The Ja Morant Situation

On February 5^th, The Athletic reported that, after a Pacers-Grizzlies game which included an altercation involving some Pacers players and multiple associates of Ja Morant, a laser pointer was pointed at some players from a car (that Morant was believed to be in), which the players believed was attached to a gun.  Morant denied the allegations and the NBA investigated, though they didn’t punish any players (it is worth noting that one of Morant’s associates, Davonte Pack, was banned from Memphis’ arena, FedEx Forum, for a year, according to Morant).  Further, on March 1^st, the Washington Post reported two instances, one already reported and another new information.  The first was a little more information about a previous report that Morant was sued for punching a 17-year-old during a pickup game (which Morant has countersued arguing self-defense).  Both sides alleged that guns were involved, with Morant alleging the teen threatened to light the place up and the teen alleging that Morant brought out a gun and showed it in his waistband.  The report also discussed an instance where Morant’s mother was allegedly harassed by a security guard and called Morant for backup; Morant and his entourage allegedly pushed and threatened the officer.  On March 4^th, Morant displayed a gun at a club during an Instagram Live video.  He initially stepped away from the team for a reported 2 games, then this was extended to 4, then an indefinite time before he reportedly entered a counseling program.  On March 6^th, he was investigated by police for the incident, though he was cleared two days later.  The NBA has yet to make a statement about potential punishment.

I would first like to mention that as I had no inside information regarding any of this, I was surprised by this as I had never heard anything about Morant other than praise as a teammate (other than having a reputation of being a bit of a partier, though he’s not the first star who falls into that category).  While there are absolutely elements that I am unsure of, I hope that he is able to take the steps required to not only get his career on the best track, but also his life.  While this behavior is of course not good, he is only 23 years old and has plenty of life ahead of him.  I don’t want to mention his age to suggest that he shouldn’t know better (I believe the contrary), though I would like to remind everyone that and have us remember where we were at the age of 23 (I for one was an alcoholic whose mental health was a mess while in college/grad school, but that’s beside the point).  Of course part of me selfishly hope he resolves everything soon to get back to the court since I love watching him play, but there are things that are more important than basketball.  I truly hope that this is a learning experience for him where he can take whatever steps are best for himself and his family.

While the league hasn’t made an announcement related to any sort of punishment, their silence has been deafening, resulting in speculation about what will happen with Morant and if any punishment is to be levied.  I think the reasons for a suspension would be that the league needs to portray an image for shareholders and advertisers (which tend to be rich white people, which leads to a lot of complications), the idea that young players look up to the superstars (I’m not as convinced how legitimate this is though), and the question about how Morant got the gun in Colorado.  The final one is an interesting wrench since a gun in an NBA or NBA team facility warrants a suspension (stemming back from the gun issues in the Washington Wizards locker room over a decade ago); if he brought the gun on a team plane, then that technically falls under the criteria.  I personally would not suspend him for any actions prior to the livestream because in that kind of situation, the team and league know what is going on behind the scenes (even if the general public don’t), so that would just be punishing him because a reporter discovered this information.  While he could technically be suspended for 50 games (which Gilbert Arenas was previously), I don’t believe this rule is a good one to follow due to the racial implications that were set up by the rule and the fact that Morant was publicly remorseful (Arenas, for what it’s worth, was generally viewed not in that way in the immediate aftermath).  If I were to suspend him, I would probably give him a short one in which the time he has missed so far counts towards it, though I also don’t believe that the negative reinforcement would be as effective.  I think that rather than suspending him when this wouldn’t have been a story had it not been livestreamed, there are ways to help him that would be more efficient.  To me, suspending him would be the equivalent of suspending a student in a troubled home situation to get them out of the school; it’s not something that will help the individual and will only put a band-aid on a flesh wound.

Ultimately, I hope Morant is able to take the right steps to do whatever is best for his life both short and long term.  I also hope that the league and Memphis Grizzlies are able to support him there and not just throw him out.  While NBA Commissioner Adam Silver has been criticized for being light with player punishments, I think this is just what is needed here.  David Stern, his predecessor, would have suspended him for a significant time and claimed that the problem was solved.  In that kind of situation, he would ignore the fact that the players wouldn’t trust him to do what is in the best interests of the league and what is best for players, as well as exasperating a potential issue in Morant’s life even more.  I get that there is still a mindset that he should be punished for what he did; even if he is punished, I think that punishing him harshly will just result in similar results to what you see in the current criminal system:  a lack of care for the individual, resulting in feeding them the mindset that they are only a criminal.

 

Bonus:  The Atlanta Hawks and Trae Young

On February 21^st, the Atlanta Hawks fired head coach Nate McMillan after going 29-30 at the time of firing.  While the team was clearly disappointed with how they were doing, as they were in the Play-In at that spot, I wasn’t that surprised by that, as I thought they would either finish in 7^th or 8^th (I had them 7^th prior to the season in my official prediction, though it was a tough decision between them and Cleveland at the time, something I was clearly incorrect about).  A few days later, on February 26^th, the Hawks announced that Quin Snyder, who had most recently coached the Utah Jazz, would be the next head coach.  While there was confusion regarding hiring a coach at this time in the season and praise given his acumen as a coach, there was one other point many brought up:  how will Snyder, who has one of the most extensive playbooks in the NBA, mesh with Trae Young, a player who doesn’t appear to enjoy running plays and would prefer to meander about with the ball in his hands.  Accusations sprouted around that time calling Young a coach killer, as this is his third coach since he was drafted in 2018, but I would counter that he is not a coach killer; rather, he is the same as what he was (and what I feared he might be) when he entered the league.

While I did not have this blog during the 2018 Draft (I was way to busy with school to have time to write blog posts), I still actively paid attention to the draft and made predictions about different prospects.  There were several players I was correct about in that draft process (for instance, I was extremely high on Luka Doncic, who was my favorite player in the draft, Michael Porter Jr., who was my third favorite, Mikal Bridges, and Robert Williams, while incredibly low on Marvin Bagley III, saying at that time I would rather 2018 Jahlil Okafor than Bagley) and some notable instances where I was incorrect (I had Mo Bamba has my second favorite player in the draft, was incredibly low on Shai Gilgeous-Alexander, a mistake I still look back on to try to learn from every day since I love him now, and was not optimistic about Deandre Ayton’s defensive potential, though thought his offensive footwork made him worth a high pick).  One player I scouted shockingly accurately in that draft was Trae Young, though I was uncertain about whether his size and skillset would make him closer to Steph Curry or a version of Seth Curry thinking he was Steph.

Prior to being drafted, some skills I praised were his passing ability, ability to make deep shots, ball handling skill, and aggressiveness on offense.  While I didn’t think he was a great playmaker at that time (more on that in a second), I marveled at his natural ability to be in control with the ball in his hand and find the right players on passes, creating open looks for teammates.  I felt like there was a Russell Westbrook or James Harden type ability in creating assists, which is something that is not often found among prospects.  I also was impressed with just how aggressive he was to take shots on offense; while there were some issues with recklessness, I would prefer a player be aggressively searching for shots than be afraid to shoot.

However, some things I was afraid of were his size, defensive ability, playmaking ability, decision making, shot selection, his jumper (I thought it was streakier than people gave him credit for), desire to win, and willingness to not have the ball in his hands.  While most were nervous about the defensive liabilities (I was nervous about that of course, but I thought that could be fixed by developing several switchable defensive wings/bigs), I was most nervous about him making winning plays.  In particular, I remember the moment where I thought this would be a problem:  in an overtime loss against Oklahoma State, Young was the only player to take a shot in overtime for Oklahoma.  While the rest of the team had admittedly struggled, he had a usage for the game above 50% (meaning he had the ball in his hands more than half the time on offense) and shot just 14-39 (35.9%) from the field and 6-19 (31.6%) from 2.  At that point, while I thought his jumper would be inconsistent, I knew that upon entering the league, it would be an uphill climb with his willingness to make plays that do not involve him getting a stat to his name.

While he has had moments of greatness in his career, his playing style has not changed, as he has refused to not be a ball dominant player, for better or worse (mostly neutral-worse in my opinion).  As soon as he was named an All-Star in year 2 and made it to the Eastern Conference Finals out of sheer dumb luck (they played against a Knicks team that imploded and a 76ers team that totally short-circuited, not just Ben Simmons), he was rewarded for playing a selfish basketball style.  While he briefly strayed from this style at times after McMillan was hired, he reverted back to it and helped contribute to the team’s ceiling of a Play-In team after that season.  Even after they traded for Dejounte Murray to ease the load of Young, Young initially refused to cooperate, while even having the ball in his hands more after at least a month into the season.  Ultimately, all this displays to me that Young is not a coach killer; rather, he has only ever been rewarded for playing selfishly, and is reverting back to the only playing style he has known and found praise doing, fueling the monster that the team, media, and fans helped create.