The Nets announced on Tuesday that they had parted ways with head coach Steve Nash, and apparently, it didn’t take long for Brooklyn to find his replacement.
Shortly after the Nets and Nash released separate statements regarding the mutual decision, multiple reports indicated that the team was expected to hire Ime Udoka, who was suspended by the Celtics for the entire 2022-23 season after he reportedly engaged in an improper relationship with a female staffer.
MORE: Why did the Nets fire Steve Nash?
The news came as a shock to Boston guard Marcus Smart, who won the 2021-22 Defensive Player of the Year award for a Celtics team that reached the NBA Finals in Udoka’s first season as a head coach.
“Obviously, we wish he was here,” Smart told The Boston Globe’s Adam Himmelsbach on Wednesday. “We have no control over that. It definitely sucks. I guess it was deemed that whatever happened was enough for him not to be the coach here, but I guess not enough for him [not] to be a coach anywhere else, obviously.”
According to ESPN’s Adrian Wojnarowski, an independent investigation found that Udoka “used crude language in his dialogue with a female subordinate” before the start of their improper relationship. The staffer accused Udoka of “making unwanted comments toward her,” according to The Athletic’s Shams Charania.
Celtics owner Wyc Grousbeck and president of basketball operations Brad Stevens announced the season-long suspension in September, saying that Udoka’s future with the team would be discussed at a later time.
While a deal has not yet been finalized, the Nets and Udoka are expected to reach an official agreement soon, and the Celtics will not seek draft compensation from the Nets, per Wojnarowski. However, Brooklyn general manager Sean Marks has pushed back on the idea that he had already determined who the next coach will be.
Regardless of what happens next with Udoka, Boston will rely on interim head coach Joe Mazzulla to lead the group.
“[Udoka’s] name got slandered and slaughtered and it was ‘He’ll probably never coach again,'” Smart said. “And a couple of months later, now he’s possibly going to be the coach of one of our biggest rivals?
“It’s tough. It makes no sense. But we can’t control that. We have to control what we can, and I love the team here. I love the coaching staff. I love Joe.”
Smart told Himmelsbach that the situation is “tough” because the front office can only share a limited amount of information with Celtics players. They felt Udoka would be back at some point, but Smart wants to clarify that Boston has confidence in Mazzulla’s coaching ability.
“You can have more than one best friend,” Smart said. “That’s just kind of the relationship it is. We love Joe. We also love Ime, too. Joe understands that, and Joe loves him. But we’re definitely excited for Joe and proud of Joe and it’s not fair to Joe to have to keep hearing this either and go through what he’s going through.
“They’re both our brothers and we love them the same. Unfortunately, the circumstances called for some desperate measures and Joe has the coaching job, so that’s who we’re listening to and that’s who we’re rocking with. We still love Ime, but Joe is our coach.”
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