NBA Commissioner Adam Silver appeared on ESPN on Tuesday to address the Ja Morant gun incident, his second one in a matter of months.
Silver reflected on the conversation him and Morant had after he was seen waving a gun in a Denver strip club on Instagram live the first time.
“We were very focused on the misconduct that was in front of us at the time and frankly, most of our conversation was about how incredibly serious the first incident was of waving a firearm on social media,” Silver explained to Malika Andrews on ESPN.
“An eight game suspension was pretty serious and something that, he at least to me seemed to take incredibly seriously in that time and we spoke for a long time about, not just the consequences that could have on his career but the safety issues around it – could have injured mamboed, killed himself, someone else with an act like that.
“And also the acknowledgement that as you said, he’s a star, he has an incredibly huge following. And that my concern, and I thought he shared with me, that millions – if not tens of millions of kids, globally would see him as having done something that was celebrating in a way. That act of using a firearm in that fashion.
“And so, I at least was left with the sense that he was taking this incredibly seriously. Honestly, I was shocked when I saw this weekend that video. Now were in process of investigating it and we’ll figure out exactly what happened the best we can and again, the video is a bit grainy and all that, but I’m assuming the worst. But we’ll figure out exactly what happened there.”
Morant has been suspended from all of the Grizzles team activities during this offseason period.
There are reports that the NBA will be handing down a lengthy ban to the 23-year-old for the damage his behavior has done to the game’s image.