In Praise Of The NBA Player Who Asked A Team To Rethink Strip Club Night

Luke Kornet did something this week that deserves to be acknowledged and applauded.

The San Antonio Spurs center publicly asked the Atlanta Hawks to cancel a promotional night celebrating Magic City, widely known as one of Atlanta’s most famous strip clubs. In a brief public statement, Kornet wrote that he wished to “respectfully ask that the Atlanta Hawks cancel this promotional night with Magic City.”

For saying this publicly, he deserves real credit.

Professional sports leagues spend an enormous amount of time talking about respect, dignity, and protecting women. Those are good goals, obviously. But words like that begin to lose their meaning when the same institutions partner with industries built upon the sexual commodification of women.

Kornet simply pointed out the tension.

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

That seems difficult to dispute.

If the NBA wants to be a league that honors women and welcomes families, celebrating a strip club is a terrible way to express it.

Kornet also drew attention to something many people would prefer not to think about. As he wrote, “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.”

That observation alone should give us pause before turning such places into objects of celebration. In “The Porn Myth: Exposing the Reality Behind the Fantasy of Pornography,” I documented at length the exploitation and harm that are often hidden behind the industry’s glossy marketing. Anyone unconvinced by Kornet’s concern should spend some time with the evidence.

The NBA is one of the most influential cultural institutions in the world. Millions of young people watch its games. Families visit its arenas. Players are presented as role models. Given that reality, it is perfectly reasonable to ask what kind of culture the league wishes to promote.

Kornet expressed it clearly: “We desire to provide an environment where fans of all ages can safely come and enjoy the game of basketball.” And then he added the line that captures the entire issue: “The celebration of a strip club is not conduct aligned with that vision.”

In recent years, we have grown accustomed to athletes speaking out about political causes. Much of it has been the sort of fashionable, low-risk virtue signaling that earns applause from the political Left. What is far rarer is seeing someone speak about the deeper moral direction of our culture, particularly when it comes to sexuality.

Yet these questions matter. They shape how a society understands dignity, relationships, and the value of the human person.

In this case, Luke Kornet simply asked his league to live up to the values it already claims to hold.

That is a modest but important request.

And I am grateful he had the courage to make it.