NBA Commissioner Adam Silver has made a decision about embattled superstar Ja Morant ‘s future with the NBA, but details will be held until after the NBA Finals, which began last night.
Silver spoke about the impending suspension before the game started. Without disclosing the exact punishment, he said when the league assessed the situation it considered the “history of prior acts” and “the individual player’s history.”
Silver said that announcing the punishment now would be unfair to the players and teams in the Finals. It is better to wait until after the Miami Heat or Denver Nuggets, who won last night’s opening game, is holding the Larry O’Brien trophy.
“We’ve uncovered a fair amount of additional information, I think, since I was first asked about the situation,” Silver said to the media. “I will say we probably could have brought it to a head now, but we made the decision, and I believe the players association agrees with us.”
The upcoming decision includes how Morant has dealt with the results of his previous actions.
“But I don’t think we yet know what it will take to change his behavior,” Silver said. “Same thing I said at the time: He seems to be a fine young man. In terms of my dealings with him, I think he’s clearly made some mistakes, but he’s young, and I’m hoping now–once we conclude at the end of our process what the appropriate discipline is, that it’s not just about the discipline, it’s about now what we, the players association, his team, and he and the people around him are going to do to create better circumstances going forward.”
Barely two months after being suspended by the NBA for eight games for flashing a gun while at a strip club in Denver on his Instagram Live, Morant was suspended from team activities for brandishing a gun while in the passenger seat of his friend’s vehicle.
