The Official 2021-2022 NBA Season Thread

[JPhillips]

Woj is saying that the Celtics head coach is likely to be suspended for a year due to a consensual relationship with a staff member.

[bhlloy]

That’s nuts. Surely the decision is fire him or give him a slap on the wrist? How is he supposed to come back to the team after a whole year like nothing happened.

[miami_fan]

Originally Posted by bhlloy

That’s nuts. Surely the decision is fire him or give him a slap on the wrist? How is he supposed to come back to the team after a whole year like nothing happened.

Different circumstances for sure but the Red Sox brought back Alex Cora after his year long suspension. That being said, I don't expect him to be in the job next year. Once there is more reporting done, specific details will come out that will make his position untenable.

[stevew]

This situation is dumb. I guess they don’t want him to be able to coach elsewhere this year?

[larrymcg421]

The suspension is either way too excessive (if the reason given is accurate) or way too lenient (if it's something worse or nonconsensual).

[Atocep]

Joe Mazzulla getting his chance. He's been interviewing for some of the head coaching openings lately.

[Galaril]

Sounds like he had relationships with two staff members who were both married.

[Atocep]

Originally Posted by Galaril

Sounds like he had relationships with two staff members who were both married.

And apparently much more. Matt Barnes made a post in his defense and after finding out all that happened he deleted it and said it's "deep, messy, and 100 times uglier than anyone thought".

[miami_fan]

There has to be a better way for all of this to unfold right? I don't know what that way should be but this does not feel like something that the Celtics have known about for months. It feels like something that just popped up on Monday and the C's went out and hired the lowest bidder PR firm to come up with a announcement plan. Just weird all around.

[bronconick]

The only reason not to fire him immediately is that he'd probably be coaching the Nets in two months.

[Galaril]

Originally Posted by miami_fan

There has to be a better way for all of this to unfold right? I don't know what that way should be but this does not feel like something that the Celtics have known about for months. It feels like something that just popped up on Monday and the C's went out and hired the lowest bidder PR firm to come up with a announcement plan. Just weird all around.

Apparently the Celtics are saying this was a month long investigation and they knew about it long before that.

[miami_fan]

Originally Posted by Galaril

Apparently the Celtics are saying this was a month long investigation and they knew about it long before that.

I am not questioning the investigation, the right or wrong of the punishment or anything that happened prior to Woj's tweet. I am just questioning everything that happened after that. It's almost as if this was was an undercover operation. After a months long investigation, the initial result can't be a leak that Udoka was facing a lengthy suspension for violating team policies due to having an intimate relationship with a female member of the franchise's staff. Then after letting that sit for a day while every woman in the organization is painted with some sort of scarlet letter, they have a press conference that says trust us.

I am sure there are legal considerations, privacy concerns, and other things that I have not thought about. I just don't understand how they made the decision that providing less information despite a months long investigation in this case would be better for everybody involved. I hope by this time next year, these first few days make complete sense.

[stevew]

The staffer’s identity has not been revealed, but sources tell*TMZ*that one of her duties was travel planning—not only for Udoka, but also his longtime partner/fiancée,*Nia Long. Insiders say the woman organized Long’s travel for away games, and even assisted her move to Boston.*

Yikes.

[albionmoonlight]

I was looking at the NBA all time scoring leaders to see how close LeBron was to the top. And I was really surprised to see Carmelo Anthony is the 9th leading scorer all-time.

Once he fell off as a MVP-candidate level player, I stopped really paying attention to him and/or just thought of him as a has-been. If you had asked me to guess his all-time rank, I would have put him around 20th.

But he's been just putting up points for a long long time and is a top-ten all time scorer.