NBA never spoke with woman accusing Lakers' Hayes of assault - ESPN

The NBA never spoke with a woman who says then-New Orleans Pelicans center Jaxson Hayes hit her in a 2021 incident that led to his arrest on domestic violence charges.

Hayes, who now plays for the Los Angeles Lakers, also was not disciplined by the NBA after his no-contest plea on misdemeanor charges of false imprisonment and resisting an officer, despite a league policy that says such a plea «will conclusively establish a violation.» For his plea in the criminal case, Hayes was sentenced to community service, one year of weekly domestic violence classes and three years' probation.

Waukeen McCoy and Laura Stone, attorneys for Hayes' former girlfriend, Sofia Jamora, said they remember receiving a call from a person in the NBA's legal department investigating the incident. McCoy said he returned the call and left a message but never heard back.

«They didn't follow up with me,» he said. «If they were actually doing a thorough investigation, they would have reached out to her lawyer and obtained info from us.»

NBA spokesman Mike Bass declined to respond to specific questions about the league's investigation into the incident or the results.

But pressed on whether the league sought to interview Jamora, Bass said, «An NBA investigator reached out multiple times to Laura Stone, Ms. Jamora's representative, and we did not receive a response to our outreach.»

The NBA said it had reopened the case earlier this week, after TMZ posted a 5½-minute video of an altercation between Hayes and Jamora. At the start of the video, taken by a surveillance camera at a home in Woodland Hills, California, Hayes appears to be blocking Jamora from trying to leave as she says, «No, stop, I don't feel safe. Jaxson, stop, stop, what is your problem?»