Boston Celtics coach Ime Udoka was suspended for the entire 2022-23 season following a relationship with a female staffer on the team.
Following the news, fans were apparently wondering why other coaches weren’t held to the same standard. At least a few fans asked former Los Angeles Lakers star Robert Horry why former Lakers coach Phil Jackson was allowed to have a relationship with Jeanie Buss.
Horry said because they were an actual couple who clarified their dating intentions before jumping into a relationship together.
Here’s what he said, via Fox News:
“I’ve had so many people come up to me and be like ‘Well, why Phil didn’t get kicked off the team when he was dating Jeanie Buss?’ I’m like ‘Because he was dating Jeanie Buss,’” the seven-time champ said on his “Big Shot Bob” Podcast. “That may not be against their team policy. I’m pretty sure if Ime was a Laker and did what he did, that still would have been against team policy… But dating somebody and disclosing that, that’s not against team policy.”
Jackson and Buss met in 1999 when he took over the Lakers head coaching job. The couple started dating soon thereafter and got engaged in 2013 but called it off four years later.