Celtics Players Lied Saying they did not know of my Suspension – Ime Udoka

 

Celtics Players Lied saying they did not know of my Suspension – Ime Udoka

Just one week before the 2022–2023 NBA season’s training camp began, the Boston Celtics suspended former head coach Ime Udoka, and the situation that followed raised many questions.

He was suspended for the whole season because of “violations of team policies,” according to the Boston Celtics.

Shams Charania of The Athletic subsequently revealed that Udoka had a “improper” connection with a female employee.

At that point, several players expressed their ignorance of the circumstances; Jayson Tatum, for example, claimed to have learned about it via Twitter without consulting Udoka.

After Saturday’s game against the Celtics, the now-Houston Rockets coach addressed the issue of players not knowing anything, saying that “some of them knew.”

“I would say they lied to you guys. They knew, or some of them knew. Obviously, if I had talked to them, they wouldn’t share stuff publicly. So who needed to know knew,” Udoka stated, as reported by The Athletic’s Jared Weiss.

It’s an unexpected statement from Udoka.

However, it would also make logical that, if players knew anything, they wouldn’t publicly discuss it, particularly while the team was still conducting an inquiry.

According to Andscape’s Marc J. Spears, Udoka, Jaylen Brown, Joe Mazzulla, and general manager Brad Stevens attended the wedding of former Celtics guard Marcus Smart.

The Celtics fired Udoka, and Mazzulla was elevated from interim head coach to head coach full-time.

On April 24, 2023, the Rockets hired the former Celtics coach after his new team looked into things with the league office and the Celtics before extending an offer, as ESPN’s Adrian Wojnarowski initially revealed.