Ime Udoka is suspended for the 2022-23 season for having an affair with a female Boston Celtics staffer.
Not many know exactly what happened, but some believe that it’s worse than the public knows.
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This isn’t the first time a high-profile head coach was involved with a staffer on the team, however – Phil Jackson was engaged to Jeanie Buss for several years.
Jackson was never disciplined for being in a relationship with the Lakers’ then-owner’s daughter while he was their head coach. However, a former Lakers champion says the two situations aren’t comparable.
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“I’ve had so many people come up to me and be like ‘Well, why Phil didn’t get kicked off the team when he was dating Jeanie Buss?’ I’m like ‘Because he was dating Jeanie Buss,’” the seven-time champ said on his “Big Shot Bob” Podcast. “That may not be against their team policy. I’m pretty sure if Ime was a Laker and did what he did, that still would have been against team policy… But dating somebody and disclosing that, that’s not against team policy.”
Horry noted that Buss and Jackson both were fully transparent when their relationship began.
Jackson and Buss met in 1999 and started dating shortly thereafter. They got engaged in 2013 but called it off four years later. Jackson was the Lakers’ head coach from 1999 to 2004, and again from 2005 to 2011.
Udoka has been in a relationship with actress Nia Long since 2010 – rumors circulated that the head coach was involved in an affair with a staffer who ran travel logistics for the team and made “unwanted comments” toward a woman he was in an affair with.
