Woj/Shams: Ime Udoka Suspended for 2022-23 Season - Inappropriate Relationship, Conduct Violations

[azcatz11]

When you guys find out how old one of them was, you’ll know why the “consensual” part started being backtracked.

That doesn't really make sense in the case of the Boston Celtics organization side of things. For the woman or women involved within the Celtics organization, unless it was a minor or that that person was raped it was consensual. If there are others outside of that that's another story and not related in the discussion of consequences as it pertains to Celtics employment.

She wasn’t a minor — think in terms of someone around college aged.

Why don’t you just tell us what you know and stop with the games?

[BoatsNZones]

Excuse me if I come off as ignorant but Malika Andrews seems to be coming off very biased in favor of the woman or women involved in this.

The organization put out the word "consensual" which means both sides took part and agreed. So right off the bat, the woman or women involved in this are EQUALLY in this as much as Udoka. Yet she wants to pretend like facts are being missed and people are just speculating. 1+1 = 2. You can't argue against logic. Short of Udoka harassing someone against their will, both parties took part in this. You can argue about how he could've used his position of power to manipulate someone and the rest of the stuff about unwanted advances which is a separate thing all together, but I'm sorry that doesn't fly as an excuse for someone to just partake so that alone is something that should warrant consequences. People want equality yet they'll make excuses for one gender over the other when these things go down. I really wonder how much yapping there would be from someone like Andrews if the head coach was a Female and it was man in the organization that was involved at a lower level position. I know none of this matters in the grand scheme and the woman will be equally fired (if they're not hypocrites in the Celtics org at least) but this was a bad look for ESPN with how Andrew came off.

Plenty of insiders are indicating it was a harassment and multi person issue. He's not getting this punishment for a standard fling my guy (and certainly wouldn't be the first coach to have one).

[rilamann]

Am I too late to make a load management joke?

Shoot.

[HardenGoat]

Abuse of power for very unethical personal gain. That’s my guess. A sexual addiction case

[California Gold]

Excuse me if I come off as ignorant but Malika Andrews seems to be coming off very biased in favor of the woman or women involved in this.

The organization put out the word "consensual" which means both sides took part and agreed. So right off the bat, the woman or women involved in this are EQUALLY in this as much as Udoka. Yet she wants to pretend like facts are being missed and people are just speculating. 1+1 = 2. You can't argue against logic. Short of Udoka harassing someone against their will, both parties took part in this. You can argue about how he could've used his position of power to manipulate someone and the rest of the stuff about unwanted advances which is a separate thing all together, but I'm sorry that doesn't fly as an excuse for someone to just partake so that alone is something that should warrant consequences. People want equality yet they'll make excuses for one gender over the other when these things go down. I really wonder how much yapping there would be from someone like Andrews if the head coach was a Female and it was man in the organization that was involved at a lower level position. I know none of this matters in the grand scheme and the woman will be equally fired (if they're not hypocrites in the Celtics org at least) but this was a bad look for ESPN with how Andrew came off.

Plenty of insiders are indicating it was a harassment issue. He's not getting this punishment for a standard fling my guy (and certainly wouldn't be the first coach to have one).

I understand harassment may be one part of it. But there is in fact a punishment in itself for even being involved in such a thing in a corporate workplace environment. That's all I was really referring to - the rest of it is all on Udoka's side which may result in harsher punishment (sounding like that he's going to be let go once they figure out the money situation with his contractual buyout). But that doesn't excuse that there were two consensual parties and that they were involved in a workplace affair. The way this is all be construed is that because Udoka may have done other things that automatically makes one side the victim and all the responsibility falls on Udoka. There's multiple parts to it, and of the parts we know of thus far in the public eye we know that the relationship started consensually. The rest of the details aren't out yet and are all speculation for now.

[Crazy-Canuck]

Some weird takes.

Ime harassing a woman after it started as a consensual relationship, yet people want to say because it's consensual; it's ok because both are adults.

Stephen A is focused waaay too much on the word consensual in his first take rants. I think he's got some skeletons that needs to remain buried.

[garrick]

Why don't the same corporate rules apply to women? Such as no sexual relations or advances with/toward your boss?

First of all most upper management are males so the odds of women getting fired or punished for sleeping with subordinates is much much less with women.

The same corporate rules would apply regardless of sex if the corporation puts forth rules stating no sexual relations between managers and subordinates.

If it's really true Udoka started to harass the woman in question I'm waiting to see if LBJ says anything about the Boston Celtics punishment being too lenient, I'm betting he won't say anything though given his history.

Why does he need to comment on a case like this?

Because he just recently commented on the Robert Sarver case saying that the punishment wasn't enough.

If rumors are true that Udoka didn't just cross the line by having consensual sex with a female coworker but that it turned into harassment this case is actually way way worse than Robert Sarver's.

Don't get me wrong I do think that there is a lot of racism towards minorities that needs to stop but my non PC opinion is that minorities aren't immune from the same sort of behavior and it needs to be called out regardless of whether it's perpetrated by a white man or not.

“I gotta be honest…Our league definitely got this wrong,” he said. “I don’t need to explain why. Y’all read the stories and decide for yourself. I said it before and I’m gonna say it again, there is no place in this league for that kind of behavior. I love this league and I deeply respect our leadership. But this isn’t right. There is no place for misogyny, sexism, and racism in any work place. Don’t matter if you own the team or play for the team. We hold our league up as an example of our values and this ain't it.”

[MrBigShot]

First of all most upper management are males so the odds of women getting fired or punished for sleeping with subordinates is much much less with women.

The same corporate rules would apply regardless of sex if the corporation puts forth rules stating no sexual relations between managers and subordinates.

If it's really true Udoka started to harass the woman in question I'm waiting to see if LBJ says anything about the Boston Celtics punishment being too lenient, I'm betting he won't say anything though given his history.

Why does he need to comment on a case like this?

Because he just recently commented on the Robert Sarver case saying that the punishment wasn't enough.

If rumors are true that Udoka didn't just cross the line by having consensual sex with a female coworker but that it turned into harassment this case is actually way way worse than Robert Sarver's.

Don't get me wrong I do think that there is a lot of racism towards minorities that needs to stop but my non PC opinion is that minorities aren't immune from the same sort of behavior and it needs to be called out regardless of whether it's perpetrated by a white man or not.

“I gotta be honest…Our league definitely got this wrong,” he said. “I don’t need to explain why. Y’all read the stories and decide for yourself. I said it before and I’m gonna say it again, there is no place in this league for that kind of behavior. I love this league and I deeply respect our leadership. But this isn’t right. There is no place for misogyny, sexism, and racism in any work place. Don’t matter if you own the team or play for the team. We hold our league up as an example of our values and this ain't it.”

Why in the world would he say anything about the punishment being too lenient? They suspended him for a year, reportedly docked his pay, and are undoubtedly trying to protect themselves legally with the intention to remove him for the organization. He's done as their head coach, and maybe done as an NBA coach in general.

LeBron 100% hypocritically picks and chooses who holds to certain standards but the celtics gave Ime Udoka the highest punishment they could have. Him not being fired yet is just a formality.

[Onus]

Read on Twitter

?s=46&t=Af8GHpt_B2zIxo8kKaOnBg

This is the list of theories out there.

Add that the creepy text messages could be threatening and/or blackmail

Question: apart from the messages, is any of that actually considered illegal? Like is it illegal to bang a co-worker's wife or get other random employees pregnant?
I'm obviously asking assuming that it wasn't rape.

He’s not under criminal investigation as far as I’m aware so not sure what any law has to do with this.

Though the messages could get him in trouble with the law depending on what he said.

[Capn'O]

LeBron was playing power broker, not ethicist. He is not needed nor would him weighing in be valuable in this case. In the case of Sarver his message was more of a warning than a whim about the issue.

[WHITE_HOT_HEAT]

Can't believe it's still not deleted.

Read on Twitter

NBA players are the worst if it was a white man they wouldn’t say ****

I don't want this to devolve into anymore of a thorny topic, but it's gotten to a point in America where veering towards the extreme implementation of Social Justice is the norm. It's absolutely bizarre for the rest of the world.... Well rest of the world outside of core western allies that is. You also see increasing polarization, and society just going to crap because of this. It's the leading cause of far right backlash.

[JimmyPlopper]

Can't believe it's still not deleted.

Read on Twitter

NBA players are the worst if it was a white man they wouldn’t say ****

I don't want this to devolve into anymore of a thorny topic, but it's gotten to a point in America where veering towards the extreme implementation of Social Justice is the norm. It's absolutely bizarre for the rest of the world.... Well rest of the world outside of core western allies that is. You also see increasing polarization, and society just going to crap because of this. It's the leading cause of far right backlash.

I can count on one hand the number of American police officers that have offered me any amount of generosity or benefit of the doubt.

On the other hand, I have a minimum of ten serious confrontations with the police in which I have been wrongfully arrested, jailed, handcuffed or questioned. I am a family man in the middle class and my friends consider my mild mannered. This is crazy.

But could be entirely unrelated to this Udoka case in which people with lots of money at stake are doing ground work.

[Saint Lazarus]

Rarely agree with Stephan A but that dude was spot on today during first take.

Aside from that, I think it’s a huge overreaction by the Celtics. Unless something substantial gets revealed, idk what they’re thinking

We are living in a post-Deshaun Watson sports world and now we got people criticizing when they thinking sexual misconduct is punished too harshly

[JN61]

America is such a bizarre country and the poll even strengthen my argument here. As person who lives somewhere else I just don't see how this is reasonable reaction to this. In my country people would just be who cares, not my business. Americans being bellow heel of corporations is just something else.

Honestly it wasn't too long ago at all that I think something like this may have been swept under the rug even here in the US and we wouldn't have heard about it until someone started telling stories years from now. But it's evolved and you just can't do this stuff anymore. Your country will likely catch up soon.

My comment was on consensual relationship. I hope we never do. That is asine way of bowing down to corporate world and letting billionaires to dictate your life.

[Jfh20]

You kno what’s frustrating bout all of this… it’s ppl like sas and Malika making these bout race and sex… instead why don’t we judge based on right and wrong?? Right is right, wrong is wrong… stop with the oh she’s a woman so she can do no wrong, oh he’s black so we gotta cut him a break… ffs hold everyone accountable to the same standards… right is right and wrong is wrong…

[Jkam31]

This **** too funnty rn I’m with the homie I’m trying to **** annd she all over me but this thread gets me to that imma **** her anyways.

So cal!! I’m drunk by the way so imma laugh at this shhit in 6 hours

[Free Rider]

The Celtics just made the Finals. This suspension is unfair to their fans. Unless a law was broken, basketball should come first.

Blatant double standards in the basis of race as well.

Since it's being self-imposed and the Celtics have every interest to want their fans happy, it makes you think it's probably quite serious.

Exactly

It’s astounding that so many believe the Celtics would randomly decide to destroy their rising star coach for no good reason.

Although information material to the severity of the punishment has yet to be released, it’s safe to assume the worst.

Yeah, I'm surprised that that fact keeps being glossed over. This was punishment imposed by the Celtics not the NBA. The Celtics seemingly have every incentive to want to keep Udoka as their head coach given that he just coached them to the Finals and is by all accounts highly respected by the players and fans. For them to take such a drastic action as suspending their coach for a season, which effectively kills his tenure with Celtics, means that whatever happened must have been pretty serious to get rid of him. This doesn't strike me as just a consensual work affair that violated their employee conduct rules. Something far more serious must have happened because this all sounds like a cover your ass move. Personally I'd be shocked if this was just him sleeping around with another employee. The details will eventually come out but I think you're crazy if you think we have the full story so far.

[kobyz]

It was sex with under age girl who lie to him about her age

[Dubnation]

Am I too late to make a load management joke?

It's never too late.

[FlatearthZorro]

WHY THE HELL DO WE NOT KNOW WHAT TF HAPPENED YET? It's been 2 days of this **** and we still don't know any more than what we knew in the beginning. This is **** BS.

It's actually been a few months. This is an internal issue, and a public person happens to be a part of it. The other involved parties' names will remain private. All we need to know is that Udoka is suspended 'cause he did something against internal rules (which he agreed to when he signed his contract). He already acknowledged publicly that he ****ed up, which should be telling. The Celtics don't owe us any creepy details.

He made unwanted advances. We need to know exactly what he did so that we can decide whether the suspension was justified or not. I’m not saying the Celts owe us anything, but the public deserves to know what is going on because the longer they keep hiding it the bigger this story is getting.

I guess it wasn't pretty, cause if you saw the conference Brad and Wyc had, they called in outside law firm to conduct an investigation which lasted about 2 months. They didn't just throw the guy out. This was a long process, which probably costed Wyc a LOTS of money. My best guess here, is that the more stuff come out, the more it will damage Udoka.