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JD Shaw: Former NBA guard Elijah Millsap is signing a G League contract and is expected to join the College Park Skyhawks, sources tell @HoopsRumors. Millsap is the brother of Brooklyn Nets veteran Paul Millsap.
“It’s one of those divine timing things, where you just know it’s right to do,” Millsap said during an hour-plus phone interview last week, when asked why he went public now with his claim. “I’m ready to be free from it and accept what comes from it. I felt like it’s a perfect time. The way America is right now, we’re subjected to being put in a class, a class of people. There’s right and there’s wrong. And so if I don’t stand up and say this was wrong, I’m on their side, subliminally, not openly. I know I have to live with it. I want to help move this country forward, with my story. By all means. If it costs me my career, I guess so be it.”
“The hurdles have always been my character, character issues,” Millsap says. “Obviously, when you grow up, you start to realize that the character issues that they’re talking about are not even you. They’re not who you really are. You’re fighting an uphill battle versus a perception of what somebody thinks you are versus who you truly are and what you’ve had to truly overcome. It should be celebrated instead of people passing around lies that I’m a bad person – because they have to defend themselves, or look out for themselves by doing damage control. It’s mentally taxing. You would lose yourself trying to perceive who people think you are, and all you want to do is play basketball. Come on, man; I’m not really trying to lose myself, over and over again.”
Millsap says he could discuss things with Snyder, even heatedly at times, because of their relationship. “Maybe step to the line, but at the end of the day, I never crossed the line,” he said. “I always had respect for (Snyder) as the head coach of the basketball team.” So, Millsap pushed back on the narrative. He repeated what he thought his role on the team was. He talked about watching film with Snyder, talking jointly — he thought — about ways to improve the team. He pointed out that Utah went 20-11 after the All-Star break and was one of the top defensive teams the second half of the season. And he pointed out that he believed he was a part of that improvement. “And that led to Dennis Lindsey irately saying what he said,” Millsap says.
The NBA said Monday that an investigation into whether Utah Jazz player Elijah Millsap had a bigoted remark directed at him during an end-of-season interview six years ago has ended and was unable to find proof that the statement was made. Millsap alleged last month that Dennis Lindsey, then the team’s general manager and now its executive vide president, said “if u say one more word, I’ll cut your Black ass and send you back to Louisiana" during that April 2015 meeting.
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Adrian Wojnarowski: The NBA’s joint probe with the Utah Jazz’s independent, outside counsel could not corroborate allegations made by former player Elijah Millsap that Jazz executive Dennis Lindsey made an inflammatory comment in an April 2015 exit meeting, sources tell ESPN.
Tim Reynolds: The NBA announces that an investigation into Elijah Millsap’s claims regarding his Utah Jazz exit interview did not establish that the alleged comment was made. pic.twitter.com/YiM6d7OwL7
Elijah Millsap expresses concerns about probe
Former Utah guard Elijah Millsap said Friday that he has not yet heard from any investigators regarding his allegation that Jazz executive Dennis Lindsey made a bigoted comment to him during an end-of-season meeting in 2015. Millsap also expressed doubt that a fair investigation could take place regarding his claim that Lindsey, who then was the team's general manager and now is an executive vice president, threatened to cut his "Black ass" and send him home.
"Obviously, I know my truth," Millsap said in an interview with The Associated Press. "Some outside counsel or somebody, all they can do is just try to stir it up and make [me] look as if I'm lying. I did it basically to free myself from the torture of holding things in, to free myself, not to make Dennis Lindsey feel bad and not to make him look like a racist. I don't feel he is a racist, but I do know what he said to me."
General manager Justin Zanik, who was then an assistant general manager tasked with keeping detailed notes of the conversation, was also in the meeting, sources told ESPN's Adrian Wojnarowski. Those notes were entered into a team database and will be examined as part of the investigation, sources said.
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Millsap said he remembers being "high energy" going into that meeting and eager to hear what Lindsey and Snyder would say to him. "I was expecting great feedback," Millsap said. "And then it took a turn for the worse."
Millsap appeared in only two more NBA games after the Jazz waived him, and said he believes the team has not spoken well of him when other teams asked about his background. He said he still works out for several hours a day and would like to resume his playing career. Millsap said he doesn't have any specific resolution that would satisfy him in mind. "These guys, they had the opportunity to tell people the truth about who I was," Millsap said. "And they didn't do that. That's disgusting to me."
At least one former Black executive with the Jazz is publicly vouching for Lindsey. Andrae Patterson, who worked in Utah from 2015-17 as player personnel/player programs coordinator, reached out to me Thursday night. “My experience and interactions as well as my training with Dennis Lindsey has always been about being respectful and as much of an anti-racist in personal and business life whenever possible,” said Patterson, who’s now the Cavaliers’ Senior Director of Basketball Operations. Patterson wanted to be clear that he wasn’t in any way casting aspersions on Elijah Millsap’s accusations, but wanted to speak up based on his personal interactions with Lindsey, whom Patterson calls a friend.
Eric Walden: Quin Snyder, on the Elijah Millsap accusation: "I've never heard anything remotely close to that said by Dennis. … And I'm sensitive to things like that — so I'd remember something like that. I've never heard anything like that come out of his mouth."
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