NBA Commissioner Adam Silver was pinned down on a very uncomfortable topic on the opening night of the new NBA season by TNT analyst and basketball Hall of Famer Charles Barkley.
There has been a number of serious domestic violence allegations made against NBA players in recent months and years, leading many to say there is something of an epidemic in the sport.
Adam Silver responds to Charles Barkley’s tough off-script question
Barkley wanted to know what Silver plans to do about this. His question came during an ‘Inside the NBA’ segment with Silver before the Denver Nuggets and Los Angeles Lakers tipped off on opening night.
There were calls to go to an ad break, but Barkley said he had a serious question to ask Silver.
“There’s been a couple disturbing incidents of domestic violence in the NBA right now, so what are we doing to address that, because you can’t put your hands on women?” he asked the commissioner
“We should be on the forefront in sports. So, what are we as a league going to do about that?”
Adam Silver’s response to Charles Barkley
The response from Silver was initially evasive, as he claimed that the NBA is not competing with other sports to be at the “forefront” of the topic.
“We’re addressing it,” he said.
“Our players’ association, credit to them, we put in place a process for how we deal with accusations of domestic violence, even before they’re prosecuted.
“Part of it goes to training of our players and counselling of our players to make sure they understand in high-stress situations to never resort to violence against anyone.”
“We have state-of-the-art counseling professionals dealing with our players, but of course if a guy does cross the line then the consequences are enormous.”
According to The Athletic, a source at the channel confirmed that Barkley‘s question about domestic violence was not on the script.
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