The NBA has been keeping things pretty silent on Ja Morant’s latest gun flashing incident on Instagram, but NBA commissioner finally addressed the media today and revealed that the NBA will be looking to announce his punishment this month.
“We look at both the history of prior acts, and we look at the individual player’s history as well,” Silver said. “And the seriousness of course of the conduct… In terms of the timing, we’ve uncovered a fair amount of additional information… We probably could have brought it to a head now, but we made the decision, and I believe the player association agrees with us, that it would be unfair to these players and these teams to announce in the middle of this series to announce the results of that investigation.”
Adam Silver says the NBA and Players Association has already decided on Ja Morant’s suspension, but said it would be unfair to announce it now during the NBA Finals.
Silver says expect Morant’s punishment to be announced shortly after the NBA Finals.
(via @TomerAzarly) pic.twitter.com/e3ryy1bfok
— ClutchPoints (@ClutchPointsApp) June 1, 2023
As we previously reported, the NBA all star was suspended from all Memphis Grizzlies activities after he was seen on Instagram holding a gun, again.
Morant previously just returned back to the league after earlier this year after was seen holding a gun in a Colorado strip club and apologized for the incident, claiming the person the world saw in the video is not him.
“It’s not who I am,” Morant said. “I don’t condone it or any type of violence, but I take full responsibility for my actions. I made a bad mistake. I can see the image that I painted over myself with my recent mistakes. But in the future, I’m going to show everybody who Ja really is, what I’m about and change this narrative that everybody got.”
Shortly after the incident, Morant entered a counseling program in Florida where he said he worked on techniques to better handle stress, including Reiki and anxiety breathing, reflecting on the position he put himself in.
“Honestly, I feel like we put ourselves in that situation with our past mistakes, and now it’s only right that we focus in and lock in on being smarter and more responsible, holding each other accountable for everything,” Morant said of his inner circle.
“I feel like in the past we didn’t know what was at stake. And now finally me having that time to realize everything, have that time alone, I realize that now.
“I realize what I have to lose, and for us as a group, what we have to lose. It’s pretty much just that being more responsible, more smarter and staying away from all the bad decisions.”