Shams Provided Some "Updates" On The Ime Udoka Situation And Things Are Now Even More Confusing

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If you thought things were going to become clearer in regards to the Ime Udoka situation as time went by, I'm not so sure that's going to be the case. I keep waiting for Shams or Woj or literally any actual NBA insider to actually come out and tell us what happened, yet every update we get is either shit we already knew or they say things that make everything even more confusing. 

That's exactly what happened today with Shams who went on Pat McAfee's show and gave a 5 minute breakdown of "reportedly" what happened with Ime as he knew it. I can't lie, I was way more confused after watching it but here were the highlights. In terms of the timeline

1. The relationship started during the playoffs and it went into July when the Celtics found out.

This is an interesting nugget because there had been speculation that Ime had been a repeat offender or something with this stuff and that the Celts had previously told him to stop. Based on what Shams said, that doesn't really add up. He later said the team was told it was all good and consensual so they moved forward with their offseason.

Things changed when a few weeks ago the female employee made it known to the team that she experienced unwanted comments earlier from Ime, before the relationship started. That'sthe thing that prompted some additional investigating which resulted in the one year suspension.

To me this tracks. If you remember the Celtics press conference, Wyc said this 

2. Shams said that there was only unwanted "comments" or "language" towards the female employee

 This isn't all that different from the report he put out a few weeks ago, but I did find it interesting that even as more time has gone on, this is still the only thing being reported. Nothing that alludes to whatever Matt Barnes or Richard Jefferson were talking about or anything like that.

Again, this doesn't mean that what Ime did wasn't fucked up or a big time issue for any company, but it also didn't exactly make things any easier to understand. 

Shams also talked about how the team was made aware of these comments after the initial investigation which I find interesting. So, was someone lying when it first got brought up? Was there a cover up and it blew up in everyone's faces? If there were comments before the relationship started, but then they say the relationship was consensual, that's confusing. Something doesn't quite add up there.

What stood out to me was how quickly Shams tried to move off this aspect of his reported. He kept saying "hey, that was the investigation, that's what the facts say etc etc". That tells me there HAS to be more to the story with that specific detail. Almost like someone told Shams to not even touch it.

3. The investigation did not include multiple women

This is another one of the rumors that was flying around. That Ime didn't just do it with a single person. Now, could that be true? Maybe. Shams just talked about "this" specific investigation that happened in July. While we all try and figure out how the hell we got here and how the Celts ended up with their decision, it would make sense if there were several instances, but according to Shams that's not what this is about. It's about a situation with a single employee.

He of course didn't dive into who it was with or any of those other rumors that are flying around, which I guess is where my biggest question is with all of this. Either every NBA reported has been issues a gag order or there is a larger investigation currently going on, because every update we get is mostly nothing new. How is that possible in 2022? We're multiple weeks into this whole thing and we are no closer to having an idea of what actually happened than we were when things initially broke. I can't ever remember a scandal that went on like this. We usually have the details within a few days of the initial reporting, yet with this, it's the exact opposite. So bizarre.