Ja Morant / Twitter
Former NBA All-Star Gilbert Arenas feels Ja Morant’s NBA punishment is excessive and that Adam Silver’s 25-game ban announced earlier this month is nonsense.
Arenas believes that the NBA was pressured into making an example of Morant, who flashed his guns twice on camera, according to his conversation with TMZ Sports, published on June 24.
Morant’s 25-game suspension equals about 30 percent of the season’s games, and the promising point guard is expected to lose more than $7 million from his salary as a Memphis Grizzlies player.
He was due to make $33.5 million with his five-year rookie maximum agreement for the 2023-24 season, but his second suspension reduced it to $25.9 million.
“It’s too harsh,” Arenas said, adding that he feels everything was based on subjectivity rather than precedent because most players who got punished for gun-related offenses got between a one and seven game suspension.
“It’s public perception,” Arenas said. “The public wants him to be stopped. So, now the NBA comes in and says, ‘All right, we have to make it look reasonable.'”
Arenas, who had his own gun-related NBA suspension in 2009, missing 50 games with the Washington Wizards, argues Morant has been punished enough with his deal from Nike and Coke’s Powerade being reduced. Arenas says that Silver should have factored in Morant’s other penalties into his NBA punishment.
“He’s already taken Ls,” Arenas said. “He’s taken Ls on his public image.”
Arenas, whose promising NBA career was forever changed by his own gun incident, has offered Morant personal advice if he were to reach out to him.
In December 2009, Arenas and his teammate Javaris Crittenton were engaged in a dispute over a gambling debt in the Washington Wizards’ locker room. As a result of the dispute, Arenas brought multiple firearms, including unloaded handguns, into the locker room as a form of intimidation or a prank.
The presence of the firearms violated both NBA rules and Washington, D.C. laws.
Arenas and Crittenton were both suspended by the NBA, and the legal consequences followed.
In January 2010, Arenas pleaded guilty to a felony charge of carrying an unlicensed firearm outside a home or business, which carried a potential sentence of up to five years in prison. However, in March 2010, he was sentenced to probation, community service, and a fine.
The incident had significant repercussions for Arenas’ career. He was suspended for the remainder of the 2009-2010 NBA season and was later traded to the Orlando Magic in 2010. After a few more seasons in the NBA, Arenas’ career declined, and he eventually retired from professional basketball in 2012.