TNT analyst and basketball Hall of Famer Charles Barkley urged NBA commissioner Adam Silver on the opening night of the season to more firmly address domestic violence in the sport, using a pointed question on the Tuesday night show to ask how the NBA plans to respond to a series of incidents involving players.
“There’s been a couple disturbing incidents of domestic violence in the NBA right now, what we doing to address that?” Barkley asked, before continuing, “Because you can’t put your hands on women, man. And we should be on the forefront in sports. … So what are we as a league doing to do about that?”
Barkley’s question came during a pregame “Inside the NBA” segment with Silver before the Denver Nuggets and Los Angeles Lakers tipped off for the season opener. He brushed off a call to go to commercial break by saying he had a “serious” question for Silver.
Silver appeared to deflect the question initially by saying that the league was not in competition with other sports to be at the “forefront” of the issue. He went on to credit the Players Association for being on board with a revamped program to handles domestic violence accusations. He stopped short of offering new solutions or ideas on how the latest incidents should be handled, but said…
