After the departure of coach Steve Nash, the Brooklyn Nets are progressing on the hiring of suspended Boston Celtics coach Ime Udoka, sources told ESPN.
A deal is expected to be finalized as soon as Wednesday, bringing back Udoka to try to salvage a reeling franchise amid turmoil and losing, sources said.
Boston is not requiring draft compensation from Brooklyn to hire Udoka, but there are discussions that are taking place before a deal can be finalized, sources said.
The Nets, who have lost five of seven games to start the season, will keep assistant Jacque Vaughn as the acting head coach until Udoka can start the job.
San Antonio Spurs.
The Nets have been vetting the circumstances around Udoka’s suspension and believe he can tighten up the league’s 29th-ranked defensive team and command leadership in a difficult locker room, sources said. Udoka spent a season with Ben Simmons — a player the Nets are desperately trying to get on track — on the Philadelphia 76ers’ coaching staff in 2019-20.
The independent law firm probe into Udoka found that he used crude language in his dialogue with a female subordinate before the start of an improper workplace relationship with the woman, an element that significantly factored into the severity of his suspension, sources told ESPN in September.
Those investigative findings — which described verbiage on Udoka’s part that was deemed especially concerning coming from a workplace superior — contributed to what was an unlikely pathway to his reinstatement as Celtics coach in 2023, sources said.
The power dynamic associated with a superior’s improper relationship with a staff member was the primary finding and policy violation cited in the law firm’s report, which was commissioned by the Celtics and completed early last week, sources said.
