AGAIN: TWO CELTICS STAR PLAYERS AND COACH HAS SUSPENDED FOR.

Jayson Tatum and Jaylen Brown of the Boston Celtics said they were “shocked” to learn of Coach Ime Udoka’s full-season suspension, which was announced by the team on Thursday.

The Boston Celtics’ Jayson Tatum revealed that he was getting ready for training camp when he found out that head coach Ime Udoka might have been facing a protracted suspension. However, he said that Tatum had no access to any insider knowledge. How then did he find out the news?

Tatum was one of the Celtics players who made his first public remarks on Monday following the team’s announcement on Thursday that Udoka would be suspended for the 2022–2023 NBA season due to undefined “violations of team policies.” At the team’s media day, the players made their way onto a dais one by one and admitted to knowing very little about the events that had led to Udoka’s punishment in front of a bank of cameras and reporters.

Marcus Smart: “We’ve been through hell.” Simply taken by surprise. We’re all just in the wind, just like everyone else, because nobody really knows anything. The past few days have been perplexing.

“Nobody really has any of the information,” said Jaylen Brown.

Grant Williams: “The facts are unknown to me.”

As they attempt to regroup for another shot at a championship after falling to Golden State in the N.B.A. finals the previous season, the players find Udoka’s absence and the covert nature of the investigation into his misbehavior concerning.

According to a person briefed on the situation who was not permitted to discuss it in public, Udoka had an improper relationship with a female team member. One woman was involved in Udoka’s violations, according to another briefed party.

“As for our initial reactions, I believe we were all a little taken aback by what was happening,” Brown remarked. “But I can’t really comment on it because a lot of the information wasn’t shared with us or the team members.”

The team’s majority owner, Wyc Grousbeck, declined to go into detail about Udoka’s misbehavior at a press conference last week, citing “privacy reasons.” According to Grousbeck, the Celtics decided to suspend Udoka following a months-long probe by a separate legal firm.

Among the prominent members of the team who stated on Monday that they were unaware of the investigation while it was taking place were Tatum, Brown, and Smart. Actually, Udoka had just paid him and a few teammates a visit in Los Angeles, according to Smart. When in California, Smart was asked if he noticed anything unusual about Udoka’s behavior.