Adam Silver, the commissioner of the NBA has opened up his mind and has apologized to Masai Ujiri, the president of basketball operations at the Toronto Raptors for the controversial comments he made back in 2019.
Masai Ujiri, a former player who joined the Raptors in 2013 as executive vice president and general manager, is widely known for being quite open mouthed on the court. But the 2019 NBA Finals had seen an entirely different kind of incident.
After Raptors thrashed Golden Sttate Warriors 4-2 to win the Larry O’Brien trophy, the president was caught in a clip being involved in a physical assault with an Alameda County Sheriff deputy Alan Strickland during the celebrations.
Ujiri claimed that the officer had pushed him twice as he was presenting his credentials. On the other hand, according to a Sheriff’s Department spokesperson, Uriji had shoved Strickland two times, followed by making contact to face, before he was escorted onto the floor by Kyle Lowry.
Battery charges were sought against Ujiri, but the video evidence showed his version of the altercation to be true while proving Strickland’s claims false. While the Alameda County District Attorney’s Office did not put any charge on him, while Strickland ordered a lawsuit in February 2020.
While, they both have dropped their lawsuits earlier this month, Adam Silver had made some comments that the commissioner would very well intend to take back.
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Past comments towards Ujiri makes Adam Silver ‘cringe’: He has my full and unequivocal support
Soon after the NBA Finals incident, Adam Silver made some comments during an interview with HBO that had raised many eyebrows at that time, especially with the league’s strong solidarity with the Black Lives Matter movement.
“It’s part and parcel of what comes with someone who is living on the edge a bit and is hard-wired to sort of march forward with incredible energy,” Adam Silver had said at that time, “lessons learned for him – without assigning culpability or blame to anyone – as a leader, those are the kinds of situations he needs to learn to avoid.”
However, in a recent phone session with Sportsnet, the commissioner felt remorse for his words towards Ujiri, while also revealing that the both have had conversation about it several times.
“When I watch that last bit of the interview, in light of what we now know, I would love to take those words back,” Silver asserted, “[Ujiri] and I at this point have probably talked about that night 100 times since then. He has my full and unequivocal support.”
“But I apologize to Masai for what I said in that interview…. Believe me, when I look at that now, I cringe when I watch it,” added the commissioner.
