Ja Morant and the NBA's Performative Politics
Professional sports is crucifying another black athlete at the pressure of reactionary fans and media, same as it ever was.
Ja Morant and the NBA are in hot water again after Morant appeared on Instagram Live wielding a handgun for the second time in as many months.
In March, Ja Morant, the Memphis Grizzlies 23-year-old star player, appeared on Instagram Live flashing a handgun while at a nightclub in Denver during a Grizzlies road trip. The video quickly circulated online, and the Grizzlies announced the same day that Morant would be away from the team for at least two games while the matter was looked into further and dealt with by the NBA.
The initial response from the media and fans was harsh. In the midst of daily mass shootings across the U.S. and the rise in recent years of young black rappers being murdered for clout and petty grievances, it felt foolish that Morant would want to flaunt a gun on social media, regardless of the fact that he wasn’t breaking any laws by carrying a handgun in Colorado, especially as his career was in ascent from star to potential superstar. It’s hard to see what was to be gained by Morant outside of some sort of off-court masculine posturing.
Shortly after, Morant apologized, took responsibility for his actions, and announced that he was going to take some time away to work on himself and his well-being. He deactivated his Instagram and Twitter and reportedly checked himself into a counseling program in Florida.
Adam Silver, the NBA commissioner, called Morant's conduct “irresponsible, reckless and potentially very dangerous,” and after meeting with Ja, Silver said Morant had expressed “sincere contrition and remorse for his behaviour”, and made it clear that he had “learned from this incident and understands his obligations and responsibility to the Memphis Grizzlies and broader NBA community extend well beyond his play on the court.”
Surely there’s cause for concern when one of your youngest NBA superstars repeatedly appears on social media wielding a handgun. It’s not what the league wants- for their image and reputation, or for the influence Morant has with many of the younger fans around the league (a card we like to pull when looking for an excuse to punish someone we don’t want to see succeed).
Ja’s response to the controversy was professional and appropriate, even if the backlash and punishment felt extreme given that Morant hadn’t broken any laws or official NBA rules. He was ultimately suspended for eight games, and all seemed to be heading in the right direction following the incident.
Morant is the face of the Memphis Grizzlies, a team who’s surged into the playoffs the past three years since drafting Morant second overall in the 2019 NBA draft, elevating the Grizzlies status almost immediately as a presence in the Western Conference, now expected to be a regular in the playoffs for years to come, with Morant’s talent and charisma putting him in a position to be a force and star in this league for the next decade and beyond.
Upon his arrival, Ja played with exuberance on the court and carried himself with an youthful enthusiasm off the court. He was charming and easy to root for right out of the gate, and became a mainstay in weekly highlight reels with his electrifying drives to the basket and poster dunks over opponents.
Ja was immediately given the keys to the Grizzlies offense for his explosive play and showmanship to flourish, becoming a joy to watch for any NBA fan and making the Grizzlies relevant outside of Tennessee for the first time since their Grit and Grind era, led by Marc Gasol and Mike Conley.
Morant’s sizable on-court personality drew criticism from fans around the league who thought he was corny and too-flashy, a strange accusation to be leveled for anyone caught up in the initial joy of watching him play. That criticism clearly reached Morant, and that innocence quickly hardened into a playful cockiness, whether through on-court celebrations, or sly Instagram stories leveled at his detractors.
Overall, Morant’s first three seasons were an undoubted success, collecting the Rookie of the Year award in his first season, the Most Improved Player award in his third season, and receiving two All-Star nods with the Grizzlies making the playoffs in both 2021 and 2022. He seemed to take any criticisms in stride and was on his way to a successful tenure in the NBA and with the Grizzlies as their star player.
Dillons Brooks’ rise within the Grizzlies coincided with Ja’s arrival, and the status Ja immediately brought to the team naturally brought Brooks into the spotlight for the first time since he signed with the Grizzlies in 2017. A self-styled villain in the vein of Draymond Green and Patrick Beverley, Brooks’ on court antics drew immediate attention around the league, bringing the team a new identity as physical, tough, and drawing out the ‘dirty’ label from various fans and analysts.
This new identity quickly evolved past throwback aspirations to the 80s Pistons / 90s Knicks teams into a new kind of off-court hardness that felt immature and arrogant at first glance, but was ultimately just young black athletes on a small-market team with a chip on their shoulder, posturing rap machismo and bravado as they ascended in the standings, becoming a dominant force in the West.
The Grizzlies went from a young team with big ambitions that were easy to root for to cocky villains who people wanted to see checked. That energy fueled the team for the 2022/23 season, which is when everything came to a full boil and seemingly derailed the Grizzlies season and potentially damaging Morant and Brooks’ careers.
Brooks racked up 18 technical fouls in the 2022/23 season and received a one-game suspension as a result. He drew media attention for his post-game interviews, creating off-court drama that translated to on-court altercations. He clashed with Lebron and was ejected in a playoff game against the Lakers with a flagrant 2 foul after hitting Lebron in the groin. The Lakers would go on to win the series, and Brooks avoided media and interviews after the attention he initially sought backfired, refusing post-game interviews and exiting quietly into the off-season.
After the series, NBA reporter Shams Charania reported that the Grizzlies informed Brooks, an unrestricted free agent entering the 2023 offseason, that he would "not be brought back under any circumstances". It seemed that the Grizzlies wanted to make Brooks the scapegoat for their squandered season, pinning this new unwanted identity and off-court troubles on Brooks, hoping to salvage the team’s recent momentum, and steer clear of any future troubles with Morant.
Unfortunately for the Grizzlies, Ja Morant appeared on an Instagram Live with a handgun for the second time on May 14, launching Morant and the Grizzlies back into the same controversy from March, leaving the NBA scrambling to act as media and fans call for action against Morant for his actions.
Ja is surely being immature, and is going through growing pains as a star in the league, which is not uncommon when you give young adults fame and fortune without any proper guidance on how to deal with the enormous attention or wealth they’re suddenly receiving. It’s ignorant to be flashing a gun on social media when you have that much influence over young NBA fans, but Ja isn’t breaking any law or NBA rules by owning or appearing online with a handgun, and the fact that the NBA may even be considering a half-season-plus suspension, as suggested by media and various reports, is ridiculous. I doubt Jokic or Doncic, two white NBA stars, would receive the same severity from the public or the NBA for similar behaviour.
It’s important to note that this shift in Ja’s behaviour and overcompensation to appear tougher started after merciless online taunting from fans calling Ja corny and lame for his enthusiasm on-and-off the court. People didn’t like seeing a 20-year-old living out his dream with so much exultation. The fans did this to him, and now those same fans want to punish him for how he’s reacted to that treatment. We watched him lose that youthfulness to constant public critique only to have it further turn the fans on him for not handling that pressure appropriately by their standard of celebrity etiquette, as if every successful black individual needs to have a perfect temperament to the ridicules of fame and fortune straight out of gates of celebrity.
I’m also disappointed and frustrated by Ja’s actions and think his behaviour is misguided, but that’s not really what the NBA, fans, and media are trying to enforce here. We've been here before. We did this to Dennis Rodman, Allen Iverson, Michael Vick, Mike Tyson, Metta Sandiford-Artest (fka Ron Artest and Metta World Peace), and countless others, all the way back to Jack Johnson over 100 years ago. Coming down hard on successful, confident, and outwardly black athletes who misstep (some in big ways) and are crushed by the white masses and media, reaching for the OJ Simpson/Mike Tyson tabloid scandal highs of the early 90s, ruining their reputation and/or career, and ignoring any effort by these individuals to learn from those mistakes and redeem themselves.
As a culture, we’ll let white male celebrities abuse and cheat on their wives, be terrible parents and/or abandon their children, or worse, and we'll let them back into our good graces off a simple apology (if not less) without too much thought (we’re doing it with Johnny Depp right now). On the flip side, we'll let Mike Tyson and Michael Vick go to prison for extended sentences, and they can serve their time, be released, and make demonstrable and sincere efforts to change and become better people, and often times we’ll deny their redemption and place a stigma onto them under the guise of not believing they’ve changes or learned their lesson.
The exaggerated response to Morant’s videos reminds me of Tucker Carlson on FOX News saying Michael Vick deserved to be ‘executed’ for his dog fighting arrest. Arresting a prominent black man and setting an example with him for dog fighting in a part of the country where dog fighting is normalized to the point that it isn’t enforced by local authorities isn’t addressing the problem at hand; an issue that would be better dealt with on a larger, systemic level, through counseling and awareness campaigns, not through folding to the requests of the angry white mob who are always ready to pounce to extreme action whenever a successful black man falters. We didn’t want to educate or council Michael Vick. We wanted to see him serve time in prison and lose his fame and fortune, which is what happened, and it still wasn’t enough for a lot of people who thought he should never play football or be given a platform again, despite going above and beyond since being released from prison to educate himself and others about animal cruelty and violence in parts of the country where it’s normalized.
This happens to black women tenfold. Think of how we treated Rihanna after she was the assaulted by Chris Brown. We didn’t like the way she handled the situation, and we dragged her in the media for it, and when she realized the media and fans weren’t her friends and she stopped catering to their whims, we alienated her further. She did nothing wrong. She was the victim.
Suspending Ja for an extended period won’t solve the gun problem. It’ll only appease this current wave of white panic. This should be a council-over-cancel situation. Council Ja, or the entire NBA, if you want to make change and take action. Making an example of Ja won’t accomplish anything meaningful or tangible for the future of the NBA, and will only drive Morant further away from the NBA towards this behaviour and likely damage his career long-term.
The NBA and sports fans would rather ruin the career and reputation of a 23 year old black man who didn’t break a law or hurt anyone than to see criminal charges brought against Brett Favre, a retired white NFL superstar, for his involvement in the misappropriation of roughly $77 million dollars in Mississppi welfare funds, $5 million which went to help build a volleyball facility at his Favre's alma mater, a crime with immense negative impact on some of the poorest black people in the country.
It’s frustrating to watch the NBA and media blindly falling into this casual racism and posturing that their reasons are from a place of moral concern and dignity, when we know it really has nothing to do with that at all, and has everything to do with the fact that Morant is black, and his outward blackness and the visuals of an armed black man makes the general public uncomfortable.
If he'd posted his guns on Instagram in a ‘whiter’ way, framed by an interest in hunting as a hobby, or being interested in guns in an Pro-American-NRA-constitutional way, it wouldn't be an issue for the NBA or media and he certainly wouldn’t be facing a suspension from the league.
Look no further than Karl Malone as proof that the NBA’s moral concern with Ja having a handgun is disingenuous and fueled by pressure from fans and media outlets to take action against Ja directly.
Malone played 20 years in the NBA. He’s a gun owner, an advocate for gun rights, he sits on the board of the NRA, and there are photos of him posing with assault rifles happily. He also famously impregnated a 13-year-old when he was 20, a fact that has been public since the late 90s. The NBA had him as an honoured guest at the NBA All-Star Weekend festivities in Utah this past February, 2023, seemingly without his public affiliation with guns or pedophilia being a problem. This was only two weeks before Morant was suspended eight games in early March.
The NBA isn’t being transparent when they frame their punishment of Ja as a righteous moral and political stance on gun ownership and control.
America refuses to enforce gun laws and restrictions across the country, and you can murder someone with a gun without being charged or convicted through a number of legal protections and loopholes, but we want to ruin the life of a 23 year old black man for appearing with a gun on social media, something the NBA hasn’t taken much issue with before now (with a few exceptions). We’re projecting the current issue of gun control in the U.S. on Ja Morant and expecting the NBA to act as judge, jury, and executioner in a mock trial to feel like we’ve got some level of control over the gun problem the country is currently facing.
There’s already been 130+ mass shootings in the U.S. this year, by mostly white males, and we're gonna take out our frustration with the lack of government action on a black NBA player because we don't know where else to put that frustration, and we don't mind throwing a black man under the bus as sacrifice to give ourselves a moment of catharsis against our constant exhaustion over issues of gun control and violence.
We’ve been repeating this viscous cycle for over a century with our black athletes, and giving them the same room to make mistakes and redeem themselves that we allow their white counterparts is an important step forward for major league sports, media outlets, and our culture as a whole. None of this is hard to see when you stop for a moment and read the signs, but it’s all so conveniently overlooked every time we repeat this cycle.
We have an affinity for watching successful black athletes fall from grace, and we like to pretend that isn’t the case by contextualizing their annexation through a performative lens of moral justice, which only ever really surfaces in convenient moments like these.
Ja is likely going through the same pains of celebrity that we’ve witnessed Allan Iverson and so many other black athletes and celebrities go through. I hope he comes around and matures, because he seems like a good person and I’d like to see him succeed.
As a culture, we should stop praying for the downfall of our black celebrities and jumping in to kick them while they’re down, and instead acknowledge that they’re human and prone to mistakes like all of us, and pick them up and root for them to succeed and overcome these pitfalls of fame and redeem themselves.