Why Is the NBA Letting Josh Giddey Play?

The NBA has shown in the recent past that it is willing to discipline players just for tarnishing its brand. So the league’s remarkably passive stance on Josh Giddey, a 21-year-old Oklahoma City Thunder guard, seems strangely out of place.

Giddey is still playing. But he is under separate investigations by the league and by police in Newport Beach, California, amid suspicion that he had intimate contact with an underage girl in 2021.

“I can’t think of many circumstances where we’ve suspended a player based on an allegation alone,” NBA Commissioner Adam Silver said last week on ESPN’s daily show NBA Today. “In this case, we have an allegation, a police investigation, and a parallel NBA investigation. Where there is a criminal investigation, we take a back seat.” The immediate effect of this approach has been that Giddey, who has not been criminally charged and has declined to comment on the issue, gets to keep playing while his case is adjudicated.

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That unsettles a number of fans; in recent weeks, as the Thunder visited Minnesota, Houston, and Dallas, Giddey was greeted with boos. The league’s cautious approach has also raised doubts about the fundamental fairness of the way the NBA disciplines its athletes. Giddey is white, whereas a number of players who have faced much swifter punishment for alleged offenses outside the sport are Black.

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