LeBron James hopes Jay Williams’s tweet on the Celtics’ new head coach is photoshopped as the analyst disrespects men like Rivers and Russell.
Following multiple disappointing seasons from a bevy of teams this 2020-21 NBA season, several head coaches in this league have been fired. Teams like the Magic, Pacers, and the Blazers are all on the lookout for a new bench boss. Luckily for the Boston Celtics, they’ve found one and according to Jay Williams, this marks a historic moment for the franchise.
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Ime Udoka was hired to be the Celtics’ new head coach last night, as reported by ESPN’s Adrian Wojnarowski, as he prepares to leave the Brooklyn Nets’ assistant head coaching job. Jay Williams saw this hiring take place and decided to tweet out that he’s proud of the Celtics for hiring their first black head coach in franchise history.
Please tell me this isn’t real Jay Williams (@RealJayWilliams). Ime Udoka is the 6th #Celtics “head coach of color”; including champions Bill Russell (1st black NBA head coach), K.C. Jones & Doc Rivers. A third of all of head coaches in franchise history are men of color. ☘️ pic.twitter.com/WYJC6Unqja
— Dan Kelley (@DanKelley66) June 23, 2021
This is of course, is simply not true as the last Celts championship team was headed by Doc Rivers, a man of color. Bill Russell was also a player-coach during the 1967 NBA season for Boston.
LeBron James reacts to Jay Williams’ major flub on Twitter.
Jay Williams did what any man in his position would do: he lied about having been hacked and carried on with his day. NBA Twitter has been less than kind to the analyst as they ponder over how an established analyst for ESPN could make such a mistake.
As it relates to the Boston Celtics tweet that came from my account a couple of hours ago… I did not post that & my passcode has now been changed.
— Jay Williams (@RealJayWilliams) June 23, 2021
As for LeBron James, he responded to a fan’s tweet that hoped Williams’s initial message about Udoka was photoshopped. LeBron expressed a similar concern to the fan, claiming it had to have been altered or fabricated in some way.
Has to be right!?!? It better be 🤔🤣🤣
— LeBron James (@KingJames) June 23, 2021
Unfortunately, Jay Williams did really tweet that message out. Don’t get it twisted: it’s highly unlikely that Williams was looking to disrespect any black head coach of the Celtics’ past with that tweet. This was nothing but a careless mistake that could’ve been avoided with a little over 10 seconds of research through Google.