Why Doesn’t Adam Silver Get it? Cut Ja Morant From Memphis Grizzlies And NBA For Long Time

Since the Memphis Grizzlies, NBA officials and the slew of other enablers for Ja Morant didn’t heed my advice slightly more than two months ago, let’s try again.

Stop playing around with this guy.

When it comes to disciplining Morant as he rapidly dribbles past the danger zone of life toward even darker places, no more layups.

Forget the free throws.

Slam dunk Morant’s career as an NBA player slated to make up to $231 million over five years beginning next season. Then continue to push him as far away from the league as possible until slightly beyond whatever time you think he finally gets that operating as a thug wannabe isn’t cool.

“You’re wasting your breath pleading with pro athletes and fining them and all that other crap, because the only way you can really get their attention is by taking away their playing time,” Baseball Hall of Famer Frank Robinson once told me when he managed the San Francisco Giants during the early 1980s.

Robinson spoke for eternity, which meant he envisioned Morant, the thrilling yet troubled point guard who shouldn’t be allowed to work for the Grizzlies or for anybody else in the league until, well, slightly shy of forever.

Either that, or until he finally gets it.

If that’s slightly shy of forever, then so be it.

Not surprisingly (for those who read my Forbes.com piece in early March warning of Morant horrors to come if he wasn’t disciplined properly), he surfaced during an Instagram Live video Saturday night waving a gun while riding in a car and singing a rap song. Just over two months ago, he was caught on video flashing a gun while drunk in a Denver night club when the Grizzlies were in Colorado playing the Nuggets.

Before that, there was the lawsuit against Morant from a high school basketball prospect. He claimed Morant punched him in the head during a pickup game at Morant’s home, and he said Morant returned moments later from his house with a gun in his waistband as a threat to the prospect.

There also were members of the Indiana Pacers’ traveling party claiming they got into an argument with Morant and some of his associates. The Pacers folks said a red laser was pointed their way from an SUV that included Morant.

That’s for starters.

So, days after Morant’s gun incident at that Denver nightclub, I wrote the following for Forbes.com on March 6: Within the next few days, hours or even minutes, the combination of NBA commissioner Adam Silver and executives of the Memphis Grizzlies, Nike

NKE
and Powerade can save Ja Morant from himself. He’s crying for help. He’s a 23-year-old NBA megastar who keeps doing crazier things by the moment, and if this continues beyond just a little while, he’s headed for the slammer or the morgue, whichever comes first.

Here’s the solution, but it’ll take a lot of Silver and those executives of the Grizzlies, Nike and Powerade. They must do their version of burning a hole in the piggybank of the Grizzlies point guard, or they must keep him from dribbling just shy of forever (at least in his mind) in the NBA. Actually, they must do both, but if they have the guts for just one, they should do so by going for the slam dunk instead of the layup.

Oh, well.

Oh, well, indeed.

Following Morant’s highly publicized gun mess in Denver, local authorities failed to press charges. In addition, Powerade officials pulled an ad featuring Morant after they planned to build much of their brand around him, but they remained vague about whether they would drop him overall.

Most strikingly, Silver and his lieutenants did their version of giving Morant a phantom slap on his fanny while placing him in timeout. They served him (ever so gently, mind you) with an eight-game suspension, and according to Morant, he used part of that time in counseling to deal with his anger.

I’m sorry, but that sounds like something that would take more than a few days or even a few weeks.

Now get this: If you didn’t know any better, you would say Morant’s alter ego is rapper NBA YoungBoy, a fellow 23-year-old knucklehead with gun issues. His music was blaring in the background of Morant’s Saturday night Instagram Live video that vanished after the controversy.

NBA YoungBoy was arrested in September 2020 in Baton Rouge, Louisiana on everything from numerous drug cases to stolen firearm charges, and he has spent more than a year in Salt Lake City, Utah, under house arrest.

At least give Morant something like that.

“”I’ve just got to be better with my decision-making,” Morant told reporters on April 28 in Los Angeles after his Grizzlies were eliminated by the Lakers during the first round of the playoffs. “That’s pretty much it. Off-the-court issues affected us as an organization pretty much. Just need more discipline.”

Uh, yeah.

Real discipline.