How Spurs veteran Luke Kornet’s gripe with Hawks adds to the NBA’s list of concerns

The NBA’s 2025-26 season has been marred by controversy, from one hot-button topic to the next, including the latest, in which San Antonio Spurs veteran Luke Kornet condemned the Atlanta Hawks’ upcoming “Magic City Night” promotion. Kornet doubled down on criticizing the Hawks’ plans, which followed an open letter asking the NBA to intervene with Atlanta’s scheduled promotion for its upcoming home game against the Orlando Magic on March 16.

Kornet says the Hawks’ honoring a strip club by dubbing it “the city’s iconic cultural institution” does not align with all NBA players’ values, and the association shouldn’t have approved it.

“The NBA should desire to protect and esteem women, many of whom work diligently every day to make this the best basketball league in the world,” Kornet wrote in his personal blog. “We should promote an atmosphere that is protective and respectful for the daughters, wives, sisters, mothers, and partners that we know and love.

“Allowing this night to go forward without protest would reflect poorly on us as an NBA community, specifically in being complicit with the potential objectification and mistreatment of women in our society. Regardless of how a woman finds her way into the adult entertainment industry, many in this space experience abuse, harassment, and violence to which they should never be subjected.”

For the NBA, a league already mired in the morality concerns tied to its fervent support of sports gambling, Kornet’s points are valid, given the negative connotations associated with the adult entertainment business. While the association’s attempt to embrace the region’s culture, of which Magic City is considered one of the foundations of Atlanta’s hip-hop music scene for the past two decades, the Hawks may have gone too far with their latest promotion.

Given that the league technically has larger issues to deal with, Kornet’s latest campaign adds to what’s been a trying season for the NBA. After Jontay Porter was banned for life from the NBA in April 2024 for violating league gambling policies, Miami Heat’s Terry Rozier was arrested regarding an illegal gambling scheme.

Former Portland Blazers head coach Chauncey Billups was also named in the federal probe, which involved sports betting and rigged, high-stakes poker games. Former Detroit Pistons forward Malik Beasley was at the center of a separate investigation for alleged improper gambling on games during the 2023-24 season.

NBA commissioner Adam Silver is typically open to thinking outside the box, which has led league front offices to do the same to rebuild their rosters and compete for a championship. Teams purposely sitting their best players to increase their chances of obtaining a high pick in the upcoming draft has emerged as one of the most controversial topics in sports.

The NBA has considered taking profound measures in response to teams intentionally sitting their players to better their chances of losing. Changes include expanding the lottery to include all Play-in tournament teams, determining lottery odds based on a team’s performance over two years, and freezing draft lottery odds at the deadline to discourage intentional losing toward the end of the regular season.

Luke Kornet addresses open letter ahead of Spurs matchup

Spurs veteran center Luke Kornet knows that speaking out about the Hawks’ promotion is rarefied air for an NBA player. Still, Kornet feels passionate about the topic and hasn’t backed down since his initial blog post.

Learning about the Hawks’ “Magic City Night” promotion one week ago compelled Kornet to speak out, he said, per ABC 6’s Jason Dumas.

“I feel like it didn’t really represent what I know myself and a lot of other NBA [players] thought. So, I just want to make sure that part of the discussion is expressed. It comes with people like criticism and stuff like that – it’s part of the process that why people might be hesitant to do so, but I think actually just trying to get the conversation started and able to have,” Kornet said during Spurs’ shootaround on Tuesday.

“It’s something important to help ensure that the league, everyone is willing to represent, and an environment that you want to have.”

Luke Kornet created some waves nationally when he urged the Atlanta Hawks to cancel its "Magic City Night", saying that it's disrespectful to women.

I asked him about it after shootaround in Philly. Says he hasn’t talked to the league since his statement. pic.twitter.com/eTwFuZGAGQ

— Jason Dumas (@JDumasReports) March 3, 2026

Kornet has reached out to the league, but no changes have been made about the upcoming event. When a reporter asked if he’s spoken to anyone from the Hawks organization, he said no.

Still, this is just another bad look for the NBA amid a season full of bad publicity, from allegations that the Clippers circumvented the salary cap to sports gambling investigations to issues stemming from teams intentionally tanking; it’s felt like one issue after another throughout the 2025-26 campaign.

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