Ja Morant, NBA’s firearm fool, to be punished after Finals

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Ja Morant’s punishment is coming, all right. It just wouldn’t be right to announce it now.

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So says NBA commissioner Adam Silver.

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Morant, the superstar guard with the Memphis Grizzlies, already had been regarded as the foremost fomenter of firearm foolishness in pro sports, before his latest incident of gleeful recklessness with a gun went public last month, via a social media video.

Only three months ago, in March, the NBA suspended Morant for eight games for a similar incident in which fans around the world saw video of him proudly brandishing a handgun inside a Colorado night club.

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Silver — at his annual state-of-the-league news conference Thursday, just prior to tipoff of Game 1 of the league’s championship series — said he could have announced Morant’s punishment by now. But the timing would be all wrong.

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“We’ve uncovered a fair amount of additional information, I think, since I was first asked about the (latest) situation,” Silver told reporters Thursday. “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 — that it would be unfair to these players and these teams in the middle of the (NBA Finals) to announce the results of that investigation.”

So we’ll all have to wait a couple more weeks to see just how severely the league will suspend Morant this time.

Silver added that Morant’s “individual” history of “prior acts” most certainly will factor into the 23-year-old’s pending punishment.

Added the commish:

“I don’t think we yet know what it will take to change his behavior … He seems to be a fine young man. I think he’s clearly made some mistakes, but he’s young … It’s about now what we, the players association — and he and the people around him — are going to do to create better circumstances going forward.”

Morant is a former NBA rookie of the year, most improved player and a two-time all-star.

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@JohnKryk

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