When the LA Lakers announced in 2018 that they had secured the services of LeBron James, head coach Luke Walton was a happy man.
Everyone expected LeBron James to make the Lakers great again and some die hard Lakers fans believed that James and Walton could lead the team to an NBA Championship win in 2019.
However that did not happen as both the Lakers and LeBron James had a poor season and the Lakers did not make the playoffs. Luke Walton paid for the team’s poor performance and was sacked as head coach earlier this month but he quickly found new employment with the Sacramento Kings.
The former head coach of the LA Lakers isn’t having a great year in 2019. The Lakers failed to make the playoffs; he lost his as head coach and now he has been hit with a lawsuit alleging sexual assault. The alleged incident took place in 2016 when Walton was working for the Golden State Warriors.
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Kelli Tennant, a reporter who represented Spectrum Sportsnet LA filed the lawsuit over an incident that took place at a Santa Monica hotel room where Walton was staying. The lawsuit states that Walton invited her to his room to discuss a book project that Tennant was writing.
When she entered his room, he threw her on the bed and sexually assaulted her before letting her go due to her continuously resisting him. Tennant alleges that she was subjected to sexual harassment when Walton worked for the Lakers as she was forced to interact with him due to the nature of her job and he continued to make untoward advances by kissing her and aggressively hugging her.
Sacramento Kings Looking Into the Incident
The LA Lakers released a statement which said that no such incident was reported to them during the time that Luke Walton worked for them. Since Walton was no longer part of the franchise, they would not release any further statement on the matter.
Luke Walton did not release a statement regarding the allegations and preferred to remain silent. His current team, the Sacramento Kings did release a statement which said that they were aware of the lawsuit and were in the process of collecting information about the alleged incident.
Golden State Warriors also released a similar statement saying they were collecting info over the alleged incident.