2:02pm: The NBA has suspended Morant for eight games without pay, the league announced today in a press release (Twitter link). However, that suspension will be retroactive to March 5, the first game he missed, so he’ll be eligible to return to action this coming Monday (March 20).
According to the NBA’s announcement, its investigation did not determine that the gun Morant brandished in the Instagram Live video belonged to him or that he brought it to the night club. The investigation also didn’t find that Morant possessed the gun while traveling with the Grizzlies or at any NBA facility.
“Ja’s conduct was irresponsible, reckless, and potentially very dangerous,” Silver said in a statement. “It also has serious consequences given his enormous following and influence, particularly among young fans who look up to him.
“He has expressed sincere contrition and remorse for this behavior. Ja has also made it clear to me that he has learned from this incident and that he understands his obligations and responsibility to the Memphis Grizzlies and the broader NBA community extend well beyond his play on the court.”
After being away from the Grizzlies for multiple weeks, Morant may not suit up on Monday immediately upon rejoining the team, but the expectation it that his return will occur not long after that, tweets Chris Herrington of The Daily Memphian.
Morant’s eight missed games will cost him nearly $669K in salary, tweets Bobby Marks of ESPN. His base salary for this season had been approximately $12.1MM.
1:54pm: Grizzlies star Ja Morant met with NBA commissioner Adam Silver in New York on Wednesday, reports Adrian Wojnarowski of ESPN (Twitter link).
While Wojnarowski doesn’t offer any details on what was discussed during that meeting, he says Morant has left his counseling program in Florida and is moving closer to preparing for a return to the court. However, the All-Star guard will have to wait until the NBA announces the results of its investigation into his Instagram Live video from a Denver-area strip club, which is expected to happen soon, per Wojnarowski.
The NBA opened a probe into Morant after he posted a video in which he flashed a gun at a strip club. It was the latest in a series of troubling off-court incidents allegedly involving the 23-year-old, who punched a 17-year-old during a pickup game last summer, was accused of threatening a security guard at a Memphis mall, and was reportedly involved in a confrontation with members of the Pacers’ traveling party after a January game.
After the league announced it was looking into the latest incident involving Morant, the Grizzlies said that he would be away from the team for two games, then four more. He’ll miss his sixth game on Wednesday night when Memphis visits the Heat in Miami and it sounds like his status beyond that will be determined in large part by the outcome of the NBA’s investigation.
Police also investigated the strip club video and didn’t find enough evidence to bring any charges against Morant, but that doesn’t necessarily mean that the league will close its own probe without disciplining the Grizzlies guard.
The NBA has a good deal of latitude to fine or suspend players for conduct detrimental to the league’s best interests. The NBA’s Collective Bargaining Agreement also includes language specifically related to firearms, so if there’s evidence that Morant had a gun on him when traveling with the team or when at a team facility, that could result in a more punitive penalty.
Still, based on the tone of Wojnarowski’s latest report, it doesn’t sound like the league is preparing to drop the hammer on Morant.
Here’s more on the Grizzlies’ star:
- While news of Morant entering a counseling program didn’t break until this Monday, he took that step earlier in the month, shortly after announcing that he would be away from the team, sources tell Wojnarowski (Twitter link).
- While he was in Florida undergoing counseling, Morant was communicating with his Memphis teammates via text and FaceTime video, per Joe Vardon of The Athletic. Vardon adds that Morant was accompanied to that “retreat-like setting” in Florida by a Grizzlies security officer.
- In a separate story for The Athletic, Vardon spoke to a handful of Grizzlies players about their conversations with Morant and noted that they seemed to be operating under the belief that the star guard would rejoin the club, possibly very soon. Grizzlies forward Dillon Brooks said Morant has “made strides” and is “ready to come back.”
Sir, I have changed my ways. In 10 days I have made an adjustment to the same attitude I’ve had my whole life, I’m no longer surrounding myself with toxic people like my best friends or my mother, I look forward to helping the greater Memphis community and will be holding a boys and girls club of Memphis event at shotgun willies Friday after the game. Thank you and god bless
“My only final wish is that strangers on the internet continue to judge me without the full context of my narrative, in a desperate attempt to fend off their own feelings of impotence and inadequacy”
“A special thank you to all those white knights who will curiously defend my actions and behavior, and a preemptive apology for letting you down in the future.”
“And a toast to the folks who feel being held accountable and acknowledging mistakes is not enough, but instead in a desperate attempt to feel morally superior and signal their own sparkling clean virtue must raze the character of someone they’ve only ever seen on a television screen, and insist they understand every facet of a situation they’re so far removed from it might as well be on the moon, which coincidentally is what we’ll toast them with”
You interestingly seemed to have the opposite take in the Meyers Leonard article. Am I missing something?
How did I have an opposite opinion?
Here you argue that Ja has apologized and been punished by the league, and that that should be sufficient enough for people to mind their own business and not waste their time erroneously judging him based on their own limited and biased opinions (which I agree)
There you state that writers have the right to continuously create bias by repeatedly bringing up and linking to Leonard’s 2 year old mistakes as long as people are interested in it, regardless of the fact that he has also been punished for and apologized for his ignorant language.
This is a false equivalency. If Memphis chokes in the first round and people covering the game say “Ja missed the end of the regular season because he acted like an idiot,” fine. Idiot is still subjective, but at least it’s based in truth.
What I take issue with is when people say things like “Blame the parents! This boy just won’t act right! He isn’t actually sorry, he should never play again!” — basically just ignorant opinions that have shades of various prejudice. If you can’t distinguish whether the quote is about an NBA player or a real housewife, it’s usually a pretty pathetic discourse.
Meyers Leonard did screw up. But I would have just as much of an issue if the quote was “noted antisemite Meyers ‘Goebbels’ Leonard has finally returned to the league after a brief stint in Argentina where he hid from Nuremberg prosecutors, and now backs up Brooks Lopez on a Bucks team favored to win the East.” But that was not the quote.
I clearly disagree that the equivalency is false, but will admit that you’re entitled to your opinion and I respect that. It’s subjective. The purpose of articles like this one, the ones about Kyrie and other players as they navigate different levels of controversy, and including past controversies as part of player bios is to generate clicks. Ad revenue is generated by controversial topics because people continually return to articles in order to have conversations like this and less civilized ones.
I’m with you on being disgusted by some of the comments directed towards Ja. You’re right that people seem to enjoy tearing other people down just to feel better about their own sorry lives… I just see unnecessarily bringing up Leonard’s old problems up as the same kind of thing. The guy is a fringe player, and continually stoking controversy and bias about and towards the guy has and could continue to negatively effect his ability to play in the league. The writers even infer that his past language is why he was out of the league for as long as he was. Teams were hesitant to sign him because they were concerned that fans would be unhappy about it. Continuing to stoke the controversy directly affects Leonard’s opportunities, fringe players aren’t worth the hassle for teams.
So yeah, I disagree that commenters suggesting that Ja shouldn’t be able to hoop and writers intentionally and unnecessarily stirring controversy that effects players ability to find contracts is that much different.
Oh the irony from Lil D who judges Curry with no evidence.
When did I judge curry for taking steroids?
Also shootout to all the the people that are brought to climax from being judgy and condescending toward 23 year old guys with 200 million dollars guaranteed over the next 5 years.
Those are the true patriots. I just hope they use a wet nap to clean up after themselves.
Won’t someone please defend these reckless millionaires?
Won’t someone defend intelligence?
Plus, he’s bringing punch and cookies to the team outing this summer. What a guy.
I blame it mostly on his parents. 2 of the situations were from incidents that was started by his family not him. You get into a beef don’t call Ja to come to your rescue. Best thing for him is to find better and mature people to be around.
Adam Silver is soft.
All sports commissioners are soft, unfortunately.
I think Silver is still better than his counterparts (low bar), but it’s still disappointing to see him follow in their footsteps on such issues.
I never in my life ever thought I’d say this, but I really miss David Stern.
No one respects Silver and he obviously doesn’t care about the fans…….it’s all about $$$ for him.
What is it you’re so angry about? Ja messed up and the league punished him. You think he should never be able to play basketball again?
Genuinely feels like people are more interested in watching Ja get torn down or ripped apart than anything to do with justice, or basketball for that matter.
Stern was a joke. Silver is just a jellyfish. I’m old enough to remember real commissioners like Larry O’Brien and Walter Kennedy although, admittedly, they could make rules in those days without threats of lawsuits and strikes.
They were all commissioners. They’re job was to make sure the owners made money.
The irony of saying that you miss Stern because Silver only cares about money. Lmao
Serious question: Does this punishment make other NBA players, who may be susceptible to similar choices, stop and think about the repercussions? Or, do they not give it a whole lot of thought, because the consequences and money lost ultimately don’t impact the quality of their life and future opportunities very much?
Serious answer: it’s going to totally depend on the player. The NBA is filled with a huge assortments of personalities and stations inside and outside of the game. I’d like to think based on the media attention and scrutiny Ja has been subjected to, other players wouldn’t be in a race to do the same thing.
Hell, murder is punishable by death in some states and yet people still do it. Maybe DUI is a better example. Do you think if people were never allowed to drive again if convicted DUIs would go away? The number of cases would go down, but how many cases are there of guys flashing guns in videos in the league?
Finally, when it comes to other opportunities the league can only do so much. Kyrie was dropped by a brand. Ja could very well be dropped by Powerade, but Adam Silver has no control over that, nor should he.
So is the punishment enough? There’s really no right answer. If he cleans up his act, can you really even attribute it to an 8 game suspension, or other changes made in his life? We’ll see. Sounds like you don’t think it’s enough. It’s one opinion of many.
Yes, I think it says they’re not committed to avoiding this scenario again, or at least limiting it as much as possible. It’s as much of a public relations move as anything else. The league can’t be accused of doing nothing about it, but players and their representatives probably won’t be protesting the level of accountability Morant is facing either.
In Morant’s case he currently has 1.8 million dollars worth of repurcussions.
And he’s making 30+ million dollars this year. 1.8m hurts but not that much.
It does set a dangerous precident…
Ja got off lightly but also is seeking help…
If he had of continued and turned into Delonte West whilst being away from the Grizz, then the NBA would of probably been a lot harsher…
Okay they suspended him for being a bad role model, embarrassing the NBA and possibly promoting gun violence. He lost 700K, been negatively ridiculed on all social platforms and he will forever have this incident on his resume. Justice served, now let’s move on…
Silver doesn’t have a clue, he lets these players walk all over him. Ja should have been suspended till the playoffs to set a standard. He lets these bums sit out games too. Needs to show some backbone
Can you really blame a young, black millionaire for being strapped? People know he has money which makes him a prime target for a mugging or a robbery. You gotta protect ya’ neck.
A great man once said.
“This is America, Don’t catch you slippin’ now, This is America, Police be trippin’ now,”
“Yeah, this is America, Guns in my area, I got the strap”
“I gotta carry em”
However he never should’ve carried a gun while drunk in a bar and it was really stupid to flash it.
It’s his right to have a gun but threatening people with them and using them while drunk while you represent the league and your team is bad
Like I said from the beginning …..
Grow up kid …. before UFitAUp ….
So thru all this. Nobody cares what Grizz do. They were suppose to compete for West. Now like it’s all about a kid waving a gun and his wang ……. He’s already letting his team down.
Ja got off lightly…
Probably because he checked into rehab voluntarily…
He’ll have to take those other hard steps to ensure the people around him respect him enough to not lead him down those paths again…
In the meantime tick tick tick tock ….
Heat spank the Grizz tonight 138 – 119. Thanks again Ja. We still dream of finishing top 2.
Yup ….. reality says. Kings and Suns could catch them ….. then.
It will be Grizz vs Warriors in 1st rd. Oh Yeaaah
I don’t think this’ll be the last time Ja does something bad like this considering this slap on the wrist. We know for sure if he wasn’t a superstar on a small market team, he would’ve been kicked to the curb right away
Would’ve liked to have seen him suspended a little longer, otherwise it’s as if Morant came back and said “Okay, I took my timeout. Can I come back, pretty please?”. It makes the NBA look weak. Suspend him until April 1st to send the message that “We’re happy you took time to address your issues, but you’re still not off the hook completely”.
Anyway, at this point all we can do is hoped he changed. Whether we’re cynical or not is irrelevant. A better Ja is better for the NBA and the kids who look up to him.