The NBA has responded to allegations made in a Sports Illustrated article about the allegedly abusive workplace culture inside the Dallas Mavericks by creating a way for employees to anonymously report similar issues.
On Tuesday, Feb. 20, Sports Illustrated‘s “The Crossover” broke a story in which several current and former employees of the Dallas Mavericks detailed a hostile work environment at the NBA franchise. On Thursday, Feb. 22, the NBA’s league office began to take action in response to the allegations.
One of the reasons why most of the sources for the authors of the SI article, Jessica Luther and Jon Wertheim, remained anonymous is because of fear of retaliation by the Mavericks. On top of current employees losing their jobs and possible libel suits, connections that Mavericks staff implicated in the allegations have could make it difficult for those involved to find other jobs.
The NBA has taken a step, however preliminary, to allow for quicker responses to potential abuses by creating a telephone hotline which allows employees to remain anonymous when they want to report such issues.
The NBA is launching a confidential hotline to report workplace issues, including sexual harassment, according to a memo commissioner Adam SIlver sent to the 30 teams minutes ago.
— Adrian Wojnarowski (@wojespn) February 22, 2018
This is a step in the right direction for the league. It’s only a first step, however. If the establishment of this hotline isn’t followed with a clear and robust protocol for how to proceed with claims made on the hotline, then the establishment of this hotline was merely lip service to a solution for this problem.
The NBA and its member franchises must now designate and train staff on how to protect potential victims of hostile workplace behavior. It must also contract with independent, third-party firms who can investigate claims made on the hotline without bias. Leaving the franchises to police this behavior on their own is part of what created this situation.
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The NBA holds its players to a moral code. The establishment of this hotline could be a great step toward holding all team employees to a similar standard, but only if use of the hotline is the beginning of actually holding people who violate that code accountable.