Just 25 NBA Games? Adam Silver Keeps Butchering Ja Morant Situation

Ja Morant is out of control. So is Adam Silver, and it goes back to the guy who shouldn’t take another NBA dribble until just shy of forever or until he gets it. Whichever comes first. As a result, everything involved with the league giving a 25-game suspension to this wannabe rapper disguised as a point guard for the Memphis Grizzlies is wrong.

Morant’s punishment is too short.

It’s also too late.

Where have you gone, David Stern?

With assists from Magic Johnson and Larry Bird, that late commissioner is the primary reason the NBA went from the edge of oblivion during the early 1980s to Forbes reporting this season that the average team in the league is worth $2.86 billion, which is 15% more than a year ago.

Stern had zero tolerance for knuckleheads during his three decades through 2014 as NBA dictator.

Remember Gilbert Arenas and Javaris Crittenton? They were squabbling teammates for the Washington Wizards in December 2009, and they challenged each other with guns in the locker room. Even though their weapons weren’t loaded, Stern suspended both players for 38 games. Arenas spent 50 games overall in the NBA slammer from a previous offense.

So what’s wrong with this picture?

Since the 1970s always serve as a reminder for NBA bosses to react right now to any disciplinary issue drifting toward major (see Kermit Washington and Rudy Tomjanovich), it took Stern only two weeks to discipline Arenas and Crittenton.

In contrast, more than a month passed after Morant spent a second time within 12 weeks embarrassing himself, his team and the NBA with a gun thing on social media, and get this: Silver didn’t announce his discipline for Morant as the league’s current commissioner until Friday afternoon, when everybody was easing into the shadows of Father’s Day weekend.

And Silver still blew the punishment.

Twenty-five games?

Never mind those who run the NBA Players Association are kicking and screaming over the length of the suspension. They say they’re also upset over Silver ordering Morant into league-approved counseling

Players associations do those things.

In case you’re wondering, Morant said through a statement he is accepting Silver’s (ahem) punishment, and why not?

Silver’s (ahem) punishment isn’t worth mentioning.

Nevertheless, Silver added through his public statement regarding Morant’s NBA future: “Prior to his return to play, he will be required to formulate and fulfill a program with the league that directly addresses the circumstances that led him to repeat this destructive behavior.”

Whatever that means.

What we know for sure is that in March, Morant went from threatening a mall security guard, and beating up a teenager during a pickup game before flashing a gun, and doing a bunch of other ignorant things, to holding up a handgun at a Denver-area nightclub on Instagram Live.

Soon afterward, I wrote for Forbes.com that NBA officials should kick Morant out of their arenas for the longest time — or for at least as long as the 50 games Stern delivered to Arenas.

Silver suspended Morant for eight games.

Eight games?

Not surprisingly, Morant became a knucklehead again barely eight weeks later. He appeared in another video on social media waving a handgun while rocking to a hip-hop song from the driver’s seat of a car. Which is why I wrote in a subsequent Forbes.com column in May: 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.

I added the following for Silver and other NBA officials regarding Morant: Stop playing around with this guy.

Instead, Silver became the anti-Stern. He waited for mid-June before he did something regarding Morant’s second gun thing within two months, which happened in mid-May. The commissioner said the delay was because he wanted to avoid distracting from the NBA Finals.

Such silliness.

This is sillier . . .

Twenty-five games?

Morant’s other enablers aren’t helping matters. Powerade officials yanked one of his commercials after his March gun thing, but they haven’t dropped him from their payroll. Neither has Nike
NKE
, and he is slated this fall with the Grizzlies to begin the first season of a five-year contract worth more than $230 million.

No doubt, Morant isn’t giddy that his 25-game suspension will cost him around $7.6 million, but for knuckleheads, money is secondary to this: They want to play, period, especially if they’re gifted like Morant.

In other words, if you force an NBA knucklehead to do more sitting than dribbling, you’ll get his attention big time.

Twenty-five games?

For an NBA knucklehead?

That’s little time.