmate and teammate of four years, and Birmingham Squadron’s T.J. Saint, a former graduate assistant under Stevens.
Barlow recalls that Stevens was “well-aware” of the coaching potential in his locker room and so he gave his players a great deal of say in how to approach each game. They were essentially training their bodies as players, while simultaneously training their minds as coaches.
“In film,” Barlow said of Stevens’ study sessions, "he’d be like, ‘Hey, what do you think we should do here, guys?’ It was a way for us to get into coaching and kind of think about it from a coach’s angle. But he obviously has had a great track record of getting guys that he coached in college – and even here if you count Evan Turner – into coaching.”
Stevens left Butler to become the head coach for the Celtics just before the start of Barlow’s junior season. However, the two would reunite less than two years later in Boston.
Ultimately, it was Stevens’ former boss and President of Basketball Operations Danny Ainge who made the push to bring Barlow on board.
“When he was a senior and he was looking at what to do next," Stevens recounted, "Danny actually was the one that spent time with him, and came back and said, ‘Yeah, he makes a lot of sense to hire as a young coach. He’s gonna be good.’”
Barlow graduated from Butler in May of 2015. Within a few weeks, he was shipping up to Boston.
He began as a film assistant in early June, putting in long hours scouting teams and helping to put together reports on the opposition. After two years of grinding away in that role, Barlow was approached by Stevens with a new opportunity: an assistant position on former Maine Red Claws head coach Brandon Bailey’s staff.
Barlow held that role in Portland for one year before rejoining the Boston squad for the 2018-19 campaign. One of his primary projects that season was helping to develop a young, rookie center named Robert Williams, who, within three years, became an NBA All-Defense selectee.
Player development is Barlow’s specialty, and it will continue to be one of his main focuses while leading the Maine squad.
“I’ve grown in the NBA through player development whether it was here with Rob, whether it’s been in the G League running the player development program that we have in the G League, so I think the biggest focus for me is just going to be getting guys better,” said Barlow. “Obviously it’s important to get the two-ways better (such as JD Davison and Mfiondu Kabengele), and any of the signees we get up there, to get them better, the exhibit 10s – anybody else that we get on the team to try to get them to their next stop whether it’s back to the NBA, or it’s a better deal overseas.”
The past two G League seasons have been critical in Barlow’s own development. He returned to Maine in 2019-20 to become associate head coach under Darren Erman, a role which he maintained this past season under Christian.
“I learned so much from Jarell,” Barlow said. “A lot of it was just about how to lead, how to be a head coach, how to delegate responsibilities. I think as a head coach a lot of times you want to do everything, you want to do a lot, and it’s just not feasible. You just can’t do it. You’ve got to have assistants you trust, have assistants you can give responsibility to, and he was so good about that, giving me responsibilities where I was strong, and then where I was weak, he’d coach me up. So I think that year with him was really good, really helpful, and is going to help me for my time this year.”
As someone who also became a head coach at a young age, Stevens knows that this season won’t be without obstacles for Barlow. However, he has no doubt that Barlow will succeed through his offensive creativity, his ability to be quick on his feet, and his preparation within the organization over the past seven-plus years.
“There will be challenges that come with being a head coach,” said Stevens, “but that’s one of the beautiful things about the G League is that you can learn through your mistakes, right? You can learn through your growing pains, and I think that he’s as prepared for that as anybody just because he’s been up there, and he’s been with us for so many years and he’s had so many different assignments at both levels.”
Barlow emphasizes the importance of maintaining synergy between the two levels, noting how it’s also part of his job to “find a role player that can help the (Boston) Celtics win a championship.”
“I’m obviously really excited,” said Barlow. “It’s something I’ve been looking forward to really since Brad pitched the idea back in 2017 when he wanted me to spend some time in the G League, learn the game in the G League, learn how to be a head coach. And I’ve obviously had three really good head coaches that I’ve worked for in Maine that have kind of given me opportunities and kind of helped to get me to where I am.”
Having also played an immense role in getting Barlow to where he’s at, Stevens is excited to see his former pupil succeed. He’s seen first-hand how hard Barlow has worked for this opportunity since the day he walked into Butler's gym more than a decade ago.
“He’s a guy that’s always wanted to coach and has put a lot of time into really understanding the NBA game, the G League game, the way that the two need to be connected, that it’s an excellent experience for all and so that it’s an excellent seamless transition for anybody that goes up to Maine and comes back," Stevens said.
“So I think he’ll do a great job. He certainly has prepared for this.”