The Boston Celtics organization was rocked last week when allegations against head coach Ime Udoka came to light right before NBA training camp. Udoka reportedly had a relationship with a female employee, violating rules that the franchise has in place. However, the more details that have emerged, the more damning it is against Udoka.
There have been numerous NBA insiders that have been privy to the details of what occurred and they have all said that it is pretty ugly. While the entire story may not come for a little while, Udoka’s punishment has already been announced.
He will be suspended for the entire 2022-23 season. There were discussions of him resigning from the job, but that will not be the case right now. However, many people believe Udoka will ultimately not return to the sidelines for the Celtics, ever.
For now, Joe Mazzulla has been named the interim head coach. He is going to be leading a team that won the Eastern Conference Finals last season and Mazzulla will be looking to build upon that performance.
“It’s not about carrying on from one person,” Mazzulla said during the team’s media day. “It’s about carrying on the identity of our players. We had our struggles early last season, but at our best, we knew what our identity was. It was our defense, it was our buy-in from a defensive standpoint, and then it was sharing the ball and moving quickly on the offensive end.
“So as much as we can stick to the things we were great at last year, and then find areas to improve along the way I think is the right way to go.”
LATEST NBA NEWS: Ime Udoka & Boston Celtics Updates
The players had no idea any of this was coming as they found out as many of us did, which was via social media with Adrian Wojnarowski breaking the news. Despite meeting with team personnel, the players still didn’t have the full scope of what occurred and what was going to happen going forward.
“It’s a lot going on,” said Jaylen Brown — who, like Tatum, said he hadn’t spoken to Udoka since last week’s events took place. “Some we could control, some we couldn’t. The best we can say is to move on.
“Initial reaction, like you said, I was a little confused. No one really has any of the information so it’s difficult to make a comment on how things were supposed to go and how the process went or anything. The best thing we can do is put our best foot forward.”
LATEST NBA NEWS: Ime Udoka & Boston Celtics Updates
This will be tough for everyone to navigate. They are going to be asked about it in press conferences constantly throughout training camp as people want to find out as much information as possible and get to the bottom of what happened.
The Celtics will attempt to shift the focus to the court with training camp getting underway, but they know that the Udoka situation will loom over them for a while. Things getting started up on the court will be a nice distraction and reprieve for the coaches and players that were caught off guard by everything recently going on.
