NEWSLETTER
The entire Celtics-Nets-Udoka-Irving situation(s) going on right now is just an icky story that we can’t escape. The Celtics locker room is confused; Steve Nash was a fall guy, Kyrie is as toxic as ever, and now NBA Commissioner Adam Silver is stepping in. Let’s discuss this.
Celtics Locker Room Left Searching for Answers
With Ime Udoka now the head coach of the Brooklyn Nets, Celtics players have been left confused by the situation. Udoka went from the head coach of the Boston Celtics in the NBA Finals last season to being suspended by the team for the season, and now gone entirely and now coaching one of their Eastern Conference rivals.
“From what we know and were told, it was just a suspension. We didn’t know he was leaving to go coach somebody else,” Marcus Smart said. “We thought they just suspended him for the year and he’d be back. That’s why it’s confusing. We weren’t told too much about it.”
The Celtics locker room seems just as confused as the rest of us, who are still trying to wrap our heads around Udoka bolting from Boston to Brooklyn amid his year-long suspension.
“I think it left a lot of people just like, ‘What the hell is going on here?’ Because obviously, they suspended him for breaking a team rule. And it’s like, ‘OK, now obviously it looks like more than a suspension. But he’s able to still coach. So what exactly was the team rule and how big was it to the point they felt they needed to suspend him and then all of a sudden say, ‘You’re gone’ and allow him to go coach somewhere else?”
The Athletic’s Jason Lloyd dove into the puzzling series of events in a recent story:
NBA Commish to Meet with Kyrie Irving
NBA Commissioner Adam Silver has expressed his disappointment in Kyrie Irving’s most recent actions on Twitter and stated that he will be meeting with Kyrie in person next week to discuss the matter.
Outside of prompting an actual apology from Irving, I’m not sure what type of power to discipline Silver has in this situation, or if that’s something he is even exploring, but an in-person meeting is a mild gesture from the league office.
Still, even if Kyrie apologizes for his actions, it won’t be a sincere apology. Irving’s reaction to ESPN reporter Nick Friedell last week showed that he doesn’t see anything wrong with what he did, which is pretty much on par with the way Irving handles his business.
Kyrie puts on this wild front as some enlightened philosopher of life when in reality, he’s just a selfish and poisonous human being who has wreaked havoc at every stop in the NBA, Brooklyn included. There’s no denying the on-court talent that Kyrie brings to the table, but when will teams start to say enough is enough when it comes to his off-the-court behavior?
