Peterson ready to move on from Vikings

MINNEAPOLIS (AP) — Adrian Peterson says he realizes moving on from the Minnesota Vikings might be best for both him and the team.

In an interview published Thursday by USA Today, Peterson said he believes the coaches and players on the team are fully behind him but that feelings in the organization toward him are mixed after he was charged with felony child abuse in Texas for using a wooden switch to discipline his 4-year-old son. He pleaded no contest Nov. 4 to misdemeanor reckless assault.

Peterson said he spoke last week with his son for the first time in five months. He told the newspaper he “won’t ever use a switch again,” that he has been seeing a therapist and meeting a pastor certified in counseling near his Houston-area home, and has learned other ways to discipline his children.

On paid leave from the Vikings for more than two months, Peterson was informed this week by the NFL he will be suspended without pay for at least the rest of the season. The NFL Players Association has appealed the punishment on his behalf, and Peterson will continue to draw his salary on the exempt list until the appeal is resolved.

NBAPA calls Taylor suspension ”˜excessive’

NEW YORK (AP) — The executive director of the NBA Players Association said the suspension given to Charlotte’s Jeffery Taylor by Commissioner Adam Silver is “excessive, without precedent and a violation of the Collective Bargaining Agreement.”

Michele Roberts adds that the union is ready to file an immediate appeal, but that the choice is Taylor’s.

Silver suspended Taylor for 24 games without pay on Wednesday after the forward pleaded guilty last month to misdemeanor domestic violence assault and malicious destruction of hotel property. Taylor will lose nearly $200,000 of his $915,000 salary this season.

Taylor will get credit for the 11 games he has missed, and will sit out an additional 13 for a total which is slightly more than one-fourth of the league’s 82-game schedule.