In Light of Allegations Against Kevin Porter Jr., the NBA Needs to Do Better

Editor’s note: This story contains alleged accounts of domestic violence. If you or someone you know is a survivor of domestic abuse, contact the National Domestic Violence Hotline at 1-800-799-7233 or at https://www.thehotline.org/.

The details from Kevin Porter Jr.’s alleged attack on his girlfriend in New York earlier this week are downright disturbing.

Prosecutors say the 23-year-old Rockets guard left former WNBA player Kysre Gondrezick with a fractured neck vertebra and an inches-long gash above her right eye that stemmed from repeated closed-fist punches, among other injuries she sustained. Mirah Curzer, a Manhattan assistant district attorney, said in court that it wasn’t the first instance of abusive behavior Porter had shown toward Gondrezick, alleging that Porter had rammed his car into hers before, too.

If and when Porter is ultimately found to have been behind the incident—which would be merely the latest in a slew of off-court episodes for Porter since he joined the league in 2019—it should be the last strike for him as an NBA player. And more broadly, the case as a whole opens a worthwhile conversation concerning violence against women, and whether it’s time for the league to step up and implement a zero-tolerance policy for such behavior going forward.

The accusations against Porter aren’t the only ones that have made news in the past year or so. Hornets wing Miles Bridges, the team’s leading scorer during the 2021–22 season, was accused of and later pleaded no contest to a felony domestic violence charge for assaulting his girlfriend in front of the couple’s two children last summer. The incident drew more attention as Bridges, 24 years old, was in line to earn a huge payday as a free agent before the assault. Instead, he sat out all of last season, unsigned, and ended up signing a one-year pact to return to the Hornets for just $8 million this coming year. Commissioner Adam Silver ruled that Bridges would have to sit the first 10 games of this season, too, in addition to having missed all of last year.

To be clear, there’d certainly be difficult questions to work through to implement such a strict policy. The National Basketball Players Association—which is designed to protect the players’ contractual interests at every turn—would certainly be opposed to such a stance, which would likely have to wait for a future CBA. (In the current CBA, 10 games is the minimum punishment a player can receive after pleading guilty, no contest or being convicted of a violent felony. The NBPA will almost always make a point to get a player’s punishment reduced, no matter the circumstances.) And while more fringe, marginal players would likely find themselves out of a job over such a matter, a case involving a bona fide, bankable superstar would be a much more difficult pill for the league itself to swallow. Perhaps the clearest example in recent memory: The Kobe Bryant situation in 2003—which yielded sexual assault charges before Colorado prosecutors eventually dropped the charges after the woman said she was unwilling to testify—roiled the league. They eventually reached a settlement in early ’05.

Yes, it might seem harsh to have a one-strike rule in such cases. But as salaries escalate to where the best NBA players are now earning upwards of $50 and $60 million for a single year of service, there’s a case to be made that they should be held to extremely high behavioral standards, perhaps even higher than what they already have been.

So how would the NBA go about handling instances along those lines, where a potential victim changes their mind about pressing charges, in turn prompting prosecutors to withdraw cases? And similarly, how would the league legislate instances where someone seeks to take a case to civil court—where the burden of proof is entirely different—and is seeking a monetary judgment? Former MVP Derrick Rose, for instance, was part of a trio of men accused in a 2015 federal civil suit of drugging and gang-raping a woman. Rather than settle the case, he fought it at trial and was found not liable. The Los Angeles Police Department eventually closed its criminal probe in ’20, citing a lack of evidence in the case.

Silver has handed out a handful of other punishments before as it relates to domestic violence, but it would admittedly be a massive step up for the league to go from previous punishments to a full-on zero-tolerance policy. The first rebuke Silver handed out was in 2014, involving another Charlotte player, Jeffrey Taylor, after the forward pleaded guilty to a misdemeanor and received a 24-game suspension (which included 11 he’d missed from the season before). Another punishment came down in ’16, when guard Darren Collison got a total of eight games after pleading guilty to a misdemeanor domestic-violence charge.

For Porter, who was released on bail Monday, there’s a longer track record of off-court incidents that threatens to keep him out of the league going forward. He averaged better than 19 points and nearly six assists with the Rockets last year, but that was after he got jettisoned from Cleveland following a number of incidents with the Cavs. He was arrested in 2020 after he was in a single-car crash, and police found a loaded gun and marijuana in the vehicle. (Charges were eventually dropped in that case.) He reportedly blew up at Cleveland general manager Koby Altman after his locker was moved, prompting the trade to Houston. And he drew a $50,000 fine from the league for violating COVID-19 protocol for visiting a Miami strip club back in ’21.

But the notion of physically harming a woman is far different. And it shouldn’t mark just a line in the sand for Porter’s behavior, but every player who has the privilege to put on an NBA jersey.