Jones to Retire as Celtic Coach : He’ll Move to Front Office; Rodgers to Succeed Him

WELLESLEY, Mass. — Boston Celtics Coach K. C. Jones said Tuesday he will retire after the current National Basketball Assn. season and will be succeeded by assistant coach Jimmy Rodgers.

“It’s something I wanted to do. I’d been giving it consideration since last summer,” Jones said during an interview at his home.

His surprise announcement came one day before the Celtics meet the New York Knicks in the third game of their best-of-five, first-round playoff series. Boston leads, 2-0.

Jones, who led the Celtics to the NBA finals in each of his previous four years as their coach and won two of them, said his decision had to do with “not being ambitious and wanting to . . . win another nine titles.”

He said he wants to spend more time with his family and play a little more golf and tennis.

“It’s good for me; it’s good for the family; it’s good for Jimmy,” said Jones, who will become a Celtics vice president and director of player personnel.

“I’m still with the Celtics. It’s a love affair with the Celtics,” he said.

Jones, 56, had been a Celtics’ assistant coach since 1978 until he succeeded Bill Fitch as Boston’s head coach for the 1983-84 season. Boston won the NBA title that season in a 7-game final against the Lakers.

He said he spoke last Thursday with Celtic President Red Auerbach, who anticipated the decision.

“It seemed like Red was way ahead of me. He says, ‘You done it all, huh Case? You feel like getting out?’ . . . I said, ‘Yeah,’ ” Jones said.

“It was just a matter-of-fact thing. I said I want to do this.”

Jones said he talked with Rodgers on Monday and the Celtics players Tuesday.

Boston guard Danny Ainge said: “It’s been great playing for K. C. He’s just made the game so much fun, and I know that it (his announcement) will give all the players just that much more incentive to try to win this third championship for K. C.”

But Jones denied that motivating the players had anything to do with the timing of his announcement. “That would have been very selfish. These guys don’t need that kind of motivation,” he said.

Rodgers, in his eighth season as a Boston assistant, was interested in the Knicks’ coaching job in the off-season. But the Celtics refused to release him from his contract, and the position went to Rick Pitino.

“I think Jimmy will make a great coach,” Ainge said. “Every team’s wanted him to be the coach and I guess . . . this situation is the reason why they didn’t let him go to New York because they wanted him to take over when K. C. decided to give it up.”

Jones said the ascension of Rodgers “was a major consideration” in his decision to retire now.

After he informed the players, Jones said, Rodgers asked him: “Are you really going to do this? He wasn’t really sure. We’ve had a great relationship since we’ve been together, and this past year has been dynamite.

“Our relationship is such that we’ve had no problems whatsoever concerning this New York thing.”

Jones was Boston’s sixth head coach since Auerbach stepped down in 1966 after 16 years in the job. All six, except for Fitch, were former Celtic players. Rodgers never played for Boston either.

Jones was part of the Celtics’ dynasty that ruled the NBA with eight consecutive championships from 1958-59, his rookie season, through 1965-66, his next to last year as a player.

He was known as a defensive specialist while teaming in Boston’s backcourt with Sam Jones.

In college, he played on two National Collegiate Athletic Assn. championship teams at the University of San Francisco and was a member of the U.S. Olympic team that won the gold medal in 1956.

The Boston job was Jones’ second as an NBA head coach. In three seasons as coach of the Capital and Washington Bullets, starting in 1973, his teams had a combined record of 155-91.

After winning the 1984 championship, the Celtics lost to the Lakers in the finals in 1985 and 1987 and beat Houston for the title in 1986.

Rodgers, who also has served as Boston’s director of player personnel for the past four seasons, was an assistant coach and head scout for the Cleveland Cavaliers under Fitch from 1971 through 1978. He joined Fitch in Boston for the 1979 season.

Times staff writer Gordon Edes contributed to this story.