After Latrell Sprewell was banned from the National Basketball Association for a year for twice attacking his coach, Golden State Warriors' P.J. Carlesimo, San Francisco Mayor Willie Brown was quoted as saying, "Maybe the coach deserved choking." Brown asked the Rev. Jesse Jackson and the NAACP to investigate the NBA's action. "I'm not justifying what [Sprewell] did as right," said Brown, "but nobody is asking why he did it or what might have prompted him."

Chicago columnist Carol Slezak referred to Sprewell as a "political prisoner," even though he never went to prison and no criminal charges are being pressed. Johnnie Cochran has agreed to be Sprewell's attorney, saying that the league's one-year suspension is contrary to "fundamental fairness." Cochran declared, "There has been a rush to judgement," though the league interviewed no fewer than 23 witnesses before reaching its decision.

Harvard psychiatrist Alvin Poussaint later explained to Newsweek that many young black players could not cope with the sort of sharp, verbal abuse regularly dealt out by coaches because they lacked problem-solving skills. In addition to assaulting and threatening the life of Carlesimo, Sprewell had also attacked another player a few years back with a two-by-four and threatened to kill him, too.

An arbiter later ruled that Sprewell's contract couldn't be terminated—although temporary suspension was appropriate—both because the choking was unprecedented (the league had never canceled a contract for thuggery before), and because it "was born of anger and passion and did not constitute an act of moral turpitude," which would have violated the contract's standard clause.

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