Yesterday, the NBA hosted its yearly Media Day for each of its franchises. One of the most anticipated ones was the Celtics’ – due to all the controversy around their head coach, Ime Udoka, and his year-long suspension.
Ime Udoka was not in attendance, due to his suspension, but was surely one of the talking points throughout the day. Reporting live was NBC Boston Sports crew. Celtics Team Reporter, Amanda Pflugrad, in particular, had something to say before the day went underway.
“Social media thought it was completely fine to take innocent people’s names in our organization, and their photos, and put them out there for speculation. That damages careers and reputations. Every woman in this organization has worked extremely hard to get where she is at, and she deserves, and has earned everything that she has.”
"Every woman in this organization has worked extremely hard to get where she is at, and she deserves and has earned everything that she has."@Amanda_Pflugrad addresses female staffers being dragged into the social media conversation around Ime Udoka suspension pic.twitter.com/86TU0UN3GO
— Celtics on NBC Sports Boston (@NBCSCeltics) September 26, 2022
Amanda’s remarks come days after the scandal broke as female staffers were being dragged into social media conversations involving Ime Udoka and his suspension. Ime’s absence at media day was surely felt. And discussed as players, as well as interim head coach, Joe Mazzulla, shared their reactions.
Celtics president of basketball operations, Brad Stevens, also got a bit emotional during his presser when asked about the women involved.
“The only thing that I would like to say is we have a lot of talented women in our organization, and I thought yesterday was really hard on them,” Stevens said. “Nobody can control Twitter speculation — rampant bulls–t — but I do think that we as an organization have a responsibility that we’re there to support them now because a lot of people were dragged unfairly because of that.”
As social media continues to solve the mystery, or at least try to, the Celtics organization has taken on the responsibility of keeping the woman involved in the scandal private. Publicly stating Ime Udoka’s suspension, however, is cool and all, but let’s all address the elephant in the room, shall we?
What really happened? Who is this woman? The fans are owed some sort of explanation as we (painfully) try to forge ahead as the season kicks off.
