The Boston Celtics finally washed their hands clean of Ime Udoka after the embarrassment he brought to the franchise by breaking the organization’s code of conduct by having an inappropriate relationship with a female staff member. The Celtics have since suspended Udoka and most recently have allowed him to seek other coaching opportunities that may be presented to him during his time away from the Celtics.

As a result, Udoka is now a front runner to land the newly available head coaching position of the Brooklyn Nets after Steve Nash was let go earlier in the week. Udoka landing in Brooklyn was inevitable due to his relationships with the main components of the Nets, such as Kevin Durant, Ben Simmons, and the front office as Udoka was an assistant in Brooklyn prior to being hired by Boston.

When Brad Stevens and Wyc Grousbeck held their press conference about the situation, Stevens was in tears, apologizing in support of all the “talented women in our organization”. It was at this moment that I knew Udoka would never be returning to the Celtics in any capacity whatsoever and I don’t think it’s surprising to see that he won’t be. 

That said, we don’t know what was said to the team at the moment about Udoka’s future. However, it’s fair to say that Marcus Smart is confused about the outcome and it has me shocked. Here’s what Smart said to The Boston Globe’s Adam Himmelsbach on his confusion with why Udoka won’t be returning to the Celtics.

“Obviously, we wish he was here. We have no control over that. It definitely sucks. I guess it was deemed that whatever happened was enough for him not to be the coach here, but I guess not enough for him [not] to be a coach anywhere else, obviously.”

“His name got slandered and slaughtered and it was ‘He’ll probably never coach again. And a couple of months later, now he’s possibly going to be the coach of one of our biggest rivals? It’s tough. It makes no sense.”

”We obviously thought he’d be back, but obviously the team and organization felt a different way. Unfortunately, that’s the business side of it and we have to deal with it.”

These comments from Smart are fascinating to me in the context of the bigger picture. I understand all these guys are friends off the court but he is acting like Udoka didn’t do anything wrong. It’s unknown if the players know more of the details that occurred with Udoka, but it’s shocking to me that Smart doesn’t find the results to be adequate to his standards.

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Photo Credit: Kim Klement, USA TODAY Sports