If the Nets do indeed hire Ime Udoka as their next head coach, as numerous reports indicate is likely, the most important message may not be the one that goes to their players, who hold a 2-6 record through eight games, but the one that goes to their female employees up and down the organization.
And that message, according to critics of the potential Udoka hiring, will be that they come second.
“The message to female employees and society in general is winning matters the most,” activist Brenda Tracy told The Post in an email on Wednesday. “And the pursuit of winning will be prioritized over the safety and well being of employees, specifically female employees.”
The reason Udoka is available as a candidate, instead of coaching the Celtics, whom he led to the NBA Finals last season, is because of an inappropriate relationship he had with a female subordinate, resulting in a season-long suspension by the Celtics. According to reports, an independent investigation found he used crude language in speaking with the woman at the start of their relationship.
Not all of the investigation’s findings or what happened in Boston leading to Udoka’s suspension is publicly known, but Celtics owner Wyc Grousbeck spoke strongly when announcing the suspension in September.
“I personally feel that this is well-warranted and appropriate, backed by substantial research and evidence and facts,” Grousbeck said at the time. “It was clear that something substantial needed to be done. And it was.”
Tracy, an activist who runs the nonprofit group Set The Expectation, travels the country speaking to college athletes about her story. In 1998, Tracy was gang raped by four college football players, including two from Oregon State. Upon sharing her story with a local reporter in 2014, she started speaking to college football programs about how young men can prevent sexual violence.
Professional teams, of course, are no less important.
And the Nets, already embroiled in controversy over the team’s refusal to discipline Kyrie Irving for his retweet of a link to an anti-Semitic movie and subsequent defense, would be stepping into another PR nightmare if Udoka is indeed the replacement for Steve Nash.
Internally, they could be inviting issues as well.
“The consequence of that messaging will likely result in employees being unwilling to report sexual harassment and misconduct,” Tracy said. “Conversely, this type of messaging signals to bad actors that they can carry on with their behavior because issues of sexual harassment and misconduct are not a priority in the organization.”
If that is indeed the case, we won’t hear about the consequences until it is far too late. And whether Udoka is the right hire on a basketball level is almost irrelevant to the conversation entirely.
Former Jazz coach Quin Snyder, Pelicans consultant Mike D’Antoni and interim coach Jacque Vaughn all could be candidates, but to call Udoka the front-runner would be an understatement. Within hours of Nash’s firing, reports surfaced that Udoka was not just the leader, but the soon-to-be hire.
“I really don’t think it’s up to me right now to give you a list of candidates we’re talking to,” Nets general manager Sean Marks said Tuesday, avoiding a commitment to a timeline on a hire.
Marks maintained that the hiring process will be thorough, and that Udoka is not automatically in line to get the job.
“We’re not going to skip steps on that and we’ll do our due diligence,” Marks said. “When I was hired, when everybody was hired, the organization does very, very thorough due diligence on anybody.”
But it doesn’t take a particularly thorough background check to see the red flags next to Udoka’s name.
All it might take is talking to one of the many women employed by the Brooklyn Nets.