Ime Udoka tested positive for COVID-19 but is nearly out of isolation

New Celtics coach Ime Udoka tested positive for COVID-19 and has been in isolation, but according to the team he was vaccinated and thus asymptomatic.

Udoka — who was on his final day of isolation Monday — is expected to rejoin the team before training camp begins on Tuesday.

“It hasn’t hit him like it’s hit others that we read about all over the country, and I think that as far as missing time, he’s good at connecting with people,” Celtics president of basketball operations Brad Stevens told reporters at media day. “He’ll do that over FaceTime, over text, over many different ways. He was working at two in the morning in Tokyo helping us talk to free agents.

“Even when he hasn’t been there in person, he has been very invested every single minute. So I’m not worried about that, that’s an easy part. I’m just very glad his health is okay.”

The Celtics reportedly have had issues getting all of their players vaccinated. Stevens told the media the team is doing what it can to bring those numbers up.

“Our hope is that we get as close to 100 percent vaccinated as possible as soon as possible,” Stevens said. “That’s our hope, that’s our desire. Obviously we’ll continue to work from our end on what we can do, and work from the educational standpoint within the organization and do what we can, and at the same time everybody has to make that decision for themselves.”

Stevens noted that throughout the country, hospitals are overflowing with sick COVID patients and doctors have begun to ration care.

“I think that’s the thing that, you talk about being fully vaccinated and you talk about him getting it and breakthrough cases or unvaccinated cases, the scariest thing for me is just the health of everybody,” Stevens said. “People talk about games and talk about all the things that come with that throughout the course of the season, but we have hospitals overflowing, and people are having to make decisions on who gets oxygen.

“It’s a sad situation we are in as a world. Like everybody else, I hope that gets improved quickly.”