The Boston Celtics made some major changes to their sports medicine department by letting go of Ed Lacerte, their trainer of 30 years, and Bryan Doo, the strength and conditioning coach of 14 years. They also released Vladimir Shulman, who has served as the teams massage therapist since the early 1980s.

Boston has named Art Horne the director of performance along with Johann Bilsborough as the director of sports science. Horne was with the Atlanta Hawks for the past two seasons before taking the head trainer job with the Celtics. Bilsborough has been with Boston since 2015.

For a team that consistently turns their roster over every year, the Celtics dont make a lot of changes outside of the players. Along with Lacerte and Doo being with the Celtics for a combined 44 years, Danny Ainge has had the same role with the team since 2003, Brad Stevens is just the second head coach for Boston in 13 years. It was a curious move by the Celtics, and there wasnt information regarding why the team decided to move in this direction.

Adam Himmelsbach of the Boston Globe released a story on Tuesday that shed some light on the organizations decision to make a change to the sports medicine department.

According to a league source, there was some uneasiness about the hierarchy of the Celtics sports medicine and performance staff, and the Celtics believed a fresh start was the best option.

In the article, Ainge was very thankful for the work that Lacerte, Doo, and Shulman did during their time with the Celtics. He also said that Horne and Bilsborough will oversee a staff of six that will be hired soon.

Horne was widely viewed as an industry pioneer at Northeastern when he worked to blend sports performance and sports medicine departments into one.

It sounds like the teams restructuring and streamlining plans center around combining sports performance and sports training teams together. A model that worked well for Horne at Northeastern.

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Celtics consolidating sports medicine and performance staff - CelticsBlog (blog)