Tyler Lashbrook is the new head coach of the Maine Celtics. Lashbrook is Maine’s sixth head coach in as many seasons. Photo provided by the Maine Celtics

He was an intern working in the Philadelphia 76ers’ video room, fresh out of college, but even a decade ago Tyler Lashbrook knew where he wanted his path to lead.

“I knew that was the best way to sort of grow and learn game planning and scheming and Xs and Os,” he said. “While I was there, I understood that, at some point, I want to be a head coach, whether it’s at the NBA level or the G League level. That became a goal pretty early on in my career.”

Lashbrook will have that opportunity. The Maine Celtics named Lashbrook, 32, their head coach for the coming season Thursday. He’ll be the 10th coach in franchise history, the sixth in six seasons, and he’ll take over a team coming off of its first trip to the G League finals.

“I’m really excited, not just about the job but about the city and the organization,” said Lashbrook, a 2014 Western Kentucky University graduate. “Being a G League head coach has been a goal of mine for the last four or five years. … I had a couple of interviews for positions and was never able to get it, but always had my eyes set on it. To get it in this opportunity with this team and the organization is truly a blessing.”

Lashbrook takes the job after serving as a player development coach for the Philadelphia 76ers from 2018-23, and then with the Boston Celtics last year. Those positions meant working with a small group of players on improving their skills and acclimating them to new roles with the team, responsibilities that align well with a G League team, but Lashbrook said the head coaches at those stops – South Portland native Brett Brown and Doc Rivers in Philadelphia, Joe Mazzulla in Boston – gave him chances to expand his duties into other aspects of coaching.

“The game-planning portion, I’ve had quite a bit of experience. I’ve been lucky to work with coaches who were really empowering and have believed in me,” Lashbrook said. “The biggest thing is the in-game management stuff. You think you can see it from an assistant coaching point of view, but obviously from the head coach, it looks a lot different.”

Lashbrook did get a taste of being a head coach in 2022, when he led the 76ers’ summer league team.

“I always tell people, I was a head coach for two to three weeks, but it was some of the best two to three weeks of my career,” he said. “I really enjoyed leading the players, leading the staff on a day-to-day basis. I sort of always knew, even a little bit before then, that this is always what I wanted to do.”

As was the case in his player development days, he’s looking forward to watching players make strides in their abilities, this time while overseeing a whole roster instead of just two or three players.

“I’m excited just to run practices, I’m excited to run games, I’m excited to lead a staff (and) to lead the players,” he said. “To me, the most gratifying part of being a development coach at this level is watching guys take that next step in their careers, whether they’re two-ways who become roster players, or roster players that sort of become rotation players.”

He’s coming into what’s become one of the most stable setups in pro basketball. While the Boston Celtics rolled to the NBA championship, Maine reached the playoffs for the second straight season and finished 24-15, defeating the Delaware Blue Coats and Long Island Nets before falling to the Oklahoma City Blue in the G League Finals.

Lashbrook spent plenty of time with the Blue Coats, Philadelphia’s G League affiliate, and he came to appreciate the Maine team.

“Even from afar, I sort of understood that Maine was always a tough place to play,” he said. “I always had a tremendous respect for the fans and the passion they brought there. That isn’t necessarily the norm in the G.”

Lashbrook and his family, wife Roxie and 1-year-old daughter Bindi, have spent time getting to know their new city, making trips to Becky’s Diner, Tandem Coffee and the Ugly Duckling coffee shop. He’s hoping to provide the people of Maine with some wins as well.

“I’m trying to bring that Celtics mindset to Maine,” he said. “It’s really important to me. Being able to connect the two franchises even further is sort of No. 1 for me.”