It started late Wednesday night, a leak from the Boston Celtics franchise to the media.
Adrian Wojnarowski tweeted this at 11:02 PM,
ESPN story on Celtics coach Ime Udoka facing disciplinary action expected to include a significant suspension for a violation of organizational guidelines: https://t.co/R4xRzyOD8J
— Adrian Wojnarowski (@wojespn) September 22, 2022
Shams Charania at 11:50 PM posts this tweet,
Celtics coach Ime Udoka had an improper intimate and consensual relationship with a female member of the team staff, sources tell @TheAthletic @Stadium. It’s been deemed a violation of franchise’s code of conduct.
— Shams Charania (@ShamsCharania) September 22, 2022
On Thursday Udoka got suspended for the 2022-2023 season, yet there is still no guarantee that he returns as head coach.
Still the Celtics organization completely failed in the handling of the situation. Today there was a press conference held, with many expecting an end to the speculation of what happened. There were no answers there.
The reason for the press conference was due to what happened on social media. Internet sleuths attempted to identify who the woman was that Udoka had a relationship with. So Brad Stevens President of Basketball Operations for the Celtics released this statement, “we have a lot of talented women in our organization and yesterday was really hard on them. Nobody can control Twitter speculation, rampant bulls–t. We have a responsibility to make sure we are there to support them.”
Of note the only new information that has come out since the first report was that Udoka made inappropriate comments towards her. Still by the amount of attention it seems like it was much more than something he said.
Udoka did release a statement of his own and accepted the suspension and apologized for his actions.
On Twitter blame is now being placed on Charania and Wojnarowski for the verbiage that was used and the need to get the story out first. The reality is the Celtics organization deserves all the blame for the attention this has caused. Also, By suspending Udoka for the season for what seemingly was a consensual relationship it looks and smells like racism.
Also it does not look good to support women, than give out information to the media that only says that it’s a “female member of the team staff.” The Celtics organization was begging for the speculation to begin.
So with that being said Boston is going to definitely have a difficult time coming back from this unmitigated disaster.