NBA Media days always bring many questions, lots of answers, and a sprinkle of drama along with them. The Boston Celtics have plenty to answer after they made the decision to suspend Coach Ime Udoka and promote Joe Mazzola to interim head coach.
Udoka will be away from the team while he serves his season-long suspension for “violations of team policies.”
With such a chaotic situation right before Media Day, of course, players were going to be asked their thoughts about it. When Jayson Tatum was asked when he found out about Udoka’s suspension, Tatum said he learned what had happened in real-time just like everybody else through Twitter. According to Brain Robb, Tatum also said that Udoka’s suspension was “a lot to process.”
Tatum said he hasn’t spoken to Udoka since the suspension was handed down, but he’s excited to get on the court for training camp and get back to playing basketball.
“We were all kind of caught off guard,” Tatum said
Tatum: “You read the statement, you watch the press conference, apparently there are a lot of things they can’t speak about. I’m kind of in the same boat. I don’t know. It’s hard for me to answer if things were handled in the right way or they weren’t … I just don’t know.”
— Chris Mannix (@SIChrisMannix) September 26, 2022
While a head coach controversy is not the way any team wants to start their season, it seems that Tatum as a whole is not letting this sidetrack his or the team’s goals for this season. In an interview per NBC Sports, Tatum spoke about what he learned from the Celtic’s 2022 NBA Finals run.
“It’s extremely tough to even get to that point; not many people have even gotten there,”. Tatum continues. “You think about (we) sweep the Nets, and go seven with Milwaukee that could’ve obviously gone the other way, then seven with the Heat if Jimmy Butler made that shot, we could not have been in the championship, then you know getting to that point and then accomplishing the goal, it’s hard to put in words, it’s tough.”
Tatum also told NBC Sports that he’s heading into year six with that “plan of things that you like you can do differently.”
“Approaching the off-season with a plan of things that you feel like you can do differently coming into next season so that you know you’re more than capable of going all the way.”
Heading into his uncertain year with the Celtics, it looks like Tatum is more ready and eager to take that next step individually as well as a team.
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