Boston Celtics: Suspended coach Ime Udoka’s fiancée Nia Long speaks out about the affair

Suspended Nia Long, the fiancée of Boston Celtics head coach Ime Udoka, issued a statement to TMZ expressing her support for the 45-year-old, saying, “the outpouring of love and support from family, friends, and the community during this difficult time means so much.”

Nia Long speaks out about the affair

Her main concern was not her open relationship with Udoka, given her comments about how marriage isn’t required for her to prove her love for anyone, but her children. She asked that her “privacy be respected as she processes recent events.”

For what it’s worth, Long’s ex-husband and father of her first child, Massai Z. Dorsey, has expressed his support for Udoka, telling the DailyMail that they “talk as a family, and it’s all about unconditional love, and that’s what she’s giving him.”

Udoka was suspended because of having a consensual relationship with a female Celtics’s staffer, which breached the team’s personal conduct policy.

It’s been disclosed that he slept with multiple women in the weeks since the story broke on September 21. One of the women is thought to be the wife of a Boston Celtics minority owner, while another booked Long’s flights.

Given the nature of their relationship, Ime Udoka and Nia Long appear to be a good fit in New York or Los Angeles.

At this point, given the damage done to the Boston Celtics organization — at the very least to one of the team’s owners, as well as the trust the team may have in Brad Stevens given Udoka was his first head coaching hire — the pair belong somewhere else.

Interim Celtics head coach Joe Mazzulla appears to have a good grip on this team based on the incredibly small sample size we’ve seen, but more importantly, the team has become a free agent magnet. Attracting coaching talent will not be as difficult as it was a year ago.

The most disappointing aspect of all of this is how much potential the team had under Udoka’s leadership. His personal issues were never shared with the team, which admired him and used his influence to propel the franchise to its first NBA Finals in 14 years.

Nia Long Wiki