The Houston Rockets owner Tilman Fertitta asked fans to be forgiving on Wednesday as he introduced the team’s new head coach, Ime Udoka, who had been suspended and then fired by the Boston Celtics within the past year for violating unspecified team policies.
Fertitta said any critic unwilling to give Udoka a second chance was “not a good Christian person.”
The Celtics suspended Udoka for the 2022-23 N.B.A. season in September, then fired him in February, after he had a relationship with a female subordinate, according to a person with knowledge of the situation who was not authorized to discuss it publicly.
At the introductory news conference in Houston, Udoka made his first public comments since leaving the Celtics, who have declined to specify which policies he violated. Udoka was flanked by Fertitta and Rockets General Manager Rafael Stone, who also declined to provide details on what they know, including whether they had seen the report from the Celtics’ investigation.
“What I would say is that we got comfortable that it was an appropriate hire and that we were comfortable in the process,” Stone said. “But just the same way, I wouldn’t talk about exactly what we did with anybody else, I’m not going to talk about it with Ime. It’s just, in my view, it’s…
