NBA via Los Angeles Clippers(TORONTO) — Clippers All-Star guard Chris Paul was fined $25,000 for calling out rookie female referee Lauren Holtkamp for her officiating in their loss to the Cavaliers on Thursday night.
National Basketball Players Association executive director Michele Roberts said on Friday that anyone who thinks Paul would be sexist is “utterly ridiculous, outrageous and patently false.”
Paul disagreed with rookie referee Lauren Holtkamp’s five technical foul calls during their loss to the Cavaliers on Thursday night.
“Without hesitation, the Players Association stands firmly behind Chris, whose competitiveness may only be exceeded by the strength of his values and his conviction,” Roberts said in a statement.
“[Thursday] night was about a bad call. That’s all,” Paul said prior to their game against the Raptors on Friday.
The referees union called Paul’s actions “personal and unprofessional”, but head coach Doc Rivers firmly believes that it wasn’t a gender issue.
“Well, I didn’t like it,” Rivers said on Friday. “I didn’t like that part of it, but I don’t think he meant it in the way I think it’s being said. I just think he was upset at the technical. I don’t think the technical was warranted, either, to be honest, but that’s not a gender issue. … I don’t think that he meant it as a gender issue at all.”
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