Bulls downplay managerial spat

Chicago general manager Gar Forman downplayed last month's confrontation between coach Vinny Del Negro and executive John Paxson, as NBA commissioner David Stern said Wednesday he wanted to know more.

In a statement released prior to Wednesday's regular-season finale at Charlotte, Forman confirmed there was an "internal disagreement" that was the result of each "expressing their passion" about the well-being of players and the desire to win.

Yahoo! Sports reported Paxson, the Bulls' vice president of basketball operations, grabbed Del Negro's tie and shoved him before being restrained in a dispute over forward Joakim Noah's minutes on court after a game on March 30.

Noah was recovering from a foot injury.

Del Negro said before the Charlotte game that it's "unfortunate" that the story came out.

Stern, speaking during his annual pre-playoff conference call, said he planned to talk to the Bulls' representative on the board of governors to find out just what happened.

"If it happened - if it happened - it's not something that should and we'll be talking to Chicago about that," said Stern, who said he couldn't predict if the league would hand out any punishment.

"I don't have our entire list of what we've done, but my guess is over the years we have taken action of some kind if teams engage in conduct that's detrimental to the league," Stern said. "I want to understand better, exactly how detrimental this was and what actually occurred."