The head of the NBA Players Association has lashed out at the Portland Trail Blazers after a grievance hearing in New York on behalf of players Tracy Murray and Dave Johnson.
Charles Grantham, executive director of the players association, was among those representing Murray and Johnson at the hearing Thursday.He criticized the Blazers' response to sexual misconduct allegations against four players last February.
"It was sort of a lynch-mob mentality, that someone had to somehow get a pound of flesh for something that was never established as truth," Grantham said.
Murray, a current Trail Blazer, and Johnson, a former Portland player now with the Chicago Bulls, are appealing the fines and suspensions imposed on them in February after allegations they had sex with two underage teen-age girls in Salt Lake City.
No criminal charges were brought against the four players allegedly involved - Murray, Johnson, Jerome Kersey and Reggie Smith. Salt Lake County Attorney David Yocom said he didn't think he could prove beyond a reasonable doubt that the girls were enticed or coerced into having sex with them. The girls declined to press misdemeanor charges of contributing to the delinquency of a minor.
The Blazers fined all four players and suspended Murray and Johnson for three games.
"Unfortunately, it appears the team allowed the level of media attention that this whole situation attracted to direct its action, which I don't believe is the American way," Grantham said.
Sources said Murray and Johnson were fined about $20,000 each and Kersey and Smith about $15,000 each.
Murray and Johnson did not attend the hearing. Grantham said the players' agents asked arbitrator Daniel Collins to drop the fines and suspensions. A decision was not immediately issued.
"The issue is whether team rules were in fact violated and if the fines and suspensions were reasonable," Grantham said.