It has been a wild few months in the NBA. We first had Kevin Durant requesting a trade which sent shockwaves across the basketball world and more recently, Draymond Green punched Jordan Poole during practice. The video somehow got leaked to TMZ, which made the situation a lot worse, and sandwiched between all of this is the Ime Udoka situation.
All this chatter on Draymond has taken the attention away from Udoka, who was the biggest topic of conversation after the Celtics suspended their head coach for the 2022-23 season for entering into a relationship with a Celtics staffer, which was against team rules. There is a lot more to this situation than what we have found out so far, but what we know for sure is that Udoka won’t be on the sidelines for the coming season, at the very least.
League Executives Do Not Believe Ime Udoka Will Return As Head Coach Of The Celtics
His assistant Joe Mazzulla has taken over as interim head coach, but there is no guarantee that Udoka ever coaches the Celtics after this suspension. He reportedly also had an affair with the wife of a minority owner of the team and it would appear the only reason he wasn’t fired was that it was the offseason, so they would have time to investigate. NBA insider Michael Scotto from HoopsHype has been talking to some league executives about the situation and they think Udoka won’t return as head coach next year.
via HoopsHype:
“I spoke with four NBA executives this week about the Ime Udoka situation in Boston. Each of those four executives told HoopsHype they don’t think Udoka will return as coach of the Boston Celtics after his yearlong suspension is done.”
Adrian Wojnarowski also stated that it would be a difficult pathway for Udoka to get reinstated as head coach next year, and it is a shame if things are indeed ending this way. The Celtics under Udoka looked set to be a force for years to come, but he messed it all up with his actions, which also put the female employees of the Celtics in a very unfortunate situation.
While Udoka’s time with the Celtics might have come to an end, it would appear his coaching career isn’t over yet, as there would be teams interested in him as he has proven to be a very good coach. Rival teams are trying to understand just how serious the situation is, as they are evaluating him as a candidate for the future.
