You know this whole Operation Varsity Blues thing that's going on where rich parents paid colleges to take their kids, some of whom were passed off as athletes on rosters for sports they never played before?
Well, the Boston Celtics were connected to something very similar to it--even before this giant scandal broke through. Sure, the reports Tuesday and Wednesday did not tell you about the C's connection--because this one actually happened a couple of days prior to all of the big ones.
That's right: Celtics assistant coach Jerome Allen was in on the NCAA's corruption. Before he was assisting Brad Stevens and helping the Celtics contend for a playoff spot on an annual basis, he was the head coach of the Penn Quakers (not Penn State, but Penn, the Ivy League school). Well, in a recent federal fraud trial, he revealed that he took $300,000 worth of bribes to use a "basketball priority slot" on a Florida businessman's son, according to Philly.com.
Yeah, so the Celtics hands in this whole situation aren't clean either. They can just pretend they have nothing to do with it but at the same time, coach Allen can't really escape what he did which is illegal--so maybe the Celtics coaching staff ends up looking a little different at some point.
Ultimately though, if he can coach in the NBA, he can coach in the NBA. It's not like some parent can give him $300k to put their kid on an NBA team, right? That's not to defend him, but it's also not to throw him off the top of the John Hancock building. It's just eh. Not a great look.
I'm sure Kyrie Irving will have something interesting to say about it. After all, he basically is the team's PR man at this point--or they (the media) just interview him a lot.