Former NBA player Matt Barnes is changing his stance on the Boston Celtics issuing a season-long ban to Ime Udoka due to “violations of team policies.”
Barnes, who spent 14 years playing in the league and is now a member of the media, at first came to the defense of Udoka on Thursday night when the Celtics officially handed down their suspension of the coach. Barnes quickly deleted the video he originally posted, and on Friday, he explained why he did so while exhibiting a much different tone on the situation.
“I try to report and talk with facts and honesty and I clearly have to say last night without knowing all the facts, I spoke on Ime Udoka’s defense,” Barnes said in a social media post, via WBZ’s Adam Kauffman. “After finding out the facts after I spoke, I erased what I posted because this situation in Boston is deep, it’s messy, it’s 100 times uglier than any of us thought. That’s why I erased what I said.”
Udoka’s violation reportedly is having an improper intimate and consensual relationship with a female staffer on the Celtics, according to The Athletic’s Shams Charania. Charania added to his original reporting that Udoka made “unwanted comments” toward the individual.
“Some things happened that I can’t condone. I can’t back,” Barnes said. “It’s not my place to tell you what happened. If it ends up coming out, it ends up coming out. But that was the reason I erased my post last night. After I posted it, I got a call from someone who had all the details, and this (expletive) is deep.”
During a press conference held by the Celtics Friday afternoon, president of basketball operations Brad Stevens and co-owner Wyc Grousbeck stated they couldn’t reveal details of Udoka’s violations due to privacy concerns.
