Ime Udoka suspended for the 22-23 season

AlNipper49

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Occum’s Razor suggests with the (limited and potential unreliable info) that they were caught cheating by their spouses / significant others in July. When the affair was exposed to her husband either he, she, a lawyer or a therapist recommended she sent Udoka a letter of no contact as she presumably chose to try to save the marriage. He likely chose to not respect this letter in varying degrees of intensity. She was left to either live with this or to escalate it to authorities, his employer or to pay someone to beat the shit out of him until he stopped

It’s probably not exactly this, but I bet it’s something close.
 

BringBackMo

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You’re right. It’s not the Pentagon Papers. It’s the way most daily news stories, big and small, are reported.
 

Lose Remerswaal

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Apologies for not requoting myself like for the tenth time in this thread, but the wife of a senior VP is not in a power imbalance relationship with the coach. Clearly not, since the coach just got whacked.

I've said in this thread more than once "if his improper relationship was with a subordinate in the organization, I'll drive the airport car". What is being reported is not that. If that's what comes out, I'll be celebrating his departure with everyone else.
You did say the second part.

I was not sure, above, nor am I yet convinced that the other party is the wife of a senior VP and that it wasn’t a power imbalance situation. And that’s what I was referring to. All our information about the victim is third hand, or as Omar said, above,

His best friend's sister's boyfriend's brother's girlfriend heard from this guy who knows this kid who's going with the girl who saw IME out at 31 Flavors last night.
 

wade boggs chicken dinner

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So the original leaker comes out with a story that omits the harassment.

Story twists in the wind for a day with everyone speculating why punishment doesn't seem to fit the crime (or feels heavy anyways)

Different reporter (I think woj broke the first one) I think breaks part 2 of the story, which again has odd wording- the harassing behavior was reported later after three two parties has suggested to the Celtics that everything was consensual, but does not give a timeframe for when the harassing occurred (we are assuming it was later but all we know from report is that it was reported later).

Just beyond bizarre.
I'm not sure it's that bizarre. After all, it was about 24 hours from the first news to the actual suspension.

Remember, we know that the Cs front office is great about keeping things in-house. There were no leaks when Brad was signed as coach; no leaks when DA moved on and Brad moved up; no leaks on the Brogdon trade; etc.

Also, we know that the Cs front office briefed the players. Maybe the leaks didn't come from Ime or the Cs front office? If that happened, and assuming the Cs were still vetting stuff with owners and lawyers, what more could they do?

I know the world moves hyper-fast these days but I'm not sure what more the Cs could have done but come to a decision with all dispatch. They certainly weren't going to release any details one way or another assuming they are confident they did what needed to be done (in their eyes).
 

NomarsFool

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The most likely situation here is that Ime's behaviour involved things that are not tolerated in today's day and age, and this is not some simple consensual relationship between people who happen to work at the same organization. I'm 100% sure the Celtics ownership absolutely did not want this kind of distraction, right before training camp, coming after a NBA Finals appearance, when they are trying to raise banner 18. This is a huge dumpster fire and my expectation is that Ime is done in the NBA.
 

HomeRunBaker

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FWIW, the Anna Horford tweet accusing the Celtics of racism has been deleted.
“Yo Sis, Avg Al here. Wtf you doing to me? You know anything coming from the Horford name all comes back to me! You don’t know the shit I know that goes down behind the scenes. Delete that shit NOW!”

Close?
 

Cellar-Door

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The league might feel more strongly about treatment of women in team offices than they do in players' homes.
The Dallas Mavericks situation made it clear that is absolutely not the case. Ime may or may not be back, but don't be fooled into thinking the owners as a group or the league office as their proxy has any interest in the treatment of women in their offices
 

NickEsasky

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I find it funny that people seem to believe that all reporting in these situations is merely the regurgitation of strategic “leaks” from interested parties. Does that sometimes happen? Of course. But Woj and Shams are excellent reporters with sources throughout every organization in the league. A story like this certainly would have become fairly well know throughout the Celtics. Good reporters work sources, who may themselves not be directly involved in what’s going on but who may credibly know the broad outlines, or even some specific details. In daily (hourly) journalism, you don’t wait until you have pieced together the entire story. You “go with what you know” and then update often with “new news.” Viewed through that lens, rather than one in which the Celtics have been spoon feeding leaks strategically to gullible reporters, the arc of the reporting in this story so far makes complete sense.
I think it's cute that you think Shams and Woj are Woodward and Bernstein here as opposed to access merchants who will put out what interested parties want them to (with vetting, sure) to maintain that access to be "first" with sports news so they get paid very very well.
 

Jimbodandy

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The Dallas Mavericks situation made it clear that is absolutely not the case. Ime may or may not be back, but don't be fooled into thinking the owners as a group or the league office as their proxy has any interest in the treatment of women in their offices
I don't think that they care that much about either. Just more about one than the other.
 

PedroKsBambino

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“Yo Sis, Avg Al here. Wtf you doing to me? You know anything coming from the Horford name all comes back to me! You don’t know the shit I know that goes down behind the scenes. Delete that shit NOW!”

Close?
That is at least my optimstic assumption---she spoke for herself initially and he let her know this was actually bad stuff going on---and that's how players feel.

We of course have no idea, but it's nice to at least have a fact that is reasonably interpretable as maybe showing players are ok with how went down. Maybe, hopefully, possibly?
 

PedroKsBambino

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I think it's cute that you think Shams and Woj are Woodward and Bernstein here as opposed to access merchants who will put out what interested parties want them to (with vetting, sure) to maintain that access to be "first" with sports news so they get paid very very well.
See, e.g. Chris Mortensen (who we know for a fact does not do the 'vetting' part)....and who is still employed by ESPN just like Woj.
 

Justthetippett

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The most likely situation here is that Ime's behaviour involved things that are not tolerated in today's day and age, and this is not some simple consensual relationship between people who happen to work at the same organization. I'm 100% sure the Celtics ownership absolutely did not want this kind of distraction, right before training camp, coming after a NBA Finals appearance, when they are trying to raise banner 18. This is a huge dumpster fire and my expectation is that Ime is done in the NBA.
i think chances are good he gets another shot in the league as long as it’s not criminal or extremely creepy behavior. He’s in his 40s. Came from the Pop factory. Had a great first year. Has the respect of players. For his sake, hopefully he takes the year to get his shit together.
 

Myt1

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This thread is pretty good evidence that the human brain is in no way equipped to deal with 24 hour news update access.
 

Van Everyman

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it's likely going to be a whole lot of nothing except to introduce JM
Perhaps but I think at a minimum it will give the team the opportunity to clear the air a bit about how fast this came together and why it came out piecemeal the way it did. Between Washburn and SAS (and Anna), there are a lot of voices who have suggested or accused the team of handling this at a minimum carelessly and at worst by using a double standard to punish a Black coach.
 

Cellar-Door

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My guess is it will be:

Ime violated organizational guidelines, after discussion it was determined that a 1 year suspension was appropriate, we won't be releasing details on the matter given the sensitive subject and in deference to the people involved. We hope to welcome Ime back in the future once he has reflected on the errors that lead to this situation. We will be moving forward this season with Joe as our coach, we have the utmost confidence in him. then a bunch of "I can't answer that" responses to questions asking for details.
 

Was (Not Wasdin)

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I think it's cute that you think Shams and Woj are Woodward and Bernstein here as opposed to access merchants who will put out what interested parties want them to (with vetting, sure) to maintain that access to be "first" with sports news so they get paid very very well.
I think this is really interesting point about who the leaker might have been. All those early stories, none of which were from the Celtics, hit the "consensual, intimate" pretty hard. Seems now like the "consensual" part might have been an effort on someone's part to get ahead of the story, and Shams and Woj bit on it.
 

wade boggs chicken dinner

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My guess is it will be:

Ime violated organizational guidelines, after discussion it was determined that a 1 year suspension was appropriate, we won't be releasing details on the matter given the sensitive subject and in deference to the people involved. We hope to welcome Ime back in the future once he has reflected on the errors that lead to this situation. We will be moving forward this season with Joe as our coach, we have the utmost confidence in him. then a bunch of "I can't answer that" responses to questions asking for details.
Agree with this but they'll also mention something about talking to counsel and doing a thorough investigation.

Oh, and I doubt they'll say anything about Ime's future other than he's not fired and obviously want the best for all parties.
 

bosockboy

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I think this is really interesting point about who the leaker might have been. All those early stories, none of which were from the Celtics, hit the "consensual, intimate" pretty hard. Seems now like the "consensual" part might have been an effort on someone's part to get ahead of the story, and Shams and Woj bit on it.
There’s a world where Udoka is the leaker.
 

JM3

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it's likely going to be a whole lot of nothing except to introduce JM
Sup

ETA my actual thoughts: I think maybe people should limit their hot takes to sports & not like casual racism, misogyny & accusing others of those things without anyone really knowing wtf is actually going on.

Hot take: MFIONDU will be 7th on the Celtics in minutes this year.
 

PedroKsBambino

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Agree with this but they'll also mention something about talking to counsel and doing a thorough investigation.

Oh, and I doubt they'll say anything about Ime's future other than he's not fired and obviously want the best for all parties.
I tend to think they'll say nothing about his future as well, though there is some reason they might (for the players to hear perception-wise) want to say he will be back/could be back.

Do you imagine Stevens is primary speaker, with Wyc there as well? Could be Wyc as speaker with Brad there, or less likely Zarren (who is the GC). But he may be on-stage, as may be whoever their outside employment counsel is.

Given rumors, probably not helpful for Pagliuca to be there and my recollection is he generally is not.
 

Jnai

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Apart from all of the other reasons the head coach can't have relationships with staff, how awful must it have been to be a woman working for or around the Celtics yesterday.

It's already an unforgiving and male dominated industry that takes tremendous ability and courage for women to succeed in, and then you compound that with an internet witch-hunt that name and picture drops a whole bunch of women who did nothing but happen to work for the team while the head coach had an affair.

What bullshit.
 

NomarsFool

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My guess is it will be:

Ime violated organizational guidelines, after discussion it was determined that a 1 year suspension was appropriate, we won't be releasing details on the matter given the sensitive subject and in deference to the people involved. We hope to welcome Ime back in the future once he has reflected on the errors that lead to this situation. We will be moving forward this season with Joe as our coach, we have the utmost confidence in him. then a bunch of "I can't answer that" responses to questions asking for details.
I would be quite surprised about the future part. Better not to say anything at all about that. There still may be further details which they don't know about. It would seem unnecessary to make any promised of future employment.
 

JM3

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Agree with this but they'll also mention something about talking to counsel and doing a thorough investigation.

Oh, and I doubt they'll say anything about Ime's future other than he's not fired and obviously want the best for all parties.
Yeah, my thoughts exactly. Just omit that sentence & CD is on point imo.
 

PedroKsBambino

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This is that world.

It's kinda obvious Udoka, or someone on his side, was the original leak that many posters in this thread blamed the Celtics for, no?
Not sure about that---if you are Ime do you prefer the chaos and speculation that has ensued, or would you rather have a clean announcement? If I were his agent I'd probably have preferred a "one year sabbatical" suggesting he needed personal time, and if team needed for legal reasons (e.g. threat of being sued) to say he was suspended I'd still have tried to position it as depression/substance rather than what he has ended up with. Maybe there's different PR theories there.....leaving him out there as "guy who did unknown but really bad things to one or more women" does not seem like good work by his PR team, though

Only reason for him to leak, seems to me, is if he was trying to impact the settlement discussion. I guess he could have hoped the leak would generate such a negative backlash that it allowed him to stay, but seems unlikely.
 

Murby

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This is that world.

It's kinda obvious Udoka, or someone on his side, was the original leak that many posters in this thread blamed the Celtics for, no?
I’m wondering about the woman in Udoka’s life and if she leaked it because the Celtics seem so vastly unprepared for this to get out. She must be steaming mad, rightfully….and this might be her move. This is all just a shame.
 

mcpickl

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I tend to think they'll say nothing about his future as well, though there is some reason they might (for the players to hear perception-wise) want to say he will be back/could be back.

Do you imagine Stevens is primary speaker, with Wyc there as well? Could be Wyc as speaker with Brad there, or less likely Zarren (who is the GC). But he may be on-stage, as may be whoever their outside employment counsel is.

Given rumors, probably not helpful for Pagliuca to be there and my recollection is he generally is not.
What rumors?

Has that been reported by anyone with some credibility?

I've only seen it in this thread by one poster, who said he heard it from a guy who really isn't his friend but is connected with the Celtics and told him.

No offense to that poster, but we're taking that as gospel now?

Lot of people here have run hard with that.
 

mcpickl

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Not sure about that---if you are Ime do you prefer the chaos and speculation that has ensued, or would you rather have a clean announcement? If I were his agent I'd probably have preferred a "one year sabbatical" suggesting he needed personal time, and if team needed for legal reasons (e.g. threat of being sued) to say he was suspended I'd still have tried to position it as depression/substance rather than what he has ended up with. Maybe there's different PR theories there.....leaving him out there as "guy who did unknown but really bad things to one or more women" does not seem like good work by his PR team, though

Only reason for him to leak, seems to me, is if he was trying to impact the settlement discussion. I guess he could have hoped the leak would generate such a negative backlash that it allowed him to stay, but seems unlikely.
If I'm Udoka, I much prefer the first leak which said it was consensual and made zero mention of the harassment.

He got almost a full day of people backing him for a consensual affair, that likely wouldn't have backed him if harassment was in the first story.

Kinda obvious to me.
 

mcpickl

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I’m wondering about the woman in Udoka’s life and if she leaked it because the Celtics seem so vastly unprepared for this to get out. She must be steaming mad, rightfully….and this might be her move. This is all just a shame.
Why wouldn't the part about him harassing her be in the first story if it came from the woman?

C'mon guys.
 

PedroKsBambino

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What rumors?

Has that been reported by anyone with some credibility?

I've only seen it in this thread by one poster, who said he heard it from a guy who really isn't his friend but is connected with the Celtics and told him.

No offense to that poster, but we're taking that as gospel now?

Lot of people here have run hard with that.
The fact I said "rumors" should, I think, make crystal-clear it is not being treated as gospel---I think you need to step back and take a deep breath.

It's been posted in a number of places as a rumor, which does not make it more accruate but does make it more prevalent. I have no idea if it is true. That it is being talked about---more broadly than just one poster here--is a factor in who is at the press conference whether or not it is a true rumor. So I'm speaking the reality of perceptions, acknowledging none of us know the truth here.
 

PedrosRedGlove

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So the original leaker comes out with a story that omits the harassment.

Story twists in the wind for a day with everyone speculating why punishment doesn't seem to fit the crime (or feels heavy anyways)

Different reporter (I think woj broke the first one) I think breaks part 2 of the story, which again has odd wording- the harassing behavior was reported later after three two parties has suggested to the Celtics that everything was consensual, but does not give a timeframe for when the harassing occurred (we are assuming it was later but all we know from report is that it was reported later).

Just beyond bizarre.
It has been a unusual, even if you acknowledge that these two can be as much team PR spokesperson as they are journalists.

The timeline is interesting (just going by what I see on Twitter for all of this):

Woj broke the news @ 10:35PM Wednesday, but only mentions discipline and a possible suspension and "unspecified violation of organizational guidelines"

Shams doesn't tweet until 12:50AM, but I believe is the first to break that it involved an "improper intimate and consensual relationship with a female member of the team staff" (Woj doesn't mention this until 10AM Thursday)

Shams has 3 tweets related: the initial break (after Woj), the official announcement of the suspension, and then last night's Athletic article which brought to light the new details about the team discovering in July and the woman recently accusing Udoka of making unwanted comments. Woj has 11 in that time, most of them lacking any substantial updates or insight.

They're reporting on it in very different styles. I don't follow them closely enough to know if this is just typical since Woj has to make clicks for ESPN, but they seem to have different sources. Shams is doing more real reporting and bringing new information to the table, Woj is leaking small pieces of vague information, and also seemingly trying to spread it like wildfire.
 

PedroKsBambino

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If I'm Udoka, I much prefer the first leak which said it was consensual and made zero mention of the harassment.

He got almost a full day of people backing him for a consensual affair, that likely wouldn't have backed him if harassment was in the first story.

Kinda obvious to me.
He got 3/4 of a day of that, yes. And now where is he for the indefinite future in terms of how this looks after the Shams addition?
 

mcpickl

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The fact I said "rumors" should, I think, make crystal-clear it is not being treated as gospel---I think you need to step back and take a deep breath.

It's been posted in a number of places as a rumor, which does not make it more accruate but does make it more prevalent. I have no idea if it is true. That it is being talked about---more broadly than just one poster here--is a factor in who is at the press conference whether or not it is a true rumor. So I'm speaking the reality of perceptions, acknowledging none of us know the truth here.
I'm breathing just fine, don't worry about me.

I'll ask again, have you seen these "rumors" from someone with any credibility?

If not, there is no reason for the Celtics to treat them as any reality if they're just being run with on a message board and wherever else these number of places you claim they're being talked about.
 

The Social Chair

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They're reporting on it in very different styles. I don't follow them closely enough to know if this is just typical since Woj has to make clicks for ESPN, but they seem to have different sources. Shams is doing more real reporting and bringing new information to the table, Woj is leaking small pieces of vague information, and also seemingly trying to spread it like wildfire.
Woj's sources are usually team officials, owners, and the front office. Sham gets his stuff from agents and players.
 

mcpickl

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He got 3/4 of a day of that, yes. And now where is he for the indefinite future in terms of how this looks after the Shams addition?
He's in the same place he'd be for the indefinite future if there were no first leak to Woj, except he got the advantage of the story looking better for him for 3/4 of a day and the advantage that lots of people remember the first story they hear about an incident, and don't really pay as much attention to follow up stories.

Again, who does the first leak look better for? Ime, or any other party in the matter?
 

Cellar-Door

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Woj's sources are usually team officials, owners, and the front office. Sham gets his stuff from agents and players.
my guess would be Woj got the "Ime is facing discipline" from someone in the organization. Ime's agent leaked the "consensual intimate relationship" bit to Shams, then someone in the organization sent him a "yeah it was.... BUT then..." text. Woj is sticking with the official line to avoid possibly getting dinged later for making a mistake and because the owners likely don't want mess happening in public any more than it needs to.
 

PedroKsBambino

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I'm breathing just fine, don't worry about me.

I'll ask again, have you seen these "rumors" from someone with any credibility?

If not, there is no reason for the Celtics to treat them as any reality if they're just being run with on a message board and wherever else these number of places you claim they're being talked about.
I responded to both those in my prior post, hence the commment about slowing down. They need to be managing for perception as well as for the truth (which they presumably know) not just the latter because they aren't going to share the full truth.

I do not expect them to figure out and message to every rumor out there. I do expect (and indeed, would be shocked if they are not) monitoring what's out there in media, discussions, etc. to figure out how they should be communicating at 11. We know for a fact the Red Sox would monitor this message board in assessing reactions to trades, etc....I don't think it is remotely surprising to suggest teams do this to understand perception (not to discern facts)
 

PedrosRedGlove

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my guess would be Woj got the "Ime is facing discipline" from someone in the organization. Ime's agent leaked the "consensual intimate relationship" bit to Shams, then someone in the organization sent him a "yeah it was.... BUT then..." text. Woj is sticking with the official line to avoid possibly getting dinged later for making a mistake and because the owners likely don't want mess happening in public any more than it needs to.
This is where I've started going. Shams's selective reporting could actually be viewed as favorable to Ime. The "intimate and CONSENSUAL" break was his, which turned out false and has now had to be amended... to the woman accusing Ime making "unwanted comments." I wonder if that will have to be amended once more details come out, and it's shown it was worse than simply "comments."
 

HomeRunBaker

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And Chauncey Billups. Ime is going to be just fine.
Beyond fine. He’ll be at the top of the free agent food chain next summer unless something else blows up with this. Udoka doesn’t even realize it today but he probably just got a pay raise with his next contract.
 

PedroKsBambino

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He's in the same place he'd be for the indefinite future if there were no first leak to Woj, except he got the advantage of the story looking better for him for 3/4 of a day and the advantage that lots of people remember the first story they hear about an incident, and don't really pay as much attention to follow up stories.

Again, who does the first leak look better for? Ime, or any other party in the matter?
No, again to repeat...there is no requirement that Ime's situation was announced as "suspended a year for consensual sexual relationship" There were other ways they could have announced it and positioned it. Those are what I am talking about.

If you assume (I think wrongly) that they had to announce it the way the first leak read, then sure...that's better framing for Ime than the later Shams article. But I don't see any reason at all to assume that is the case. And thus, that he must have been the leaker.

Here's the statement of the Timberwolves when they fired Rosas:

"Today the Minnesota Timberwovles parted ways with President of Basketball Operations Gersson Rosas. As an organization, we remain committed to building a winning team that our fans and city can be proud of.”

Are we sure Ime wouldn't today be better off if that were the first we heard about all this? Of course there would be questions (as there were about Rosas) and likely other stuff would come out. I can imagine the team thought better to soften the ground; can also see why they might not have wanted the leak.

If I were Ime's agent I'd probably prefer something like this, if you can get team to go along:

"Today the celtics announce that Ime Udoka is going to be taking an indefinite leave of absence to attend to personal matters. We do not expect him to return during the 2022-2023 season. We support Ime and his family and look forward to a successful season for the Boston Celtics"

If you were Ime, would you rather have that out there or the last 24 hours?
 
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DeJesus Built My Hotrod

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Apart from all of the other reasons the head coach can't have relationships with staff, how awful must it have been to be a woman working for or around the Celtics yesterday.

It's already an unforgiving and male dominated industry that takes tremendous ability and courage for women to succeed in, and then you compound that with an internet witch-hunt that name and picture drops a whole bunch of women who did nothing but happen to work for the team while the head coach had an affair.

What bullshit.
I agree and yet as we've seen, internet/Twitter sleuthing is something people do. Its not right but it happens.

That said, for those frustrated that the Celtics didn't just handle an inter-office relationship in house, it illustrates the real world impacts on the people who had nothing to do with this story. Its toxic and pernicious, even if there aren't questions about consent etc. There are a lot of Cs people dealing with a lot of fallout right now.