NEW YORK — The NBA has fined the New York Liberty, Phoenix Mercury and Indiana Fever and their players for wearing plain black warm up shirts in the wake of recent shootings by and against police officers.
All three teams were fined $5,000 and each player was fined $500. While the shirts were the Adidas brand — the official outfitter of the league — WNBA rules state that uniforms may not be altered in any way.
The league sent out a memo this week to the teams reminding them of the uniform policy. The memo came out after Minnesota, New York and Dallas wore shirts in remembrance of two men who were shot by police and the five Dallas police officers who were killed in an attack July 7.
The Lynx only wore their shirts once and said they will shift their focus to addressing the issue in other ways. The Liberty reached what the players called a compromise in which they wear black shirts bearing only the Adidas logo. New York’s normal warm-up shirt is black, but has its logo on it as well.
The Liberty have worn those shirts four times now, including Wednesday morning in Washington. Phoenix and Indiana wore their black shirts Tuesday night.
