The reigning Eastern Conference champion Boston Celtics suspended coach Ime Udoka after a months-long investigation by an outside law firm that found multiple violations of team policies but did not point to a larger cultural problem of sexual misconduct, owner Wyc Grousbeck said Friday.

“We go to great lengths … to run the organization with the central core value of respect and freedom in the workplace from harassment or any unwelcome attention,” Grousbeck said at a news conference. “This feels very much, to me, like one of a kind. That’s my personal belief. But I’ll have to verify that.”

Neither Grousbeck nor president of basketball operations Brad Stevens would elaborate on the specifics of the violations or the private report that was delivered to the team two days ago. But a person with knowledge of the matter, speaking on the condition of anonymity because the details were not made public, told The Associated Press that it involved an inappropriate relationship with a woman in the organization.
— Associated Press, 9/23/22

Not to make light of anything inappropriate and/or possibly adulterous, but this whole situation could have been handled better. It’s not like the Boston Celtics were in uncharted waters navigating through a sex scandal. There are dozens of politicians, executives, entertainers who’ve been busted, maybe took a leave of absence, and eventually went right back to work.

But not the Celtics. They are in Boston surrounded by woke media writers who demanded a head on a spike for the indiscretion. The Celtics “zero tolerance” policy is one that would have been ignored by almost every political and business institution in the country. It certainly would have negotiated-down yet, ironically, it was a mostly white Boston sports media who went out of their way to make sure the city and nation knew Udoka’s actions would not be tolerated. There would be no insufficient multi-game suspension.

Ime Udoka had to go and the Celtics, very publicly, fired him.

Udoka connected with his young players because he was himself a former player of 12 years, among which he played for the Los Angeles Lakers, New York Knicks, Portland Trail Blazers, San Antonio Spurs and Sacramento Kings. He was later an assistant coach with the San Antonio Spurs, Philadelphia 76ers and Brooklyn Nets before being hired as the head coach of the Boston Celtics in 2021. In his first year with the Celtics, they came within two wins of winning the NBA title. The 2022-23 was expected to be very special.

Instead, he was seemingly banished from his profession for committing a selectively-enforced ultimate crime against women. Instead of a team suspension, an example was made of him in Boston and Udoka was shown the door. The Celtics gave the keys of the car to Joe Mazzulla, a 34-year-old with zero NBA head coaching experience.

That didn’t sit well with many people within and outside of the organization and the double standard was obvious to anyone with a set of functioning eyes, especially when ominous clouds hovered over the team during the NBA Conference Finals against the Miami Heat.

I have said it countless times over these airwaves and I’ll repeat it one last time. All of us in this business know plenty of folks in the world of sports or sports teams that had stuff going on in the office. It was an HR matter. We know people who have been fired for the same thing. We never heard a word. But now, everybody knows what Ime Udoka did because of the way the Boston Celtics handled it.
— Steven A. Smith, ESPN First Take, 5/22/23

Smith reminded his audience that mistakes the inexperienced Mazzulla made during the playoffs were ones his head coach predecessors in Boston would have not have made. Clearly preparation was lacking and while “living in the moment” sounded cute, there is no substitute for preparing a team for “situations” that only experience brings.

His players, also muzzled by the politically correct shroud in Boston, let glimpses of the frustration slip, especially when the unmentionable happened as the playoff were set to begin: Ime Udoka was hired to be the new head coach of the Houston Rockets.

The hiring comes nearly three months after the Boston Celtics suspended and dismissed Udoka for an improper workplace relationship, a situation the Rockets investigated with the league office and with the Celtics, among others, before making the job offer, sources told ESPN.

The hiring is a coup for Rockets general manager Rafael Stone, who helped sell Udoka on the franchise’s young talent, salary cap space and chance at winning the draft lottery and selecting generational talent Victor Wembanyama.

“Ime’s intelligence, drive and toughness were the traits we were looking for in a coach to lead our team through this next stage of our development as we strive to become a champion,” Stone said in a statement. “We were honored to have the opportunity to speak to multiple outstanding candidates throughout the interview process and felt that Ime’s vision best aligned with the goals the Fertitta Family and myself have for the future of the Rockets.”
— ESPN, 4/24/23

Obviously, “Ime’s intelligence, drive and toughness” was something missing on the Celtics bench during the season and especially when it was needed most: during the NBA Playoffs where the they were pushed to Game 7 twice against teams they should have easily beaten. Udoka’s hiring couldn’t have come at a worse time for the younger players on his former team trying to make a playoff run without him.

This locker room never got over Ime Udoka’s dismissal as head coach These players did not accept the organization’s reasoning for doing it. They thought it was a wild overreaction. There were a lot of the people on the outside who thought it was an overreaction. That it was an HR matter. This team talking with management never got any more answers than the public was getting on this. That doesn’t mean they haven’t accepted Joe Mazzulla as head coach, but this is a team that really believed in Ime Udoka and had a strong connection with him.
— Adrian Wojnarowski, ESPN, 5/22/23

But none of that mattered to the Celtics organization.

The Boston Globe had to be reassured. The liberal academics and institutions that pepper Boston like chicken pox had to be placated. The social elite and activists, many of whom don’t even know Boston has a basketball team or anything about the sport, had to be made to feel safe. And the team had to shut up and deal with it.

In the end, Steven A Smith had it right. Justice was served on the Boston Celtics organization. The team not only lost their last playoff game of the season, but it came in a humiliating fashion for all the world to see.

The team and their fans had to suffer and it was for a greater good, right?

Brooklyn Nets guard Kyrie Irving made reference to a “documentary” (currently available on Amazon Prime) and for that he was suspended by his team, lost millions in pay, and he’s been told he must get his mind right before he can play again.

Irving missed a seventh straight game due to his suspension after promoting an anti-Semitic movie on social media and initially refusing to apologize. He has been given a list of remedial tasks to fulfill in order to potentially be reinstated.

Pick that up, boy.

Boston Celtics forward Jaylen Brown, and an National Basketball Players Association vice president, isn’t taking this well and is alluding to what everyone is told is a taboo topic and the humiliation typically demanded of an accused offender….

Kyrie Irving has issued an apology on social media and met with NBA commissioner Adam Silver and Nets owner Joe Tsai, both of whom said they didn’t think the star was anti-Semitic. But on Saturday, when Tsai was asked by The Post about Irving returning, he said the guard “still has more work to do.”

Celtics star Jaylen Brown, who, like Irving, is an NBPA vice president, said Monday that Tsai’s comments don’t sit well with him.

“His response was alarming to me, I tweeted that out [Sunday]. He didn’t say that the organization was working together to get Kyrie back on the floor. He said that he had more work to do,” Brown said. “And our society has more work to do, including Joe Tsai. It’s 2022. It takes 10 minutes of time to see who these business owners, corporations, etcetera, who they’re associated with and who they’re doing business with, who they’re affiliated with. I’m vice president of the union, and it’s part of my job to protect our players legally,” Brown said. “And to see Phil Knight (Nike co-founder) first come out and condemn Kyrie, and also see Joe Tsai say he has more work to do — I think it’s time for a larger conversation. And Adam came out and said in a statement that he doesn’t believe Kyrie Irving is anti-Semitic, and yet he’s still suspended indefinitely.”
— New York Post, 11/16/22

It’s clear Brown is carefully dribbling around what’s clear to anyone who reads the large font credits after movies and television programming. And for groups like the Anti Defamation League to go for every once of blood, while ignoring the endless calls for diversity in Hollywood, that’s what’s problematic for Brown and millions of others who dare say the forbidden.

Because of his post and previous refusals to walk it back, the antisemitic film/book is now a best seller in multiple categories on Amazon. There is a lot more to do to undue this damage. Although we will not accept any funds from him, if Kyrie is open to direct dialogue to repair the harm that he has caused and to engage in a process of healing and learning in a sincere manner, ADL is open to engaging with him. Time and action will tell.”
— Jonathan A. Greenblatt, Anti-Defamation League CEO statement

Again, liberal Democrat types in politics and entertainment can repeatedly make racist comments and after a brief public penance and an all-clear from publicists, are allowed to continue on with their million-dollar careers. With the assistance of the media, it can be like the offense never happened. But when an obvious demographic fact is pointed out, careers will be destroyed until the sadistic “victims” agree if and when to back off the branding iron.

Hollywood is notorious for it’s tolerance and inclusion of verbal and sexual abuse, pedophilia, spousal battery, alcohol and drug abuse, racism, and in some cases, murder. For some strange reason, most of the offenders are still working to this day. You can get away with almost anything in the entertainment business, except saying two specific words in sequence….

Jaylen Brown is being very diplomatic in his pushback to the typical punishment to anyone deemed anti-Semitic but it’s also clear what he’s saying and given the power he has as a player association vice president, he full well knows what could happen if the ADL and others go too far this time in the demands and pressure to endlessly repent. Brown could conceivably call for a mass protest. Imagine an NBA with no black players on the court….

That might be worthy of a documentary.

On one hand, the left demands divestment on any entity that has interests in traditional apartheid governments while others get a pass. Sports is a prime example.

How do professional sports teams get the money to pay their athletes outrageous contracts? The main source is multi-billion dollar broadcast deals where television networks pay for the rights to air each team’s games. The United States is a big market but pales compared to what a country with a population like China lures, so care is taken not to offend a partner of that size.

NBA China and BesTV, a member of the Shanghai Oriental Pearl Group, announced on Sunday that they are expanding their partnership to deliver extensive NBA games and programming to fans in China. The NBA’s partnership with the Shanghai Media Group (SMG), the parent company of the Shanghai Oriental Pearl Group, dates back to the 1996-97 NBA season.

As the Official Multimedia Partner of the NBA in China, BesTV and SMG’s extensive media platforms will offer nearly 1,300 NBA games to viewers each year.
— China Daily, 10/10/16

Geopolitics can make business relationships contentious and one example is the documented slave labor in China, specifically of the Uyghurs, who are forced to produce goods for Abercrombie & Fitch, Amazon, GAP, H&M, Jack & Jones, Sharp, Siemens, Skechers, ASUS, Apple, Samsung, Huawei, BMW, Volkswagen, Sony, Polo Ralph Lauren, Puma, Victoria’s Secret, Vivo, Fila, Adidas, Puma, Huawei, Lenovo, and Nike (specifically) NBA merchandise that personally and financially benefits players. Many high-profile players like Los Angeles Lakers LeBron James will interject himself into American politics on race issues while defending human rights abusers as to not negatively affect his wallet.

Yes, we all do have freedom of speech. But at times, there are ramifications for the negative that can happen when you’re not thinking about others and you’re only thinking about yourself. So many people could have been harmed — not only financially, but physically, emotionally, spiritually. Just be careful about what we tweet, what we say and what we do. Yes, we do have freedom of speech, but there can be a lot of negative that comes with that, too.
— LeBron James, 10/15/19

Other liberals benefiting from financial arrangements with the Chinese communists have chosen to look the other way in silence. One decided to speak out and it didn’t go well. During a recent “All-in-Podcast episode, billionaire investor Chamath Palihapitiya spoke with fellow liberals and it didn’t go well. Most networks reporting on his honest assessment of the Uyghur plight only played a short clip of his offending comments.

It was a striking comment for someone who excoriated his fellow venture capitalists back in 2017 for being a bunch of “well-intentioned, soulless cowards.” Palihapitiya soon after released statements calling for “nuanced discussion” and saying that the clip was taken “out of context.”
— New York Magazine, 1/18/22

Here’s the full segment, in context….

While it’s commendable that Palihapitiya believes we should take care of Americans before we save the world, he conveniently failed to mention that almost everything the Democrat left has done to “help” blacks, in particular, has only made things much worse.

Needless to say, the blowback from his comments were swift.

In a statement released Monday, the Golden State Warriors said, “Mr. Palihapitiya does not speak on behalf of our franchise, and his views certainly don’t reflect those of our organization.” Mr. Palihapitiya is a limited investor who has no day-to-day operating functions with the team, it added.

His comments on the podcast drew condemnation on Twitter.

Boston Celtics center Enes Kanter Freedom wrote, “When @NBA says we stand for justice, don’t forget there are those who sell their soul for money & business like @chamath the owner of @warriors.”

 Mr. Palihapitiya is no minor player with a loose cannon of a mouth.

A Sri Lankan immigrant to Canada whose family got by on welfare payments when he was a child, Mr. Palihapitiya graduated from the University of Waterloo and worked at Bank of Montreal before moving to the U.S. during the dot-com era. He joined Facebook in 2007 to help grow its user base after stints at a venture-capital firm and America Online. He left Facebook in 2011 after he said Chief Executive Mark Zuckerberg denied his request to start a cellphone business, and later emerged as a critic of his former employer.
— Wall Street Journal, 1/18/22

Virgin Galactic distanced itself Tuesday from Chamath Palihapitiya, the chairman of its board of directors, after he declared on a podcast that “nobody cares” about China’s human rights abuses toward Uyghurs.
— New York Post, 1/18/22

The western world has been very kind and generous to Chamath Palihapitiya and his family. He’s been able to achieve and live a very comfortable life, thanks to nations that cared enough about the plight of those in shithole countries to allow his family to flee genuine poverty.

His callous indifference to those less blessed is so… progressive.

First off, the event in question happened in the Massachusetts armpit of Springfield where the Basketball Hall of Fame is located; not in Boston during the Celtics game. And the offender wasn’t the preferred white male, so all it would take is an adoring media to play the public victim card.

Before he and the Los Angeles Lakers took on the rival Celtics in Boston on Monday night, LeBron James attended his son Bronny’s game with Sierra Canyon at the Hoophall Classic in Springfield. Unfortunately, the game came with a bit of a blemish for the James family.

In the second half of action, the game had to be briefly stopped as a fan threw something at James Jr. as he was standing on the sideline waiting to inbound the ball. The object hit Bronny in the back, at which time the referee immediately stopped play and called for a nearby police officer to try and identify the perpetrator. The fan was not removed from the game, and no further incidents occurred, per ESPN.
— CBS Sports, 1/21/20

Yes, that sounded pretty bad as that “something” could have been anything meant to cause some kind of bodily harm, one could only imagine some unruly drunk committing this ejectable action, and LeBron responded as expected.

LeBron shares supportive message with Bronny following incident with hater at Sierra Canyon game
LeBron James Says ‘Hating Has No Age-Limits’ After Fan Throws Object at His Son During Game
LeBron James Rips Young Fan For Throwing Object At His Son In Game
LeBron James Stands Up For His Son After A Fan Throws Something At Bronny During A Game
LeBron ‘mad’ after debris hits son during game

Okay….

No one is condoning unruly activity at a sporting event, or anywhere for that matter, aimed at an athlete or anyone, but even after the specifics of the incident emerged, LeBron had to keep the drama going.

Sierra Canyon’s game on Monday at the Hoophall Classic was briefly stopped after someone in the crowd threw a piece of debris in the direction of LeBron James Jr.

I didn’t see it or hear it, actually. While I was on the opposite side of the floor, I did see the referee stop the game or stop the inbound, and the cop came up there,” he said. “I didn’t even know what happened until the video evidence showed me when I got here.

It’s just disrespectful, and it was a little kid too. I don’t know how old that little kid was, so I don’t know if he learned that on his own or if he learned it at home. Whatever the case may be, it’s disrespectful. I wonder how old that kid is, if he is the age around Bronny’s age [15] or [James’ son] Bryce’s age [12]. I’d like to see them try that while they’re paying attention.
— ESPN, 1/20/20

Yeah, like the #JamesGang would take matters into their own hands on this offender who fessed up and apologized; an offender quite unexpected….

If an average father’s son was hit by a thrown orange peel by a much younger kid, chances are a federal case wouldn’t have been made of it. It’s clear by his own Tweet that LeBron James was made privy to the details regarding the “something” thrown at his son and the make of the perpetrator but still had to blow this up to “hate” status. The problem is none of the potential elements could fit that criteria.

Pity the poor law enforcement officer that would bring a kid before a judge, charged with misdemeanor orange peel assault.

Details never seem to hinder attention-starved victim wannabes like LeBron.