The NBA is rebutting the claim Dwight Howard recently made on a podcast.
Howard, the former eight-time NBA All-Star, appeared this week on "The GAUDs Show." During the episode, Howard claimed that he was told by the NBA in 2014 to delete a tweet that he posted at the time saying, "Free Palestine." Howard even said that he got a call directly from NBA commissioner Adam Silver telling him to delete the post.
"When you're in the NBA, there are a lot of things you want to say, but if you say them, there will be repercussions," said Howard, per HoopsHype. "You could get into a lot of trouble. For example, a couple years ago when I played for the Houston Rockets, I tweeted 'Free Palestine,' and I almost got kicked out of the league for it. I was just trying to figure out why. Before that, I had spoken with some Palestinians who told me about the struggles in their country.
"I tweeted 'Free Palestine,'" Howard went on. "Less than 10 minutes later, I got a call from the NBA commissioner, agents, people in my foundation, and even folks from Texas, telling me to take it down. They said, 'You're going to get into trouble. You need to delete this tweet.' I was like, 'What did I do that was so bad? Can somebody explain this to me?'"
The 39-year-old Howard indeed tweeted about Palestine in July 2014 but eventually deleted the post and called it "a mistake."
But on Wednesday, the NBA came out and denied Howard's claim. In an email to Sportico, league spokesperson Mike Bass called Howard's claim "categorically false" and said that Silver did not, in fact, contact Howard about the post.
At that point in 2014, Howard had just completed his first of three seasons with the Rockets. Meanwhile, Silver, who is of Jewish descent, would have been only a few months into his tenure as NBA commissioner at that time after taking over for the late David Stern in Feb. 2014.
The NBA has come under fire before for its stances on geopolitical issues, most notably when it comes to their relationship with China (with some big news breaking there just a few weeks ago). But the league is adamant here that they did not stifle Howard's old post on the Israel-Palestine situation like he says that they did.