SAN FRANCISCO -- Latrell Sprewell isn't giving up a challenge to his 68-game suspension for choking coach P.J. Carlesimo, despite a federal judge's finding that the suit was a misuse of the court system.
Undaunted by a court order requiring him to pay the court costs of the NBA and the Golden State Warriors in getting the case dismissed, Sprewell will ask the 9th U.S. Circuit of Appeals to reinstate it, attorney Robert Thompson Jr. said Monday."Latrell's made the decision to appeal because he believes strongly in his case," Thompson said from Atlanta. "We're very confident about the results on appeal."
A lawyer for the NBA said Sprewell should be grateful for the results of the arbitration that he is challenging in his suit. The arbitrator cut Sprewell's suspension from a year to 68 games, the remainder of the 1997-98 season, and overturned the Warriors' decision to terminate the last three years of his contract.
"For choking the head coach the way he did, he should have been charged with a crime," league attorney Frank Rothman said. "I think he got off very light."
The $30 million suit accused the arbitrator of exceeding his authority in allowing both the Warriors and the NBA to punish Sprewell. The suit also claimed racial discrimination, noting that Phoenix Suns forward Tom Chambers, who is white, was not suspended for punching an assistant coach a few weeks before Sprewell attacked Carlesimo.
U.S. District Judge Vaughn Walker first dismissed the suit last July, saying its factual claims were too vague to prove any legal violations. He said Sprewell should consider dropping the case, but gave him one more chance to make his allegations more specific.
In a ruling made public Monday, Walker said the refiled suit was virtually the same as the first, meritless suit.
Sprewell's "second baseless (suit) forced unnecessary expenditures by defendants (the NBA and the Warriors) and a wasteful diversion of this court's resources," Walker said. He invited the league and the team to submit statements of their attorneys' fees and expenses for the dismissal motion.
Sprewell, a former All-Star guard, argued with Carlesimo during a practice in December 1997, then grabbed him around the neck and threatened to kill him, according to witnesses at his arbitration hearing. After they were separated and Sprewell left the floor to shower and change, he returned and, according to witnesses, punched Carlesimo and threatened him again.
The Warriors initially suspended him for 10 games, then terminated the last three years and $24 million of his contract. The league increased the suspension to a year. But arbitrator John Feerick, after a lengthy hearing, ruled the punishment excessive and ordered Sprewell reinstated last July 1. He was later traded to the New York Knicks.
Sprewell said the 68-game suspension cost him $6.4 million in salary. His suit sought the return of $5.4 million as well as additional damages.
He argued that his punishment was not authorized by the league's union agreement, and accused NBA investigators of destroying interview notes and doctoring evidence.
The suit also claimed racial discrimination on several grounds: that whites like Chambers were treated more leniently, that the Warriors insisted on broader rights to terminate Sprewell's contract than they demanded in white players' contracts, and that most of the team's and league's upper management is white.
Walker said the arbitrator reasonably concluded that Sprewell's punishment was authorized by the union contract, and had considered and rejected his complaints about the evidence, decisions the judge would not second-guess.
Feerick also examined the Chambers incident and others cited by Sprewell and found that differing punishments were based on the seriousness of the offense, not the race of the player, the judge said.
Sprewell's factual claims, even if proven, would not show that the Warriors or the league were motivated by racism, Walker said. And even if racial bias were shown, the judge said, Sprewell failed to demonstrate "a public policy that specifically militates against suspension of an employee who violently attacks his employer."