A former assistant athletic trainer for the Sacramento Kings has filed a lawsuit against the organization and its senior director of athlete health, alleging pregnancy discrimination, sexual harassment, retaliation and wrongful termination, according to court documents.
Crystal Lee, an assistant athletic trainer for the Kings from 2022 until 2025, alleges in a suit filed in California Superior Court earlier this month that she was demoted during and after her pregnancy. When Lee returned from maternity leave, she alleges, she was kept from traveling with the team and, eventually, from treating Kings players. She also alleges she was fired less than a month after bringing her complaints to the Kings' senior vice president of human resources.
"The Sacramento Kings categorically deny these allegations and reject the characterization of the organization and its workplace reflected in these claims made by a disgruntled former employee," the Kings' attorney, Alexis Gabrielson, said in a statement to ESPN. "The Kings take allegations of discrimination and harassment seriously and are committed to maintaining a workplace where all employees are treated with dignity and respect. The organization intends to vigorously defend against these claims through the legal process and will not comment further on the pending proceedings."
Lee's attorney, Robert King, told ESPN on Thursday: "We have made prior efforts to resolve this matter with the Kings that were unsuccessful. We did attend a mediation with the Kings in an effort to resolve this."
The NBA did not immediately respond to an ESPN message seeking comment.
Lee alleges that the Kings' senior director of athlete health, Jaspreet Randhawa, told her "You're f---ed," when Lee told him she was pregnant and later said her life "is ruined after you have kids." The suit alleges Randhawa created a culture that "if you were not working around the clock, you were not committed."
The suit alleges the team stopped her from working road games in February 2023 -- during her second trimester but months before her son's birth that May -- and that the Kings demoted her in April 2023 from assistant athletic trainer to "administrator, health & performance/assistant athletic trainer," a job that could be done remotely. She claims Randhawa and assistant general manager Wes Wilcox told her the change would be temporary and that she'd return to her old role the next season.
A month after returning from maternity leave before the 2023-24 season, the suit says, the Kings hired another full-time assistant athletic trainer, expanding the staff and keeping Lee off the road despite her asking head athletic trainer Joel Noland and Randhawa to work away games. The suit says the Kings promoted another individual to fill an assistant athletic trainer opening.