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    Boston Celtics Coach Ime Udoka Rose Fast and Fell Hard

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    Weeks after the Celtics abruptly suspended Udoka for the season, it’s still not entirely clear why. Some who have known him are struggling to make sense of the situation.Boston Celtics Coach Ime Udoka is at the center of one of the most perplexing situations in the N.B.A.Only a few months after he led his team to the brink of a championship, the Celtics suspended him for a year under mysterious circumstances, leaving the team in turmoil just weeks before the start of a new season. An interim coach has taken over, but confusion has taken hold: No one is saying publicly what happened, and people who know Udoka are wondering how he — a well-respected former player who used to work for FedEx — could be in this much trouble.“It’s unfortunate,” said Martell Webster, one of Udoka’s former N.B.A. teammates. “But rules are rules, and when you sign a contract and you’re on salary, you’re saying that you agree to the rules.”The Celtics have said only that they were suspending Udoka for the 2022-23 season for unspecified “violations of team policies.” According to two people with knowledge of the situation who were not authorized to discuss it publicly, Udoka had a relationship with a female subordinate.After the suspension was announced Sept. 22, Udoka, 45, released a statement to ESPN that said, “I want to apologize to our players, fans, the entire Celtics organization, and my family for letting them down.”The actress Nia Long, with whom Udoka has a young son, asked for privacy in a statement to TMZ.Udoka, center, coached the Celtics to the Eastern Conference’s second-best record last season after they struggled for several months.Nick Wosika/USA Today Sports, via ReutersUdoka’s influence in basketball goes far beyond the Celtics, and even beyond the N.B.A.The youngest of three siblings, Udoka grew up in Portland, Ore., where financial hardship was a way of life for his family. His father, Vitalis, was a Nigerian immigrant who worked long hours as a laborer. His mother, Agnes, would huddle with her children around a gas oven to keep them warm whenever the electricity was shut off at their apartment, according to the Boston Globe.One constant for Udoka, though, was basketball. He hopscotched around as a college player, enrolling at Eastern Utah junior college and the University of San Francisco before he spent his final two seasons at Portland State, where he was known for his stout defense before a knee injury ended his senior year. He developed a reputation for tenacity and a strong work ethic.“Ime was incredibly driven to excel at basketball,” said Derek Nesland, one of Udoka’s teammates at Portland State. “He only knew one way to play. And that was really with everything he had.”Nesland met Udoka as a teenager but became close with him in college. He kept in touch with Udoka after they both left the program, as did other teammates. Even from a distance, the news that Udoka had become a head coach in the N.B.A. was something to celebrate, even though it wasn’t a surprise.“We actually had a group text chat with a lot of our guys that played with him,” Nesland said. “And you had a lot of players who had never rooted for the Celtics in their lives were now all of a sudden Celtic fans, just for Ime. And we all wanted to see him succeed.”Udoka was not selected in the N.B.A. draft after college and joined the Fargo-Moorhead Beez, a minor league team in North Dakota. A few weeks into the season, he hurt his knee again. He spent months doing odd jobs that included loading boxes for FedEx, then toiled for several years on pro basketball’s periphery in the N.B.A.’ s developmental league and on European teams.Toward the end of the 2005-6 season, Udoka signed with the Knicks and appeared in eight games — enough time for him to impress Isiah Thomas, then the team’s general manager: Thomas told Udoka that he would make a good coach someday.Kumbeno Memory, one of Udoka’s closest friends, said in an interview last season that Udoka told him about the conversation with Thomas. “And he was like, ‘I know I’m being a good mentor to some of the younger guys, but am I really cut out to be a coach?’ ” Memory said.The following season, Udoka signed with the Portland Trail Blazers and got similar feedback from Nate McMillan, then the team’s coach. Webster, one of Udoka’s teammates that season, said in an interview last week that Udoka was a total pro: early to practice, always prepared.“He was really like a coach on the court,” Webster said. “He wasn’t spectacularly athletic or anything like that, but he always knew how to play the game, and he knew that his mind for the game needed to supersede having athletic ability.”Udoka spent the next four seasons with the San Antonio Spurs and the Sacramento Kings. He was also moonlighting as an A.A.U. coach in the Portland area with Memory and another childhood friend, Kendrick Williams.In an interview last season, Udoka said he learned to coach players as individuals at the A.A.U. level. The job, he said, was not one size fits all. Gregg Popovich, Udoka’s coach in San Antonio, also drove that message home.“How you could coach one guy and what you could say and how you could say it was totally different,” Udoka said. “Pop would talk about the relationship part, and that was what it was — especially at that age. Gaining their trust and showing how much you care about them.”By 2012, Udoka was out of the N.B.A. and playing in Europe again. After a few months with UCAM Murcia, a club in Spain, he joined some friends in Las Vegas to watch the N.B.A.’s summer league. He was about to turn 35 and wondering whether he wanted to go back overseas for another season.One afternoon, Popovich called to offer him an assistant coaching job with the Spurs.“I remember it being a really hard decision, and we’re sitting there talking for hours about it,” Mike Moser, who came to know Udoka through his A.A.U. team, said in an interview last season. “Finally, he decided: ‘I’m going to take it. I’m going to do it. I’m going to coach.’ And I remember being so surprised. But I’ll never forget it.”Udoka spent seven seasons as an assistant in San Antonio. One of those seasons resulted in a championship. Udoka also had one-season stints with the Philadelphia 76ers and the Nets before the Celtics hired him in June 2021 to his first head coaching job.Many of his A.A.U. players have remained loyal to him, and vice versa. Two of them, Moser and Garrett Jackson, now work in player development for the Celtics. Jackson was among Udoka’s earliest hires last season, and Moser joined the Celtics this season.Now it’s unclear whether Udoka will return to the team.Celtics guard Marcus Smart, right, expressed support for Udoka during the team’s media day last month. Smart was named the defensive player of the year last season.Andy Lyons/Getty ImagesHe had surprising success in his first season, leading a team of rising young stars to the N.B.A. finals, where they lost to Golden State in six games. And though several players have supported him while expressing uncertainty about what led to his punishment, the team’s ownership has been less reassuring. Wyc Grousbeck, the Celtics’ majority owner, said the team had not decided if — or under what circumstances — Udoka would be welcomed back.With so little publicly known about why he was sent away in the first place, it’s difficult for fans, and even those who have known him, to make sense of the situation. A representative for Udoka did not respond to a request for comment. Joe Mazzulla, 34, one of Udoka’s assistant coaches, will be the interim head coach this season.“There are certain people you run across in life where you could expect this to happen,” said Nesland, Udoka’s college teammate. “I didn’t with him. I can’t imagine what’s going on behind the scenes.” More

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      Boston Celtics Players ‘Shocked’ by Coach Ime Udoka’s Suspension

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      Boston’s Jayson Tatum and Jaylen Brown said they had not spoken to Coach Ime Udoka since the team announced his full-season suspension on Thursday.CANTON, Mass. — Jayson Tatum of the Boston Celtics said he was preparing for the start of training camp last week when he learned that Ime Udoka, the team’s head coach, could have been facing a lengthy suspension. But Tatum was not privy to any inside information, he said. So, how did he learn the news?“On Twitter,” he said. “Like everybody else.”Tatum was among the Celtics players who, on Monday, spoke publicly for the first time since the team announced Thursday that it had suspended Udoka for the 2022-23 N.B.A. season for unspecified “violations of team policies.” One by one, the players appeared on a dais for the team’s media day and, facing a bank of cameras and reporters, said they knew little about what had led to Udoka’s punishment.Marcus Smart: “It’s been hell for us. Just caught by surprise. No one really knows anything, so we’re just in the wind like everybody else. Last couple of days have been confusing.”Jaylen Brown: “Nobody really has any of the information.”Grant Williams: “I don’t know the facts.”For the players, Udoka’s absence — along with the secretive nature of the investigation into his misconduct — has been a troubling development as they try to reorient themselves for another crack at a championship run after losing to Golden State in the N.B.A. finals last season.One person briefed on the matter who was not authorized to speak publicly about it said Udoka had an inappropriate relationship with a female team employee. Another person who had been briefed said that Udoka’s violations involved one woman.Boston’s Jaylen Brown, left, is in his seventh season with the Celtics. He was the team’s second-leading scorer last season, Udoka’s first as head coach.Ezra Shaw/Getty Images“As far as initial reactions, I think we were all shocked at what was going on — a little confused,” Brown said. “But a lot of the information wasn’t being shared with us, or with members of the team, so I can’t really comment on it.”A Celtics spokesman declined to say how many violations there were.In a news conference last week, Wyc Grousbeck, the team’s majority owner, cited “privacy reasons” in declining to elaborate on the nature of Udoka’s misconduct. The Celtics’ decision to suspend Udoka came after a monthslong investigation by an independent law firm, Grousbeck said.On Monday, Tatum, Brown and Smart were among the team’s high-profile players who indicated that they did not know about the investigation while it was happening. In fact, Smart said, Udoka had recently visited him and a couple of teammates in Los Angeles. Smart was asked if anything about Udoka’s behavior struck him as unusual while he was in California.“Not to me,” he said. “I think that’s why we got so caught off guard, because it just seemed so normal.”Vague reports about Udoka’s situation emerged on social media Wednesday. At a team meeting the following day, few details were shared with players, Tatum said.“There wasn’t any more information that we found out than the things you guys heard,” Tatum said, adding: “It’s hard for me to answer if things were handled the right way or if they weren’t because, I guess for a lot of reasons, I don’t know all the details. I just don’t know.”Tatum and Brown, the team’s top two scorers last season, both said they had not spoken with Udoka since he was suspended. “It’s a lot to process,” Tatum said.Joe Mazzulla, 34, whom the Celtics hired as an assistant in 2019, will be the team’s interim head coach this season. Brad Stevens, the Celtics’ president of basketball operations and Udoka’s predecessor, said last week that Mazzulla was the best choice for the role “by a long shot.” Mazzulla, who played college basketball at West Virginia, was previously the head coach at Fairmont State, a Division II college in West Virginia.As a college player, Mazzulla twice pleaded guilty to disorderly conduct charges, according to multiple news reports at the time — first, when he was accused of scuffling with police at a Pittsburgh Pirates game, and later after he was accused of grabbing a woman at a bar.“Listen, I’ve made mistakes,” Mazzulla said Monday. “I’m not perfect. I’ve hurt people, and I’ve had to use the situations I put myself in as a younger man to learn from and become a better person. That’s what I’ve tried to focus on: How can I re-create my identity as a person? How can I rely on my faith? And how can I just have a positive impact on the people around me?”Brown, who was the subject of trade rumors in the off-season after Kevin Durant asked to be moved from the Nets, was among the players who offered Mazzulla a public vote of confidence.“I believe in Joe,” Brown said. “Joe believes in me. I’ve had conversations with him. I don’t think he sees a limit on my game. I think he’s coming in excited, so I’m optimistic.”Joe Mazzulla, who had been an assistant coach for the Celtics since 2019, will be the interim head coach during Udoka’s suspension this season.Paul Rutherford/USA Today Sports, via ReutersMalcolm Brogdon, a veteran guard who was traded to the Celtics from the Indiana Pacers in July, said he was struck by Mazzulla’s self-discipline. Over the summer, Brogdon said, Mazzulla often beat the players to the team’s training center to lift weights each morning.One day, Mazzulla noticed that Brogdon was using a balloon to do breathing exercises. Mazzulla told Brogdon that he was a fan of breathing exercises, too.“He started explaining the theories behind them and the psychology of it,” Brogdon said. “So he’s a guy that’s paying attention to everything.”Still, Mazzulla acknowledged some of the realities of the situation: that people throughout the Celtics organization need time to “feel and heal,” that he never anticipated being in this position and that he likely will need to learn on the job.The players, too, seem aware of the challenges ahead of them.“Everything that we started to build,” Smart said, “is starting over in a sense.” More

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      Danny Ainge Retires as Celtics President

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      Ainge, who played for the Celtics in the 1980s, had been in the role since 2003. He will be replaced by Brad Stevens, who had coached the team for the past eight seasons.Danny Ainge retired as the president of basketball operations for the Boston Celtics on Wednesday and was replaced by the team’s coach, Brad Stevens, whom Ainge hired in 2013 out of the college ranks. It was a stunning change at the top of the franchise that Ainge ran for nearly two decades. Stevens has no front office experience, though as the head coach he gave input on roster moves.The announcement came a day after the Nets beat the Celtics in Game 5 of their first-round series to eliminate them from the playoffs, capping a disappointing season. Ainge, flanked at a news conference by two Celtics owners and Stevens, said that the decision to step down was entirely his and that he began thinking about doing so two years ago, when he had a heart attack during the 2019 playoffs.“I trust my instincts,” Ainge said. “My instincts told me a couple months ago that it was time for me to move on. That’s what is best for us. That’s what’s best for the Celtics.”Wyc Grousbeck, the majority owner of the Celtics, said: “For the record, Danny came and said it’s his time. It’s completely his decision with no support whatsoever from ownership in making that decision. No support was offered except for wishing him the best once it became clear that was his decision.”Ainge, 62, and Stevens, 44, said they had casually discussed the possibility of Stevens inheriting Ainge’s job in the past. Grousbeck called elevating Stevens to the front office a “natural promotion from within.”“He was at the table here with Danny in the war room and all of our roster decisions along the way for the eight years, which has had a number of notable successes,” Grousbeck said.Ainge’s hiring was one of the first moves Grousbeck and Stephen Pagliuca made after purchasing the Celtics in 2003. The Celtics had made the 2002 Eastern Conference finals, led by Antoine Walker and Paul Pierce, but had not won a championship since 1986, when Ainge played in Boston’s backcourt. Rather than building on that success, Ainge blew up the team, including a trade of Walker.In 2007, he pulled off two trades that revitalized the franchise, for Ray Allen and for Kevin Garnett. The moves were considered risky, but almost overnight, Boston became a championship contender. The Celtics defeated the Los Angeles Lakers in the 2008 N.B.A. finals for the franchise’s first championship in 22 years.Since then, Ainge has kept the team competitive, in part through shrewd moves like trading Pierce and Garnett to the Nets for the draft picks that became Jayson Tatum and Jaylen Brown. But some of his moves backfired. In 2017, he traded one of those Nets picks and guard Isaiah Thomas for Kyrie Irving, then a disgruntled star with the Cleveland Cavaliers. After the 2018-19 season, Irving spurned the Celtics and signed with the Nets in free agency.Brad Stevens made three appearances in the conference finals over eight seasons as head coach.Sarah Stier/Getty ImagesEven before Ainge was hired by the Celtics, he was revered by fans for his play on two Boston championship teams. He is the only figure in Celtics history to win rings both as a player and an executive.On Wednesday, Ainge did not rule out working in basketball again. He said his immediate goal was to assist Stevens with the transition. “I’ll think about the future somewhere in the future,” Ainge said.Among the first decisions Stevens has to make is who will succeed him as coach. He was an unexpected hire when he replaced Doc Rivers in 2013. Stevens had spent six years as the men’s basketball coach at Butler, where he orchestrated several cinderella runs in the N.C.A.A. tournament. As an N.B.A. coach, Stevens went 354-282 over eight seasons and made the playoffs in seven times, including three trips to the Eastern Conference finals.“I’m looking forward to really diving into this process,” Stevens said. “I think that the good news about whoever we hire, they don’t have to fill Doc Rivers’s shoes like I did and they don’t have to fill Danny Ainge’s shoes now like I do. The good news is they have to figure out a way to be better than the last guy.”Much of the Wednesday afternoon news conference served as a tribute to Ainge, who had been criticized over the past week for saying in a radio interview that he had not heard about racism toward players at the Celtics’ arena in his 26 years with the team. His comment was in response to a remark from Irving, who had asked Boston fans not to be belligerent or racist when the Nets came there for Games 3 and 4 of their first-round series. A fan was arrested at Game 4 in Boston after throwing a bottle that nearly hit Irving in the head, and many athletes over the years have spoken out about racism they experienced in Boston.“I’ve been in professional sports for 44 straight years,” Ainge said on Wednesday. “And I’ve had a lot of ups and downs and fun and sad losses. Today is not a great day. I wish we would’ve finished the year on a much better note but I feel like there’s so much hope in the Celtics going forward.” More