Kings forward Trey Lyles has been suspended for one game without pay and Bucks center Brook Lopez has been fined $25K for their roles in an on-court altercation between the two teams in Sacramento on Monday, the NBA announced today in a press release (Twitter link).
During the final seconds of the Bucks’ win over the Kings, Lyles took exception to Giannis Antetokounmpo dribbling the ball toward him while running out the clock. He tried to steal the ball away, then shoved Antetokounmpo. Lopez jumped to his teammate’s defense, resulting in a brief on-court skirmish between the two teams (Twitter video link via Bleacher Report).
Both Lyles and Lopez were ejected from the game, and the NBA said in today’s announcement that the two big men were disciplined further for escalating the situation — Lopez did so by confronting Lyles, then the Kings forward escalated matters further by “striking Lopez in the face” and “grabbing and holding Lopez around the neck area.”
As a result of his one-game ban, Lyles will miss Wednesday’s game in Chicago and will forfeit about $18K, which is 1/145th of his $2.63MM salary for the season.
Lopez’s $25K fine will come out of his $13.9MM salary for 2022/23.
Trey is lucky brook didn’t kill him right there. He’s lucky he has all those hold me back people to help them
What?
First, Lyles looks like the biggest fool here for escalating things but what was Giannis up to? “Dribbling toward him” doesn’t quite describe what he was up to there. The clock was winding down and he was doing the usual casual dribble the ball waiting for the clock to drain, but then he moves to get in the way of Lyles and bump him where Lyles loses his cool and shoves Giannis in retaliation. Again, what is Giannis doing? Did he need a couple more points, some free throw practice he wanted to get in before leaving for the day? Did he have a beef with Lyles through the game and this was how he wanted to deliver a message who the big dog is? Did he want to test if Brook would stand up for him, to galvanize the bonds of the team? Really, what was he aiming for in provoking that?
Meanwhile Brook Lopez has to do the right thing to separate some fool from his team’s star attraction, and he gets the biggest hit to his pay for his trouble along with photos of this dummy trying to choke him posted everywhere. I expect Giannis will go out of his way to express his appreciation for Lopez, but next time maybe he could let someone else dribble it out, or get his free throw practice in with different methods.
Yep. Wonder what Giannis SAID a he dribbled right across his now. Suspect Giannis is the instigator, Lyles reacted foolishly and Lopez refrained from crushing Lyles’ spleen. Thankfully we got past the Bulls without him. Lopez was pissed off the whole game. Don’t much like the guy, but he can play for the Kings anytime.
Giannis said he’s going to pay Lopez’s fine, so I guess it’s more of a fine for Giannis, really. Which is fine. Lopez did nothing wrong; Giannis did a slightly dickish thing, and Lyles totally overreacted. Lopez? He basically used his body to protect his teammate from a dumb decision.
Interesting
Just looks like two guys massaging each other’s faces from that photo.
Dirty Gino gets away scot free. Typical. Once again he’s “cute and lovable” for paying Brooksies fine, but then when you really ask why “Oh he’s just a good guy.” Yeah…right
Now that you mention it, my girlfriend hasn’t given my a Dirty Geno in a long time.
Order the dirty geno with long hots on a roll n tell em Lil dunker sent ya
trey could use a night off anyways. hes a baller.
Yea this whole Giannis is an angel narrative blah blah is getting tired. Obviously none of you watched the game because Lopez sure seemed to know what was about to happen. Lopez was acting like a Bit*h the whole 2nd half and the refs gave him a long leash for whether or not he was going to get T’d up. People saying brook had Giannis’s back got it backwards. Giannis had brooks back because brook wanted that to happen for awhile. Good on the team that’s won a championship for acting like they’ve been there before. If Bryce Harper had been there he would have said to Giannis “ clown move bro”
How does Lyles only get one game for all that? He basically attacked and instigated two different people both unnecessarily
The NBA LOVES fighting.
That is why they encourage it with petty fines and nearly non-existent suspensions.
$18K? $25K?
One game?
The NBA LOVES fighting.
The NBA is pro-violence.
I don’t love fighting and I am NOT pro-violence, which is it makes me sad that the NBA is.