Charles Barkley has never been one to mince words, and he hit the ground running to start the NBA season.
The Emmy-award winning NBA on TNT crew interviewed NBA Commissioner Adam Silver, and Barkley ended the conversation by asking Silver about domestic violence cases that have been levied at some NBA players over the last few months.
"There's a couple of disturbing incidents about domestic violence in the NBA right now. What are we doing to address that? Because that is a sick — you can't put your hands on women, man. We should be at the forefront in sports when men hit women. What are we as a league going to do about that?" Barkley said.
"We're not looking to compete with other leagues when you say 'forefront'.' I think all the leagues are trying to address this issue," Silver replied.
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Barkley's question was reportedly not part of the script that Silver was prepared to answer. That was made quite clear by Barkley as he prefaced his question by saying that his producers wanted him to go to commercial, but that he wanted to ask Silver one more thing.
Silver explained that the league and the NBA Players Association are dealing with these issues, and clarifying that the known cases right now are "accusations" of domestic violence.
"Our Players Association, credit to them, this wasn't adversarial. We put in place a new program for how we deal with, first of all, accusations of domestic violence even before they're prosecuted. Part of it goes to training of our players, counseling of our players to make sure they understand during high-stress situations to obviously never resort to violence against anyone ... of course, if a guy does cross the line, the consequences are enormous," Silver said.
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The issue that Barkley was referring to involve two particular NBA players: Miles Bridges and Kevin Porter Jr.
Bridges was arrested in June 29, 2022 for accusations of beating the mother of his two children. In November, he pleaded no contest in a deal that did not require jail time, but included three years probation. Two weeks ago, Bridges turned himself into the police at Lincoln County, a Charlotte suburb, for allegedly violating a protection order from his domestic violence case.
Bridges is still a member of the Charlotte Hornets. He will serve a 10-game suspension to start the season due to his case.
Porter Jr. was accused of domestic violence against his girlfriend and charged with felony assault and strangulation in September. New York City prosecutors said that his girlfriend, former WNBA player Kysre Gondrezick, suffered a fractured neck vertebra and had a cut above her right eye after the assault.
Porter Jr. played for the Houston Rockets last season, but he was traded to the Oklahoma City Thunder a week ago. He was immediately released by the Thunder, who are still on the books to pay him nearly $17 million that was guaranteed in his salary.
Charles Barkley confronts NBA commissioner Adam Silver after numerous offseason incidents of domestic violence among NBA athletes: pic.twitter.com/u0LjxLiLRd
— Awful Announcing (@awfulannouncing) October 24, 2023
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