Hornets let Clifford go
In another move aimed at getting the Charlotte Hornets on track, majority owner Michael Jordan fired coach Steve Clifford on Friday after the team went 36-46 and failed to reach the playoffs for the third time in the last four seasons.
Clifford had a year left on his contract. The move to dismiss him came after his face-to-face meeting Friday with new general manager Mitch Kupchak.
Jordan hired Kupchak on Sunday to replace Rich Cho, who was fired earlier in the season after the Hornets failed to climb out of an early slump.
The Hornets were 196-214 in five seasons under Clifford. They reached the playoffs twice but failed to make it out of the first round in 2014 and 2016.
Clifford on Wednesday called this a “disappointing” season because he felt this was his most talented Hornets team. It was a rough season for him in other ways — he missed 21 games because of headaches stemming from sleep deprivation.
Meeks suspended: The NBA suspended Washington Wizards guard Jodie Meeks for 25 games without pay for using a banned substance.
The league said Meeks tested positive for Ipamorelin, a growth hormone that’s prohibited under the league’s drug program.
In his first season with the Wizards and ninth in the NBA, the 30year-old Meeks averaged 6.3 points off the bench
Meeks was drafted by the Milwaukee Bucks in 2009 and played 41 games with the team before being traded to Philadelphia.
Thunder play-by-play announcer suspended: Thunder television play-by-play man Brian Davis has been suspended for Game 1 of the playoff series against Utah on Sunday for a comment he made about star Russell Westbrook during Oklahoma City’s regular-season finale against Memphis.
Davis said Westbrook was “out of his cotton-pickin’ mind,” an exclamation that came after the Oklahoma City guard made an assist in Wednesday’s game on his way to setting an NBA record for averaging a triple-double in multiple seasons.
Cotton picking was the primary responsibility for black slaves in the South, so the term can be offensive when used by a white person to describe a black person. Many took to social media to complain about Davis’ choice of words. Davis is white and Westbrook is black.