Report: Ime Udoka facing potential ‘significant suspension’ from Celtics

ESPN’s Adrian Wojnarowski decided to drop a late-night bomb on the basketball world Wednesday night, with this one centered around some potential in-house discipline for Celtics head coach Ime Udoka.

Uh, what now?

Woj’s tweet is honestly (and probably intentionally) about as vague as it gets. There’s really not a lot there except for the fact that Udoka is in some hot water with the team for some sort of violation.

What we do know is that Udoka’s violation comes from the organization, not the league itself.

That would indicate that it’s some sort of professional violation or something that’s not exactly sitting right with them from a team values standpoint. This doesn’t sound like it’s related to potential tampering with an outside-the-organization talent, such as Brooklyn’s Kevin Durant. Or perhaps it is. There’s quite literally no way of knowing based off what Woj said in his tweet.

A follow-up report from Adam Himmelsbach of the Boston Globe confirmed what Woj had reported, but didn’t offer any additional insight as to the nature of the violation.

Hired by the Celtics in June 2021, Udoka helped get the Celtics’ heads right, and led the team to a 51-31 record, which was good for the No. 2 seed in the Eastern Conference.

From there the C’s embarked on a deep postseason, which included Game 7 wins in both the second and third round of the postseason, before ultimately coming up short against Steph Curry and the Golden State Warriors in the 2022 NBA Finals.

It’s presently unclear how long of a suspension Udoka would be facing should the Celtics choose to go that route with their second-year head coach.