In the latest episode of Men in Pro Sports Behaving Inappropriately – it’s an unfortunate never-ending series – the Boston Celtics suspended head coach Ime Udoka for the 2022-23 season for “violations of team policies.”
The statement from Boston did not detail those violations, but Udoka had a consensual relationship with a team staffer, a person familiar with the situation told USA TODAY Sports. The person requested anonymity because they were not authorized to speak publicly about the sensitive nature of the topic.
How much credit the Celtics deserve for their suspension of Udoka is undetermined. If the consensual relationship didn’t become public through the media reporting it, who knows if they would’ve just kept the issue in-house and dealt with it internally. Perhaps they planned to suspend Udoka regardless.
But once it became public, the Celtics acted, and it was necessary, accepting whatever damaging fallout there is. (Before this proceeds, yes, it’s impossible to ignore the optics of Phoenix Suns and Mercury owner Robert Sarver receiving a similar suspension for nearly two decades of unacceptable workplace behavior. I can only say Sarver’s penalty from the NBA should’ve been more harsh, and in Udoka’s case, it’s the team making the decision and not the league.)
CELTICS DECISION: Udoka suspended for season for violations of team policies
MEET JOE MAZZULLA: Who is the Celtics’ new interim head coach after Ime Udoka’s suspension?
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This is a rare punishment. It’s not often a team suspends a coach for any length of time. It’s usually the league suspending a coach for an incident with a referee or an off-court legal issue such as a DUI.
Whatever one may think about the private lives of two adults, what a team – or a business – can’t have is a person in power having that kind of relationship with someone who is considered in broad terms a subordinate and certainly not an equal on the org chart.
That’s why there are rules against that in many workplaces. Not only are executives not allowed to have intimate relationships with those lower on the org chart, if they’re having a relationship with someone in another department or at the same level, it must be disclosed.
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