Mark Stevens issued a statement on Thursday to apologize for his incident with Kyle Lowry during Game 3 of the NBA Finals on Wednesday that resulted in a season-long ban by the league.
Stevens, a minority owner of the Golden State Warriors, pushed Lowry and yelled obscenities at the Raptors guard after Lowry dived into the stands in the fourth quarter of the game.
The incident received magnified attention on Thursday. LeBron James posted about it on Instagram. Several players were asked about it during their media availability. The Warriors and Steve Kerr offered thoughts.
The NBA announced that Stevens would be banned for a season and fined $500,000. Stevens issued a statement later on Thursday to apologize.
Statement from Mark Stevens pic.twitter.com/KfdGI3xPaf
— Marc J. Spears (@MarcJSpearsESPN) June 7, 2019
NBA Commissioner Adam Silver says he tried to be fair in his handling of the matter and took into account how contrite Stevens was.
“There’s not some rulebook I can look to here for what precisely to do. I try to balance all the different factors and once again, I think this was a fair outcome and I will say we did take into account how contrite Mr. Stevens was.”
A previous report said Stevens would likely be forced to sell his ownership stake in the team before next season.
