Sports
How a Stanford professor helped lay the foundation for this 49ers era
For his first few frenetic months as the San Francisco 49ers’ general manager in 2017, John Lynch left his family behind in San Diego. His temporary home at the Santa Clara Marriott became a brainstorming center for reversing the fortunes of a moribund franchise.
The 49ers, coming off a 2-14 season, had perhaps the NFL’s worst roster. Lynch had no NFL front office experience. He’d have to learn on the fly with coach Kyle Shanahan, his new partner at the top of the 49ers’ power structure.
Tony Dungy, a coach under whom Lynch starred as a Hall of Fame safety with the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, recommended that he and Shanahan build an organic bond by watching as much film together as possible. So the duo immediately began watching hours of game tape. As the film rolled, they talked. They philosophized. They connected.
As the 49ers begin another playoff run, one can trace their current success — they’ve played in three of the past four NFC Championship Games — to the stream of football consciousness that flowed from Lynch and Shanahan during those marathon film sessions.
“I’m over here at the Marriott and I’m like, ‘God, we’ve got to capture these beliefs,’” Lynch said recently in his office.
The GM would remain restless until the 49ers could harness his and Shanahan’s confluence of knowledge in an efficient, usable way.
Then, the light came on. Lynch remembered Burke Robinson, a lecturer at nearby Stanford who’d been his instructor in a spring 2014 course called “The Art and Science of Decision Making.”
“I’m trying to think of how, and boom, I remember in Burke’s class on decision analysis, we did this deal on vision statements,” Lynch said. “I knew this is what we’ve got to do. Because that’s how you capture it all.
“Who better to go to than Burke?”
Over two-plus decades at Stanford, Robinson has taught his graduate-level course and advised students on significant life decisions. Lynch, who starred in football and baseball at Stanford from 1989 to 1992, returned to campus to resume his studies in 2014. He enrolled in Robinson’s class and worked on writing a vision statement for his immediate family.
“I think it’s the most valuable class that I took at Stanford or anywhere else,” Lynch said. “Burke’s a brilliant man, he really is. The basic fundamentals of just putting a framework to decisions is really invaluable because you can do it with anything in life.”
Robinson took the same principles he’s used to guide Silicon Valley businesses to his meeting with the 49ers. He joined Lynch and Shanahan in April 2017 at the team facility in the John McVay Draft Room, named after the GM who had worked with coach Bill Walsh to build the dynasty teams of the 1980s and 1990s.
The new regime’s first NFL Draft was coming up. It was time to solidify their sense of direction.
“I’ve advised some of these startups and they don’t have a vision of what they want to do,” Robinson said over lunch in Palo Alto near Stanford’s campus last month. “It’s like, ‘Hold on, you’re not just tech geeks designing features on some tech product. These have to add benefit to a customer somewhere. Where is the unmet market need that you’re going to satisfy? Where’s your vision for developing a product that meets the minimum set of needs and then advances from there?’
“It’s the same in companies and a football team. If you’re on a sailboat, you have to know which port you’re heading for.”
Robinson began by individually interviewing Lynch, Shanahan, 49ers CEO Jed York and executive vice president of football operations Paraag Marathe. He gauged the temperature of a franchise that was on its fourth head coach in four seasons and starved for organizational unity, which many within the franchise felt had been lacking under former general manager Trent Baalke.
When Jed York, far right, hired John Lynch and Kyle Shanahan in 2017, the 49ers were on their fourth coach in four years. (Michael Zagaris / San Francisco 49ers / Getty Images)
Lynch and Shanahan were then joined by 49ers vice president of player personnel Adam Peters and senior personnel executive Martin Mayhew, all meeting with Robinson in the draft room. (Peters was hired last week as the Washington Commanders general manager; Mayhew was hired by the Commanders as their GM in 2021.)
This was the main event, where the 49ers would craft the vision statement that would set a tone of cohesion in the front office for years to come.
Robinson began by asking all four men to write down and share their top three proposed inclusions. Desired traits in players soon cluttered the whiteboard. Some ideas, like “speed,” pertained to the physical nuts and bolts of playing football. These naturally formed a grouping titled “49er Talent” on the left side. Others like “football passion — loves the game” and “contagious enthusiasm” were functions of player demeanor, so a grouping titled “49er Spirit” popped up on the right.
Shanahan, according to Robinson, was initially ambivalent about the whole exercise. He just wanted to continue watching film with Lynch.
“I get it,” Lynch remembers telling Shanahan, “but we have a bunch of scouts that we’ll be working with for the first time, so everybody in this building has got to know (what exactly we want in players). We’ve got to be able to articulate that. It’s got to be crystal clear.”
For about three hours, the four men brainstormed, discussed verbiage and voted on orders of importance for their inclusions. An early draft of their work looked like this.
Courtesy Burke Robinson.
After a recess, Robinson narrowed the exercise to just Lynch and Shanahan, who have made it a point to meet immediately after every 49ers game since their hirings.
“The conversations we had after Adam and Martin left were about how they’re going to work together,” Robinson said. “It’s easy to work together when you agree. But you’re going to have times when you don’t agree. You’re going to have to have a consistent message going up to the draft room, to the media, to the players. You can’t be telling the players one thing and the media another.”
Said Lynch: “Kyle came alive, which was cool. And then it got real, then it got good. We hit our stride. Burke started challenging us. And Kyle likes to be challenged. The last two hours were money, and this is what we walked out with.”
That more refined version of the vision statement listed “contagious competitiveness” as one of its primary player traits on the right side, and it’s probably the most distinct example of a marriage between separate thoughts from Shanahan and Lynch.
Shanahan wanted “competitiveness” to be a key trait, but he envisioned it falling in the talent column. Lynch was also insistent on including that trait, but — in keeping with his emphasis on culture — he wanted a juicier term that would fit in the spirit column.
“We want guys who compete every day, but everybody has that,” Lynch said. “We want it to permeate the whole team.
“Burke was great at leading us. He’s probably like, ‘These simpletons.’ But he wouldn’t say it for us. He’d say, ‘Come on, how do we capture it?’ And I’m like — ‘Oh, contagiously competitive.’”
Robinson noted that the entire foursome — plus York and Marathe in their interviews — emphasized the importance of the 49ers returning to their winning processes of the 1980s and 1990s. This tie to the franchise’s illustrious history became the North Star of the vision statement.
“Our nucleus of dedicated players will reestablish The 49er Way and lead our organization back to the top of the NFL,” the top reads. “These players will represent our core values and beliefs in both their talent and spirit.”
Then there’s the closing sentence, which is underlined by silhouettes of the 49ers’ five Lombardi Trophies: “We firmly believe that players who embody these core values will change the culture and reestablish the 49er Way — a Brotherhood that will lead us back to competing for championships year after year.”
The 49ers emblazoned the final version on a large wall chart, which they hung up in the McVay Room for the 2017 draft.
“We sat down looking to make something just for that first draft,” Lynch said. “Then we liked it so much, we said ‘Let’s make it the guiding light for our organization.’”
Said Robinson: “They wanted to be the role model for the NFL. They said, ‘We’re rebuilding what we used to have.’”
“Things like this aren’t just a piece of paper,” Lynch said, waving a laminated copy of an updated 49ers’ vision statement. “You start to see it come to life. And that’s when it’s really cool.”
The 49ers have made much of their vision statement a reality. They haven’t yet won a Super Bowl, but the barren roster Lynch and Shanahan inherited in 2017 is now one of the most talented outfits in the league. This season, the 49ers have nine Pro Bowlers and five first-team All-Pro selections, the most of any team in the NFL. The “49er Talent” column is thriving.
There’s also plentiful evidence of realized success on the “49er Spirit” side. Stories of the locker room’s cohesiveness have helped position the team for their best odds yet to win a Super Bowl under the current leadership.
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It started with unity upstairs. A collaborative process between the coaching staff and scouting department has enabled the 49ers to target and land enough of the right players to make their system work, even as they’ve walked a tightrope around the salary cap with a formula that’s put pressure on hitting mid-to-late-round draft picks. The team has been exceptionally productive in the fifth round (tight end George Kittle and safety Talanoa Hufanga are two All-Pros selected there) and the seventh round (quarterback Brock Purdy was famously the last pick of the 2022 draft).
“Our scouts know they’ve been heard out — they know they’ve been listened to,” Lynch said. “That’s culture to me. And Kyle said it well when we first started the interview process: ‘Culture is the people you surround yourself with. We’ve got to bring quality people to have a great culture, and it will happen naturally once we start to do that.’”
When Lynch began his tenure as the 49ers’ GM, he didn’t have any executive experience. But he did have a wealth of observational knowledge collected from his time as a Fox broadcaster.
“People in football have this very focused, insular view,” Lynch said. “When I was a player, I knew how they did things in Tampa and Denver — but you don’t really get a global outlook on the league the way you think you would. As a broadcaster, I started being a curious person about football. I asked, ‘What are the common threads?’
“I could be in John Schneider and Pete Carroll’s office (with the Seattle Seahawks) and they were saying the same thing, and then I’d go to bad organizations and the GM would say: ‘Man we’ve got all the talent, John, but the coach can’t get it out of them’ — and the coach would say, ‘We don’t have the talent, look how bad it is.’ … They weren’t connected. But there were things about the organizations that were perennially successful. It was like, ‘Gosh, it’s not that hard.’ You just have to have a good relationship.”
Though the 49ers have been unified under Lynch and Shanahan, they certainly haven’t been perfect.
A handful of early picks never came close to meeting expectations for them, including the two first-rounders — defensive lineman Solomon Thomas (a Stanford product who was a classmate of Lynch in Robinson’s decision analysis class in 2014) and linebacker Reuben Foster — the team selected in that 2017 draft. The blockbuster trade-up to select quarterback Trey Lance in 2021 wasn’t fruitful, either. And despite substantial on-field success, frustrating injuries and gut-wrenching losses have, at least so far, prevented the 49ers from reaching their ultimate goal.
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But many of these setbacks have helped highlight another 49ers’ strong suit: adaptability.
“We haven’t been afraid to tweak the vision statement a little bit when things have changed,” Lynch said. “We’re all a product of our experiences.”
The first changes came after 2017 and 2018, when they began emphasizing a desire for “finishers” after blowing several late leads. After a 2020 season that saw the team put a record amount of salary on injured reserve, “availability” became a stated priority.
The evolution of the vision statement has tangibly affected the on-field product. Lynch said their 2019 draft selection of bruising receiver Deebo Samuel was a direct response to a league-wide resurgence of physicality at the line of scrimmage from defensive backs. To improve perimeter run defense, the prototype for the team’s speed-rushing “Leo” defensive end position has morphed from a lighter edge rusher to a much larger and more physical run stopper.
The 49ers’ defined vision statement has helped lead them to players like George Kittle, Deebo Samuel and Fred Warner. (Ryan Kang / Getty Images)
At this point, the 49ers’ success in talent acquisition speaks for itself. So does the annual league-wide popularity of the organization’s coaches and executives. Teams have hired away three Shanahan assistants to be their head coaches (Robert Saleh, Mike McDaniel and DeMeco Ryans) and two of the four participants in that original vision statement meeting — Mayhew and Peters — have landed GM jobs elsewhere. It’s clear the rest of the NFL is interested in adapting key parts of the 49ers’ formula.
Lynch hopes that it continues to be self-sustaining. He believes a precise sense of direction creates an ideal environment for internal development, which can organically replenish the 49ers’ brain trust even when key figures leave for promotions elsewhere.
“That’s the lifeblood,” Lynch said. “You want to grow from within so you have people indoctrinated in what we do.”
It all circles back to the foundational pillars the 49ers established before that 2017 draft.
“We didn’t want it to be just a cheesy slogan that we talk about every now and then,” Lynch said. “We wanted it to be about who we really are. It’s our beacon that reminds us who we are and what we’re trying to be.”
(Top illustration: Sean Reilly / The Athletic; photos: Stacy Revere / Getty Images and Michael Zagaris / San Francisco 49ers / Getty Images)
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Ali Haji-Sheikh and Shar Pourdanesh share the fact they are retired NFL players living beyond the glow of the NFL spotlight. But they also share another distinction tying them to current events: They are part of the Iranian diaspora hoping for the downfall of the Islamic revolution.
They make up part of a small group of men who played in the NFL – along with David Bakhtiari, his brother Eric Bakhtiari and T.J. Housmandzadeh – who are decedents of Iranians.
Washington Redskins kicker Ali Haji-Sheikh (6) talks to reporters at Jack Murphy Stadium during media day prior to Super Bowl XXII against the Denver Broncos. San Diego, California, on Jan. 26, 1988.(Darr Beiser/USA TODAY Sports)
Haji-Sheikh: Self-Determination For Iranians
Haji-Sheikh, 65, played in the 1980s for the New York Giants, Atlanta Falcons and Washington Redskins. He was a first-team All-Pro, made the Pro Bowl and was on the NFL All-Rookie team in 1983 for the Giants and, in his final season, won a Super Bowl XXII ring playing for the Washington Redskins and kicking six extra points in a 42-10 blowout of the Denver Broncos.
Now, Haji-Sheikh is the general manager at a Michigan Porsche-Audi dealership and is like the rest of us: Keeping up with world events when time permits.
Except the war the United States is currently waging against the Islamic Republic of Iran is kind of different because Haji-Sheikh’s dad emigrated from Iran to the United States in the 1950s and built a life here.
And his son would like to see freedom come to a country he’s never visited but has a kinship to.
“It’s a world event,” Haji-Sheikh said on Monday. “I am not a big fan of the Islamic revolution because I am not Islamic. I would like to see the people of Iran be able to determine their own future rather than it be determined by a few people. It would be nice to see them having a stable government where the people can actually decide how they want it to go.
Green Bay Packers kicker Al Del Greco (10) talks with New York Giants kicker Ali Haji-Sheikh (6) on Sept. 15, 1985, at Lambeau Field in Green Bay, Wisconsin. The Packers defeated the Giants 23-20.
Iranians Celebrating And Americans Protesting
Haji-Sheikh hasn’t taken to the streets of his native Michigan to celebrate a liberation that hasn’t fully manifested mere days after the American and Israeli bombing and elimination of the Ayatollah.
“I’m so far removed from that,” Haji-Sheikh said. “My mom is from Michigan and of Eastern European background. My dad is from Iran. But it’s like, he hasn’t been back since I was in eighth grade, so that’s a long time ago. That was when the Shah was still in power, mid-70s, ‘74 or ’75, because if he ever went back after that he never would have left. They would have held him, so there was no intention of going back.
“But if things change he might want to go, you never know.”
Despite being removed from any activism about what is happening in Iran Haji-Sheikh is an astute observer.
“My favorite thing I’m seeing right now on TV is the Iranians in America celebrating because there’s a chance, a glimpse, maybe a hope for freedom,” Haji-Sheikh said. “And you have these people in New York protesting. What are you protesting?”
Pourdanesh Thanks America, Israel
Pourdanesh retired from the NFL in 2000 after a seven-year career with the Redskins and Steelers. The six-foot-six and 312-pound offensive tackle was born in Tehran. He proudly tells people he was the NFL’s first Iranian-born player.
Pourdanesh is much more visible and open about his feelings about his country than others. And, bottom line, he loves that President Donald Trump is bombing the Islamic regime.
“This is a great day for all Iranians across the world,” Pourdanesh posted on his Instagram account on Saturday when the war began. “Thank you, President Trump, thank you to the nation of Israel. Thank you for everybody that has been standing up for my people, my brothers and sisters in Iran across the world. This is a great day.
“The infamous dictator is dead – the one person who has contributed to deaths of hundreds of thousands of Iranians and other people around the world, if not more. So, congratulations to my Iranian brothers and sisters. Now, go and take back the country.”
This message was not a one-off. Pourdanesh has been posting about what has been happening in Iran since January, when people in Iran took to the streets demanding liberty and the government’s thugs began killing them, with some estimates rising to 36,500 deaths.
Offensive lineman Shar Pourdanesh (68) of the Pittsburgh Steelers blocks against defensive lineman Jevon Kearse (90) of the Tennessee Titans during a game at Three Rivers Stadium on Sept. 24, 2000, in Pittsburgh. The Titans defeated the Steelers 23-20. (Photo by George Gojkovich/Getty Images)
‘Islam Does Not Represent The Iranian People’
“[The] Islamic Republic does not represent the Iranian people,” Pourdanesh said in another post. “Islam does not represent the Iranian people. For almost 50 years, the Iranian people and our country of Iran has been taken hostage by a terrorist regime, and it’s time to take that regime down.”
Pourdanesh was not available for comment on Monday. I did speak to a handful of other Iranian-Americans on Monday. They didn’t play in the NFL, but their opinions are no less valuable than those of former NFL players.
And these people, some of them participating in rallies on behalf of a free Iran, do not understand the thinking of some Americans and mainstream media.
One complained that media that reports on reparations for black Americans based on slavery in the 1800s dismisses the Islamic takeover of the American Embassy in 1979 as an old grievance.
Another said his brother lives in England, where Prime Minister Keir Starmer immediately called the American and Israeli attacks on the Ayatollah’s regime “illegal” but, as the head of the Crown Prosecution Service took years to do the same of Muslim rape (grooming) gangs in the country.
(Starmer announced a national “statutory inquiry” in June 2025).
Offensive lineman Shar Pourdanesh of the Washington Redskins looks on from the sideline during a game against the Pittsburgh Steelers at Three Rivers Stadium on Sept. 7, 1997, in Pittsburgh. The Steelers defeated the Redskins 14-13. (Photo by George Gojkovich/Getty Images)
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Pourdanesh Calls Out NFL Silence
And finally, Pourdanesh put the NFL on blast. He said in yet another post that during his career, the NFL asked him to honor black history, asked him to stand for women’s rights, asked him to fight for equality for those who cannot defend themselves.
“I did everything they asked, and now I ask the NFL this: Where are you now? Why haven’t we heard a single word out of the NFL? NFL, Commissioner Roger Goodell, all the NFL teams out there, all the players who say they stand for social justice, where are you now?
“Why haven’t we heard a single word out of you with regard to the people who have been killed as of today? The very values you claim to espouse are being trampled right now. Why haven’t we heard a single word?”
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The day after he saved the Dodgers’ season, Will Klein was hungry. He ordered from Mod Pizza.
He drove over to pick up his order. The guy that handed him the pizza told him he looked just like Will Klein.
“You should just look at the name on the order,” Klein told him.
Chaos ensued.
“He actually started screaming,” Klein said. “He just started flipping out, which was funny.”
Thing is, if it were two days earlier, the guy would have had no idea what Klein looked like. Neither would you.
On Oct. 26, Klein was the last man in the Dodgers’ bullpen, a wild thing on his fourth organization in two years, a last-minute addition to the World Series roster.
On Oct. 27, the Dodgers played 18 innings, and the last man in the Dodgers’ bullpen delivered the game of his life: four shutout innings, holding the Toronto Blue Jays at bay until Freddie Freeman hit a walk-off home run.
Dodgers pitcher Will Klein celebrates during the 16th inning of Game 3 of the World Series against the Toronto Blue Jays at Dodger Stadium on Oct. 27.
(Mark J. Terrill / Associated Press)
When Klein returned to the clubhouse, Sandy Koufax walked over to shake hands and congratulate him.
That was Game 3 of the World Series. The Dodgers, the significantly older team, slogged through the next two games, batting .164 and losing both.
If not for Klein, that would have been the end. The Blue Jays would have won the series in five games, and there would have been no Kiké Hernández launching a game-ending double play on the run in Game 6, no Miguel Rojas tying home run and game-saving throw in Game 7, no Andy Pages game-saving catch and Will Smith winning home run in Game 7, no Yoshinobu Yamamoto winning Game 6 as a starter and Game 7 as a reliever.
There would have been no parade.
When Klein rescued the Dodgers, he had pitched one inning in the previous 30 days.
“You can never take your mind out of it,” he said. “You’ve got to stay prepared. Something might come up, and you don’t want to be the guy that gets thrown in the fire and just burns.”
The Dodgers are not shy about grabbing a minor league pitcher, telling him what he can do better and what he should stop doing, and seeing what sticks. If nothing sticks, the Dodgers are also not shy about spitting out the pitcher and designating him for assignment.
In his minor league career, Klein struck out 13 batters every nine innings, which is tremendous. He walked seven batters every nine innings, which is hideous.
The Dodgers scrapped his slider, mixed in a sweeper, and told him his arm was so good that he should stop trying to make perfect pitches and just let fly.
“A lot of times, pitchers are guilty of giving hitters too much credit, and hitters are guilty of giving pitchers too much credit,” said Andrew Friedman, the Dodgers’ president of baseball operations.
“Part of our job is to show them information that helps instill some confidence. I think that really landed with Will.”
In his four September appearances with the Dodgers — after a minor-league stint to apply the team’s advice — he faced 17 batters, walked one, and did not give up a run. That’s why he isn’t buying the suggestion that something suddenly clicked in the World Series.
“Things were incrementally getting better,” he said, “and then you add that to the atmosphere. It amplifies it to 100. All the prep work and mental stuff that I had been doing, I finally got a chance to shine.”
Said Dodgers manager Dave Roberts: “He’s done it in the highest of leverage. You can’t manufacture that. You’ve got to live it and do it. So, since he’s done it, I think he’s got a real confidence.”
Dodgers pitcher Will Klein speaks during DodgerFest at Dodger Stadium on Jan. 31.
(John McCoy / Getty Images)
Klein last started a game three years ago, at triple A. After making 72 pitches in those four innings of Game 3, did he entertain the thought that maybe, just maybe, he was meant to be a starter after all?
“No,” he said abruptly. “I hate waiting four or five days to pitch and knowing exactly when I’m going to pitch.
“When I did, the anxiety just built. I want to go pitch. I hate sitting there and waiting. That kind of eats at you. I like being able to go out to the bullpen and have a chance to pitch every day.”
The Dodgers are so deep that Klein might not make the team out of spring training. Whatever happens, he’ll always have Game 3.
In the wake of that game, a fan wanted to buy a Klein jersey but could not find one. So the fan made one himself before Game 4, using white electrical tape on the back of a Dodger blue jersey. I showed Klein a picture.
“That’s cool,” Klein said. “That’s pretty funny.”
Dave Wong, a Dodgers fan living in San Francisco Giants territory, also wanted to buy a Klein jersey.
“They didn’t have a jersey for him,” Wong said.
He settled for the Dodger blue T-shirt he found online and wore it to last Friday’s Cactus League game against the Giants, with these words in white letters: “Will Klein Appreciation Shirt.”
This, then, would be a Will Klein Appreciation Column.
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NBA player calls for Hawks to cancel their ‘Magic City’ strip club promotional night out of respect for women
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An NBA player has taken exception to an Atlanta Hawks promotional night, which is a nod to a famed strip club in the city.
The Hawks have “Magic City Night” scheduled for March 16 against the Orlando Magic, but a player for neither team isn’t too fond of paying tribute to a strip club, which has been famed for its late-night stories involving athletes, celebrities and more.
While the Hawks call it an ode to a “cultural institution,” San Antonio Spurs center Luke Kornet shared his displeasure in a letter posted on Medium.
Luke Kornet of the San Antonio Spurs reaches for the ball during the third quarter against the Brooklyn Nets at Barclays Center on Feb. 26, 2026 in the Brooklyn borough of New York City. (Ishika Samant/Getty Images)
Kornet, a nine-year veteran and 2024 NBA champion with the Boston Celtics, called for the Hawks’ promotional night to be canceled later this month, saying that it is disrespectful to women to honor the strip club.
“In its press release, the Hawks failed to acknowledge that this place is, as the business itself boasts, “Atlanta’s premier strip club.” Given this fact, I would like to respectfully ask that the Atlanta Hawks cancel this promotional night with Magic City,” Kornet wrote in his post.
“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. We should promote an atmosphere that is protective and respectful of the daughters, wives, sisters, mothers, and partners that we know and love.”
The Hawks boasted about the theme night in its press release, including a live performance by famous Atlanta rapper T.I., a co-branded, limited-edition hoodie and even the establishment’s “World Famous” lemon-pepper chicken wings in the arena.
A general view of signage with the State Farm Arena logo on Nov. 14, 2025, outside State Farm Arena, in Atlanta, GA. (Erica Denhoff/Icon Sportswire)
“This collaboration and theme night is very meaningful to me after all the work that we did to put together ’Magic City: An American Fantasy’,” said Hawks principal owner, filmmaker and actor, Jami Gertz, said in a press release. “The iconic Atlanta institution has made such an incredible impact on our city and its unique culture.”
Kornet wrote that allowing the night to continue “without protest would reflect poorly on us as an NBA community, “specifically in being complicit in the potential objectification and mistreatment of women in our society.”
Kornet wrote that “others throughout the league” were surprised by the Hawks’ decision to have this promotional night.
“We desire to provide an environment where fans of all ages can safely come and enjoy the game of basketball and where we can celebrate the history and culture of communities in good conscience. The celebration of a strip club is not conduct aligned with that vision,” he wrote.
Luke Kornet of the San Antonio Spurs defends against the Charlotte Hornets during their game at Spectrum Center on Jan. 31, 2026 in Charlotte, North Carolina. (Jacob Kupferman/Getty Images)
The Hawks have seen good reception for the promotional night, as Tick Pick reported a get-in price was initially $10 for the game and has since skyrocketed to $94.
Kornet is in his first season with the Spurs, his sixth NBA team, where he has played mainly in a bench role. He averages 7.1 points and 6.5 rebounds per game across 50 contests.
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