Ime Udoka suspended for the 22-23 season

Mueller's Twin Grannies

critical thinker
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Dec 19, 2009
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So... the team guideline he violated was basically don't shit where you eat?

Also, the wording of the Shams tweet is giving me pause. "An intimate and consensual" relationship seems a step down from a sexual relationship, unless he was just trying to soften the blow a little. Makes me wonder if it hadn't become sexual but he was courting her or something and word got around.

I'm curious as to how Ime himself will respond to this. Being suspended for your personal life seems like the sort of thing that would rankle. He may resign, and maybe he should. I mean, how do you come back from this? The players have to already be joking amongst themselves.

Regardless of the power dynamic issue, this is a pretty public shaming of a guy who was a team-wide collapse/choke job away from winning a title in his first try. That can't be a comfort feeling for anyone involved.
 

benhogan

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If the coach is involved with someone that he has direct supervision of, he’s probably going to be suspended for the entire year, at a minimum. If the coach is involved with someone in another part of the organization, where he doesn’t have direct supervision, but where he obviously has a lot of cachet because he is the head coach of the team, he’s probably looking at a good sized suspension, maybe something like 20 games.
I understand your rationale, but I'm expecting he'll get fired or resign

Too much potential liability for the team. If another employee comes forward w/ IME issues, then the team is massively on the hook for fostering this behavior.
 

Mystic Merlin

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So... the team guideline he violated was basically don't shit where you eat?

Also, the wording of the Shams tweet is giving me pause. "An intimate and consensual" relationship seems a step down from a sexual relationship, unless he was just trying to soften the blow a little. Makes me wonder if it hadn't become sexual but he was courting her or something and word got around.

I'm curious as to how Ime himself will respond to this. Being suspended for your personal life seems like the sort of thing that would rankle. He may resign, and maybe he should. I mean, how do you come back from this? The players have to already be joking amongst themselves.

Regardless of the power dynamic issue, this is a pretty public shaming of a guy who was a team-wide collapse/choke job away from winning a title in his first try. That can't be a comfort feeling for anyone involved.
Pretty sure he means it was a sexual relationship. I’ve never heard the phrase ‘intimate and consensual’ used to describe a courtship.
 

BigSoxFan

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I'm just so disappointed that another successful, powerful man just couldn't keep his pants on. Like, how many women work for the Celtics or are spouses or children of other Celtics? It's really not that fucking hard. It's a big ocean with lots of fish.

I get that sexual harassment and power relationships is a new thing in the last 30-40 years for people to care about. Guys in their 70s didn't grow up with it. But Ime did, and a lot of the demo here is middle-aged guys or younger who did also. People should fucking know better. Just horrible judgment.
Knowing Ime’s life story, his current relationship with Nia, and how hard he worked to get to this spot and still being willing to throw it all away for some instant gratification is just…ugh. And doing all of this AFTER #metoo is just awful. Like, you learned nothing from those lessons, Ime?
 

Mueller's Twin Grannies

critical thinker
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If that's the case, he should just resign.

I know we don't believe in no damn curses around these parts, but... there is some seriously bad juju in the Garden. Like... BAD.
 

riboflav

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TSH just broke the suspension is for the season
If true, they blew it. If what he did is worth a year then he should be fired or strongly encouraged t resign. This is now a huge distraction and I feel for the other party. This won't allow her to move on quickly.
 

Mueller's Twin Grannies

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Which players start demanding trades in the aftermath? This might just be the killshot for the notion of keeping JB, maybe Tatum too.
 

lovegtm

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If it is a full season you need to just fire him. You can't go through a season without a real head coach if you are a contending team.

If they do suspend him all season, be prepared for some salary dumps. They aren't paying the luxury tax for a coachless team with a major injury in Gallo and a questionable Rob.
They made (and could have easily won) the Finals with no Gallo and Rob on 1 leg.

There is no way they'd punt a year of Tatum's prime over losing the head coach. Ime Udoka is not the only available human capable of coaching an NBA team at a high level.
 

Sandwich Pick

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This is a pretty gross post in a lot of respects, but also none of this matters. If the Celtics have a Code of Conduct and if this was a Code of Conduct violation (which reports seem to indicate) then Ime needs to be punished. You can't have a Code of Conduct that says these kinds of relationships are not allowed and then ignore the Code when something like this happens.

And Codes of Conduct exist precisely to avoid the hair splitting you are engaging in in your post over who pursued who. You just can't do it, period.

I run investigations into these kinds of relationships at my company more often than I'd like to. If this happened here, the person in the leadership position would be fired, period. I'm not saying that's the right punishment here, but it isn't out of the realm of possibility either.
My company has a rule that if a manager is in a relationship with a subordinate, they have to disclose it to HR for reasons covered in this thread. We have had countless training sessions on this. People who don't have that dynamic don't have to disclose any such relationship.

I would imagine this is very common practice.
 

boca

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What is going to be solved here in 12 months?

If it's egregious enough to warrant that length suspension then he just needs to be gone.

Ridiculous.
 

bosockboy

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They made (and could have easily won) the Finals with no Gallo and Rob on 1 leg.

There is no way they'd punt a year of Tatum's prime over losing the head coach. Ime Udoka is not the only available human capable of coaching an NBA team at a high level.
And have added Brogdon.
 

bsj

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I know stevens can't coach, nor should he in this system, but gotta think having him close is going to be an asset right now. There will likely be many things he can help with to the extend the interim coach needs it.
 

nattysez

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Could the Celtics please (1) find the person who's leaking to Woj and/or (2) stop feeding Woj info until they put out a statement? This is fucking embarrassing.
 

TripleOT

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What an amazing ascent up the coaching ranks for Joe Mazzulla, although he probably would have liked to have earned his first NBA head coaching job under any other circumstance. I wonder if the Celtics will now bring in an old head former NBA head coach as a bench coach.
 

bosockboy

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I know stevens can't coach, nor should he in this system, but gotta think having him close is going to be an asset right now. There will likely be many things he can help with to the extend the interim coach needs it.
That and Stoudamire is a very experienced assistant.
 

NJ_Sox_Fan

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How is a consensual relationship worth a 1 year suspension?? If the Celtics take cheating on your wife that seriously then just fire him. It’s a non story really.
 

Justthetippett

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Aug 9, 2015
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What is going to be solved here in 12 months?

If it's egregious enough to warrant that length suspension then he just needs to be gone.

Ridiculous.
Agreed. Everyone takes their medicine and moves on. Having Ime lingering on a suspension serves no one’s interests. If they are going to drop the hammer, go all the way.

Now, wait for the Nets to hire him…
 

BigSoxFan

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How is a consensual relationship worth a 1 year suspension?? If the Celtics take cheating on your wife that seriously then just fire him. It’s a non story really.
If he had a consensual relationship with a non-Celtics staff member, he wouldn’t have been suspended. You can’t do what he did without repercussions. It’s “Working in an Organization 101” level stuff here.
 

Ale Xander

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What an amazing ascent up the coaching ranks for Joe Mazzulla, although he probably would have liked to have earned his first NBA head coaching job under any other circumstance. I wonder if the Celtics will now bring in an old head former NBA head coach as a bench coach.
Or they can go all-in on Distraction Season and get Pags and Tatum on speaker phone recruiting K. I hear he's available.


I'm so bummed Udoka couldn't keep it in his pants and this offseason is approaching Murphy's Law levels.

And it seems he doesn't have the faux excuse of this happening during the season, where lets just say, he has no time/options.

Have to can his ass. A one season suspension just makes it worse.
 

benhogan

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How is a consensual relationship worth a 1 year suspension?? If the Celtics take cheating on your wife that seriously then just fire him. It’s a non story really.
1-yr suspension gives the Celtics time to investigate IME's behavior from the entire season and everywhere he worked.

Also gives IME time to resign.
 

Kliq

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I'm assuming they can't just outright fire him because they need to make sure they can't get hit with a wrongful termination lawsuit or something like that. If he gets suspended for a year, I think he eventually will be fired at some point.
 

Ed Hillel

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How is a consensual relationship worth a 1 year suspension?? If the Celtics take cheating on your wife that seriously then just fire him. It’s a non story really.
They don’t want to get sued. 30 years ago, all claimants were lying. Today, all claimants are telling the truth. The truth is in between, but as a business you have to protect yourself.
 

NDame616

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Also the year long suspension may be put in place so he can't pick up and go to another team next week. But yes, there are probably legal repercussions there too.
 

ugmo33

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My company has a rule that if a manager is in a relationship with a subordinate, they have to disclose it to HR for reasons covered in this thread. We have had countless training sessions on this. People who don't have that dynamic don't have to disclose any such relationship.

I would imagine this is very common practice.

Is Director of Player Development a subordinate to Head Coach? Given that she's the only female staffer it seems likely it was with her and the power dynamic doesn't seem quite as clear in that case
 

joe dokes

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How is a consensual relationship worth a 1 year suspension?? If the Celtics take cheating on your wife that seriously then just fire him. It’s a non story really.
While the suspension/firing discussion is relevant and debateable, if you think this is about "cheating on your wife," you need to reset the DeLorean to 2022.
 

jasail

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I'm baffled by this on so many levels. First, I cannot understand what type of consensual and legal relationship constitutes a one-year suspension. Second, I don't understand how something so egregious that it constitutes a one-year suspension is not better served by terminating employment. Third, I'm not sure how it benefits the players, the coach, the interim coach and the whole program to have this hanging over its head rather than a clean break. Fourth, I do not understand how the C's have allowed this to just get slow leaked out over the past 12-hours without so much as a team statement. The team has absolutely botched this and I hate to imagine how this plays in the locker room, particularly following all the off-season drama with leaks around JB.

To be clear, I'm not saying the team is not justified in taking action against Ime. I don't know enough to even begin to form an opinion about that. My comment is more that they are seemingly bungling the handling of this situation in a myriad of ways, regardless of what the details of the situation may be.
 

Caspir

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So I’m not sure how much of this is out there yet, and I’m working so I wasn’t able to read the last few posts yet.

This is related to a woman that previously worked as Pagliuca’s assistant. She is a very close family friend of his. She was no longer with the team, but working in a contracted capacity doing business analysis. She is married with children and the personal relationship with the owner is a major factor in the response. Ime may be out of here when all is said and done, but he said to brace for a lengthy suspension. All I’ve got right now but it is from somebody directly connected to the team.
 
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Omar's Wacky Neighbor

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Leaving in a bit to the studio :)
Is Director of Player Development a subordinate to Head Coach? Given that she's the only female staffer it seems likely it was with her and the power dynamic doesn't seem quite as clear in that case
She's not the only female staffer. Someone tweeted a corporate directory and there were at least two more, with some fingers being pointed at one of the other two based on video 'evidence' of how he acted around her after the Miami game 7.

I'm going with he'll resign.
 

Justthetippett

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Aug 9, 2015
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I'm baffled by this on so many levels. First, I cannot understand what type of consensual and legal relationship constitutes a one-year suspension. Second, I don't understand how something so egregious that it constitutes a one-year suspension is not better served by terminating employment. Third, I'm not sure how it benefits the players, the coach, the interim coach and the whole program to have this hanging over its head rather than a clean break. Fourth, I do not understand how the C's have allowed this to just get slow leaked out over the past 12-hours without so much as a team statement. The team has absolutely botched this and I hate to imagine how this plays in the locker room, particularly following all the off-season drama with leaks around JB.
Only thing I can think of is that it happened at the facility and someone walked in on it, reported it, etc. Brings the misconduct to a different level.
 

bsj

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Anyone who has sat through these HR trainings knows you cannot have a sexual relationship with someone who is junior to you (there may be some exceptions but it usually involves looping HR in and lots of paperwork), so this isn't surprising to me (I'm not sure why it is to others).

What is surprising is the one year vs. firing thing. That makes no sense.
 

Justthetippett

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Aug 9, 2015
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So I’m not sure how much of this is out there yet, and I’m working so I wasn’t able to read the last few posts yet.

This is related to a woman that previously worked as Pagliuca’s assistant. She is a very close family friend of his. She was no longer with the team, but working in a contracted capacity doing business analysis. She is married with children and the personal relationship with the owner is a major factor in the response. Ime may be out of here when all is said and done, but he said to brace for a suspension. All I’ve got right now but it is from somebody directly connected to the team.
That’s quite the wrinkle. What a mess.
 

Mueller's Twin Grannies

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So I’m not sure how much of this is out there yet, and I’m working so I wasn’t able to read the last few posts yet.

This is related to a woman that previously worked as Pagliuca’s assistant. She is a very close family friend of his. She was no longer with the team, but working in a contracted capacity doing business analysis. She is married with children and the personal relationship with the owner is a major factor in the response. Ime may be out of here when all is said and done, but he said to brace for a suspension. All I’ve got right now but it is from somebody directly connected to the team.
If this is true, wouldn't Pags have to recuse himself? And if true, what a petty thing to do. It sounds like two adults made a decision and, because Pags is buddies with her hubby, he's out for blood over the cuckolding.

I think I'm beginning to understand why this organization can't get out of its own way.

This is not to excuse what happened, but... when did the Celtics become so dysfunctional in key areas of leadership and accountability?