Ime Udoka suspended for the 22-23 season
- Thread starter RedOctober3829
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I get that there may be reasons for leaks, trial balloons, etc.
I get that I know only a tiny bit of relevant information and am totally in the dark.
But...I worry that the leaks may piss of the players, particularly the ones close to Ime, and adversely affect the atmosphere around the team and the seemingly good relationship ownership and Brad had with the players, and that may adversely affect the team's prospects.
The good news is that there is a lot of time to address this, including by bringing in a HC who the players will like and buy into. And who can coach. That, to me, is the biggest key right now.
I get that I know only a tiny bit of relevant information and am totally in the dark.
But...I worry that the leaks may piss of the players, particularly the ones close to Ime, and adversely affect the atmosphere around the team and the seemingly good relationship ownership and Brad had with the players, and that may adversely affect the team's prospects.
The good news is that there is a lot of time to address this, including by bringing in a HC who the players will like and buy into. And who can coach. That, to me, is the biggest key right now.
It's almost like it's being done intentionally to leverage Ime into resigning so they can wash their hands of it. If I were a player, this would not sit well with me, particularly given all that went on over the summer with Durant and JB.
Because if the ORGANIZATIONAL philosophy is to not to permit fraternizing between employees, and they met, fell in love, and married all while working for the team, with no punishments, then it's hypocrisy to punish Udoka for similar circumstances (minus the wedding).
And for all those saying, "Oh, he could have anyone," how much free time do you think he had to meet people? I highly doubt he made an OKCupid profile. Everyone he met is likely tangentially connected to his job. And maybe he wasn't looking to just get laid; maybe he felt a genuine connection with this other person, or persons. If he was/is going through a separation, he probably isn't emotionally stable and prone to making decisions that he believes will bring him closer to being whole again. This may not have been some tawdry affair and we have no idea how happy the other party or parties were in their situations when they met. And it's easy to pass judgment from a keyboard, but we have to remember that people are, by nature, flawed and weak-willed more often than not.
Again, not excusing his behavior, but it's not like he could have pulled a Berman at some club; that would have made the news, too. He made a foolish, but human, error in judgment, but I find it hard to believe it was nefarious on either person's part. That type of relationship doesn't just happen without a lot of serious discussions.
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Fair point. He was not hand picked by the teams players. The team's star players advocated and supported his hire based on their prior work with him at FIBA.
Those are all good points.
Was listening to Z&B and they had a guest on who theorized that this has likely been in the works for weeks to the extent of having a third party perform an investigation to determine the scope of the issues. The timing of this all just feels strange.
There were some nasty comments on Allison Feaster’s latest Instagram post this morning. Social media is gross.
This is likely all true. Assuming no hint of coercion or power imbalance, I don’t think many people are judging Ime too harshly or implying he’s a bad dude or even that they would’ve done much different.
I guess the real question is how much can you trust someone’s judgment when they have the best job in the world, have a championship level team and still risk it all? People make mistakes and learn and grow, and I remember a great line in the Hagakure about how it can be better to trust those who have erred because they’re eager to reprove themselves and have already faced the consequences. But I also completely understand choosing to not go with the guy who clearly and deliberately fucked up already.
It's only doubt in the sense it hasn't been officially announced. If this was untrue it would have been refuted by now.
Not really. Making Mazzula the face of the franchise after you've punished the head coach for a lesser transgression is not remotely the same thing as having him on the coaching staff.
This will not play well in 2022.
Are they actually a “young team” in the way that you’re implying? Brown, Tatum, and Smart have now all had experience under multiple coaches and multiple GMs, have advanced quite far in the playoffs multiple times, have dealt with the Kyrie fiasco, the COVID bubble, some disappointing/underperforming seasons, contract negotiations, seeing some of their friends and teammates being traded away, and much more.
At this point, if they aren’t able to stay focused that’s on no one but them. Championship teams routinely face ridiculous levels of media scrutiny - GSW is a bit of an exception to the rule (although there was a backlash when Durant joined and they became a true “super team”), but certainly LeBron’s Heat teams and, going back further, the Shaq-Kobe Lakers got much, much more coverage and criticism than anything that will come from this Ime situation
Put me in the camp of.... Ime is a solid (perhaps very good) coach but he isn't that big of a loss on the bench.
Now the caveat is that if the Jays are really upset about how things went down or the new coach isn't respected, things could go sideways. But I don't think Ime is the next Greg Popvich or anything, if they have to find another coach it will be fine.
I definitely don't think losing him completely alters the on-court product this season.
Now the caveat is that if the Jays are really upset about how things went down or the new coach isn't respected, things could go sideways. But I don't think Ime is the next Greg Popvich or anything, if they have to find another coach it will be fine.
I definitely don't think losing him completely alters the on-court product this season.
I can't find anything beyond his initial arrest and suspension. What was the result? Was he tried, did he plead out, charges dropped? I'm all for not rooting for scumbags, but I also think people should be allowed to move forward with their lives if they've done their time/service and committed to rehabilitation. We lock up way too many people to begin with, getting arrested shouldn't necessarily be the end of one's professional life.
I don't have an opinion on Joe either way as I don't know what happened (which is really the theme of this thread...), but I don't think an arrest for DV as a 20 year-old, absent additional facts, should be immediately disqualifying. It certainly could be, but I would hope the Celtics have a full understanding of what happened and who he is now if he's going to get the keys handed to him.
Forgive me if I missed it, but is this being reported by anyone besides Incarcerated Bob?
Woj on NBA Today: Owners see this as a breach of trust and judgement. A sitting head coach has never seen this punishment. Five years ago this might have been looked at differently but this is 2022 and those in charge in Boston are looking at it differently. Thinks one year suspension is what is going to happen. Org is high on Muzzulla and stopped him from going to Utah.
Zach Lowe got older and looks like David Axelrod now. He doesn't want to rush to judgement.
Richard Jefferson: 3rd head coach in 3 years is rough for the Jays.
Woj thinks the 1 year suspension will be announced today. No guarantee Ime comes back, future uncertain.
Zach Lowe got older and looks like David Axelrod now. He doesn't want to rush to judgement.
Richard Jefferson: 3rd head coach in 3 years is rough for the Jays.
Woj thinks the 1 year suspension will be announced today. No guarantee Ime comes back, future uncertain.
Mazzulla was arrested in April 2009 for grabbing by the neck a woman (that he was living with) in an incident in a bar. He was 20 years old. He apparently had an issue with alcohol, got help, and hasn’t had any issues since. It hadn’t been reported that the woman was injured.
exactly. The calls to fire Mazzulla are absurd. Person had some trouble and seems to have taken care of it. No need to punish people forever for minor transgressions that occurred many years ago.
Everything you say is correct, with the huge caveat that we still have few real details of what happened. There's also the matter of the policies in place at the time that an SVP of the Celtics married a current or future team employee versus what they are today. If Ime's contract specifically said he needed to disclose relationships with team staffers and did not, then the reality is that he violated the terms of his employment and should be subject to discipline. There is also the matter that Ime is a highly visible team employee; nobody outside this forum cares about random SVPs. Fair or unfair, that is the reality.
If they are talking about a year suspension, there could very well be more to the story than just a weak moment on a long road trip after a few drinks.
I meant "whether he deserves his suspension or not", saying nothing official sucks. By now, they've had time to line up their ducks.
Yep well said. But the problem with running an NBA team (or being a fan of one) is that just about the most important thing to winning a lot of basketball games is getting and keeping some of the the truly rare talents and keeping them happy on the court--fingers crossed that what they're doing here helps that, encourages organizational wide professionalism and the like rather than just alienates folks.
Just conjecture, but putting together some of the pieces based on the reporting suggests that ownership or others likely asked him if he was engaged in a relationship and he denied it or didn’t give a full accounting. Put another way I get the sense there may be a “cover up” aspect to this that made Ime’s actions worse than if he freely disclosed that he had an encounter/affair/relationship/whatever with a team employee.
It's not a good thing by any means, but 10+ years later this isn't exactly Christian Peters.
Couple thoughts. I get the ownership stance. Yea it could be sour grapes about a family friend....OR...it could be that they want prove unequivocally that they are not the Next Stirling or Sarver. The Best way to do that is drop the hammer. Add in that Ime was warned and basically said screw it.
The days of sweeping this under the carpet....or given him a token week suspension is over. I suppose there is alot of middle ground between those 2 things and a year but at the end of the day a Work Place romance that could put the coach a senior employee and the team in a tight spot needed to be dealt with.
Mazzula is a bad look....NOW. But 27 hours ago it was a non issue. Probably woulda been best to bring someone from the outside (which would have prompted some real questions and been awkward) or Promote Stoudimire. Not sure how mighty mouses resume compared.
If JT,JB et al let this impact potentially the best opportunity they will ever have to win a championship.....then we have bigger problems. Unfortunately it just might. This team has been called ....."Soft" and "immature". If THIS impacts "Business" then maybe thats more true then we care to admit. JT (as an example...and the best player) Should be PISSED that Ime....did this. JT knows he cant hookup with cheerleaders or Amina or Abby. He knows it would be a shit storm. So why should Ime get a pass? JB for all his social activism should know that negative work place dynamics can and often do take the form of a management Male and employee female. And make no mistake thats whats happening here. Ime is the 3rd (Maybe even 2nd) most powerful person in this org behind Wyc and Brad. Flow chart be damned.....if he liked a staffer....male or female.. Technology or Janitorial staff.. ..that staffer would be going places. If he didnt....they wouldnt. We can try to spin it....but thats what it is.
I dont even blame Ime....at least not on a human level. As others have pointed out.....the heart is fucking weird....about half of us can easily say that the heart....or another piece of anatomy....got us into situations we KNEW was a bad idea. We KNEW we shouldnt do it....yet we let it happen sometimes for years.
The days of Ike banging his driver and continuing to be SHAEF Commander or JFK or Bill and the interns are over ,or at least are supposed to be. Or Perhaps we are trying to get to that point. And so sometimes to move us toward that point it even impacts our favorite sports teams.
To parse words or situations as "well maybe she didnt answer to him...." or "technicially she was a contractor not an employee" seems disingenuous at best and hypocritical at worst.
The days of sweeping this under the carpet....or given him a token week suspension is over. I suppose there is alot of middle ground between those 2 things and a year but at the end of the day a Work Place romance that could put the coach a senior employee and the team in a tight spot needed to be dealt with.
Mazzula is a bad look....NOW. But 27 hours ago it was a non issue. Probably woulda been best to bring someone from the outside (which would have prompted some real questions and been awkward) or Promote Stoudimire. Not sure how mighty mouses resume compared.
If JT,JB et al let this impact potentially the best opportunity they will ever have to win a championship.....then we have bigger problems. Unfortunately it just might. This team has been called ....."Soft" and "immature". If THIS impacts "Business" then maybe thats more true then we care to admit. JT (as an example...and the best player) Should be PISSED that Ime....did this. JT knows he cant hookup with cheerleaders or Amina or Abby. He knows it would be a shit storm. So why should Ime get a pass? JB for all his social activism should know that negative work place dynamics can and often do take the form of a management Male and employee female. And make no mistake thats whats happening here. Ime is the 3rd (Maybe even 2nd) most powerful person in this org behind Wyc and Brad. Flow chart be damned.....if he liked a staffer....male or female.. Technology or Janitorial staff.. ..that staffer would be going places. If he didnt....they wouldnt. We can try to spin it....but thats what it is.
I dont even blame Ime....at least not on a human level. As others have pointed out.....the heart is fucking weird....about half of us can easily say that the heart....or another piece of anatomy....got us into situations we KNEW was a bad idea. We KNEW we shouldnt do it....yet we let it happen sometimes for years.
The days of Ike banging his driver and continuing to be SHAEF Commander or JFK or Bill and the interns are over ,or at least are supposed to be. Or Perhaps we are trying to get to that point. And so sometimes to move us toward that point it even impacts our favorite sports teams.
To parse words or situations as "well maybe she didnt answer to him...." or "technicially she was a contractor not an employee" seems disingenuous at best and hypocritical at worst.
I have a feeling that there is some ongoing discussion/negotiation with Ime and or lawyers and the team is holding off announcing anything official while things are still a bit fluid. That makes some sense to me, especially if the leaks didn't come from organization leadership and they didn't start the clock on the media shitstorm.
You know what, maybe not, so perhaps I was remiss.
Although just doing it is knowingly violating a policy, so 6 of his, half dozen of the other...
Running an organization that takes ethics seriously is arguably more important than winning. Ask the Suns' soon-to-be ex owner.
This seems likely.
Maybe the leak was to get ahead of the story but given how messy this seems from a personal and maybe even legal perspective, the actual team response is likely to take some time.
On paper it seems Ime had the dream life. Head coach of a storied franchise, to the moon potential team and engaged to Nia Long.
The Million Dollar Question he is being asked by those close to him; WTF were you thinking? In all likelihood, all of it is gone.
The Million Dollar Question he is being asked by those close to him; WTF were you thinking? In all likelihood, all of it is gone.
I'd argue they are. The two star players are 24 and 25 and they are under the league average for average team age. Plus, I can't look past that they were plagued by composure/maturity/mental issues in last year's playoffs that frequently undermined their talent advantage forcing them to play more games than they should have and ultimately being a major factor in losing the Finals. I don't disagree that the maturity issues are growing old as an excuse, but until I see otherwise, I can't look past them being a major factor for this team.
The players probably understand what's going on because they aren't allowed to sleep with team employees either.
I don't think there's room for nuance here. Senior finance VP or Helen Robinson equivalent. You sleep with a high ranking person. Then you stop. Then you do t get a promotion, or get disciplined in any way shape or form. Employer is looking at potential for lawsuit
Ergo, keep your fucking pants zipped you fucking moron.
They didn't do either...Regardless of whether it should or it shouldn't, winning absolves a lot or at least buys you a bit more freedom.
You missed nothing. This entire thread is (sometimes ridiculous) conjecture at this point, which is fine as long as people are stating their guesses as such and it’s about all we can do given the lack of details so far.
I will push back on this. Ime was an unflappable force who seemed to have complete control over his locker room. He was well respected by almost literally everyone from players, to opposing players, to opposing coaches, media, organizational higher-ups, etc. Almost any coaching rankings would have him at the very least in the top ten coaches in the league. The Celtics had 100% nailed this hire. I'm not sure what you mean by "alters the on court product." If you are speaking to merely wins and losses, maybe. But Ime turning from a huge organizational win to an organizational cancer would hurt on multiple levels. I agree they can/could recover from this but it's not a minor blow.
Pure conjecture, but if this was a consensual affair with somebody peripherally associated with the team, but not a predatory, or power abuse situation, a year seems very excessive and reactionary to me. It’a very poor judgement on the part of Ime, and a violation of team policy. It certainly warrants some repercussions and accountability. But potentially blowing up the franchise for a year, and significantly damaging his career seems like going too far, IMO. All of which makes me suspect that we don’t everything, and there are more shoes to drop.
Yeah, we went through the full spectrum with Ime. He looked completely lost early on and then really turned it on and the team was rolling. He then took them to pretty much one good Game 4 4th quarter away from a ring. Instead of getting Ime with a year of valuable experience and improvements, we’re starting from scratch all over again. We are now about to introduce a whole lot of uncertainty to a team that is knocking on the door to the championship.
This team had found its groove under Ime. Now, it starts the process all over again. This isn’t a death blow to the organization or anything but it is a hit. How much so will depend on how good the new guy is.
There can be a reasonable debate about how much impact having someone other than Ime as the HC will have, but I don't think there is any scenario where losing ANY head coach would constitute "blowing up the franchise."
Perhaps it’s just an offshoot of my general opinion that coaching is not THAT important compared to the players on the court. As far as wins and losses. I’m more concerned about Rob not being back to full health than replacing Ime with Mazzulla and potentially Frank Vogel.
Again, we don’t know the details or how this will play out. If the Jays are truly upset about this, things could go sideways (but that’s getting back to who is playing on the court).
Ime is/was a solid coach with the potential to be more than that, but I also don’t think he is the second coming of Red or Pop.
Kind of interesting to think about, but in Ime's role with the Celtics how many people would he interact with outside of meeting with Brad Stevens or people under the employ of Brad?
One of the rumors that seems to have traction is it involves the wife of a senior VP. If true, how would they even meet, let alone to the point of "hey why don't you throw me those digits?"
Would have to think 98% of his job is being at the practice facility or at the Garden working with the team, or working with assistants scouting teams, trainers etc. Essentially pretty removed from the day to day operations of the Cs (marketing or sales for example) I would guess?
One of the rumors that seems to have traction is it involves the wife of a senior VP. If true, how would they even meet, let alone to the point of "hey why don't you throw me those digits?"
Would have to think 98% of his job is being at the practice facility or at the Garden working with the team, or working with assistants scouting teams, trainers etc. Essentially pretty removed from the day to day operations of the Cs (marketing or sales for example) I would guess?
And ethics is just one variable. An important variable to be sure. But this is a really, really hard thing to start Monday Morning Quarterbacking without knowing all of the details and how the process worked out. We probably will never know. We probably, legally, should never know all of the details.
There are legal ramifications. There are on-court ramifications. There are interpersonal ramifications. If I know business well enough that I'm certain that the people who got together to discuss what happens next probably are not 100% on the same page. The rumored one year suspension is kick-to-the-balls holding space to get some more time to see how it shakes out. They need to see how it shakes out because I'm not sure anyone can understand the impacts that certain decisions will make and the best decisions are ones that are measured. Whatever it was was probably very bad and they simply need to figure out what to do. And maybe one of those things is having Ime quit. Their worst possible outcome is this being litigated.
Seems like that might depend on how the players respond, which what my “potentially “ was based on.
SUPPOSEDLY she had all-access to and could be found on the parquet on game day.
Now, whether that all-access came about before or after they met was not mentioned.
Yeah this isn't just one of those "a coach is a coach" moments.
When Brad moved upstairs, there was a lot of talk around hiring an AA coach, a guy that could get the best out of players, someone with credibility and experience. A good mind, but having played in the league as a huge plus. Someone who could elevate the Jays a level and get the whole team playing more connected. The players certainly gave input on Ime and factored into the decision. Then he took them to the finals. Now he's being forced out after one year, and the team is leaking all of this stuff to the media rather than speaking out on the record. It would be a shock if the players don't develop strong negative feelings over how this went down. I'm not sure if people don't see this or don't think that it matters.
Now if Ime did something actually bad, fine. You deal with it. If he did something whereby the punishment seems like a gross overreaction to the players, it's going to take a toll.
Dozens and dozens of folks have All Access, including game day employees like security, scoring crew, PR Staff and more.
Hell, *I* had All Access before and after C’s games as did whoever I brought to the game with me, at least two dozen times when I was a regular there awhile back. And I was a friend of a friend of a staffer.
Strong negative feelings towards whom, though? If I were a player, I'd be mostly pissed at Ime for being stupid enough to put himself in this situation in the first place.
Also, I find it extremely unlikely that team leadership (whether Brad, others on the coaching staff, or the ownership directly) has not already been communicating to the players about this, or, at minimum, explaining in more detail why they can't share more information yet. If that turns out not to be true, and the players first learned about this via Woj's tweet, then yeah, the organization deserves a ton of blame. But I would be shocked if that's what happened.
