Silver: Morant not being charged with a crime won’t prevent NBA penalties

DENVER (AP) —Memphis guard Ja Morant not being charged with a crime for twicedisplaying a gun on social media will not prevent the NBA fromhanding down more discipline, Commissioner Adam Silver saidFriday.

Silver ispreparing to announce whatever penalty is coming Morant’s way forthe second gun incident shortly after the end of the NBA Finals. Hesuspended Morant for eight games in March after the Grizzlies starheld a gun in a suburban Denver nightclub while streaming himselflive on Instagram. Another live stream in May, this time whilesharing the front seat of a car with one of his friends, saw Morantdisplaying a weapon again.

“Waving themaround, displaying them in a certain context, is not consistentwith gun safety and is not the proper message that an NBA player,particularly one at Ja’s level, should be sending to the tens ofmillions of followers he has — and particularly when it’s anincident once again, where it’s been streamed live on socialmedia,” Silver said. “So yes, I think given the similarity of thisincident to the first one, I was alarmed, I was disheartened.”

Police inColorado looked into the March incident and did not file charges.Morant has also not been charged with doing anything illegalrelated to the May incident.

But thecollective bargaining agreement between the league and its playersalso says players agree “not to do anything that is materiallydetrimental or materially prejudicial to the best interests” oftheir team or the NBA. That’s why Morant’s eight-game suspension inMarch was for conduct detrimental to the league, and it’sreasonable to assume that will be part of the sanctioning thatMorant will face this time.

“When we havea standard for conduct detrimental, at the end of the day, it’s onebased on what we see as the values of this league and what ourexpectations from our players in terms of the image we’reportraying to our fans,” Silver said. “So, it’s not a legalstandard. It’s a private organization standard.”

Silverannounced Thursday that the league and the National BasketballPlayers Association agree that the latest Morant penalty should notbe announced during the finals. Morant has been suspended by theGrizzlies indefinitely, and with the team obviously off until campthis fall there’s no urgency for the NBA to announce itsdecision.

Silver alsoinsisted that his decision is not going to be a political one, evenin a time where the topic of gun control only seems to be wideningthe political divide across the country.

There havebeen 557 mass killings in the United States since 2006, and atleast 2,896 people have died, according to a database maintained byThe Associated Press and USA Today in partnership with NortheasternUniversity. Those include killings where four or more died, notincluding the assailant, within a 24-hour period. So far in 2023,the nation has witnessed the highest number on record of masskillings and deaths to this point in a single year.

“This, to me,is an issue of gun safety,” Silver said.

This is thethird known NBA investigation surrounding Morant and the possibleinvolvement of firearms so far in 2023.

Morant’sactions were investigated after a Jan. 29 incident in Memphis thathe said led to Davonte Pack — someone Morant calls “my brother” andthe person who live-streamed the May incident — banned fromGrizzlies home games for a year.

That incidentfollowed a game against the Indiana Pacers; citing unnamed sources,The Indianapolis Star and USA Today reported that multiple membersof the Pacers saw a red dot pointed at them while they were nearthe loading dock where their bus was located, and The Athleticreported that a Pacers security guard believed the laser wasattached to a gun.

The NBAconfirmed that individuals it didn’t identify were banned from thearena but said its investigation into the January event found noevidence that anyone was threatened with a weapon.

Morant andPack also are involved in a civil lawsuit brought after an incidentat Morant’s home last summer, in which a then-17-year-old allegedthat they assaulted him. Morant filed a countersuit on April 12,accusing the teen of slander, battery and assault.