THE REST OF US ARE BURIED, BUT MORANT AND GREEN GET EVEN MORE BREAKS
How convenient of Silver and NBA billionaires to give additional leverage to players warranting season-long ejections, which suggests troubled employees have issues that can’t be fixed with counseling
The NBA bosses aren’t thinking of the firearm he wielded in a Denver nightclub, or the gun brandished as he danced to a rap song with friends in a car. Nor do they care if Ja Morant, in court this week, said he “swung first” at his home when he punched a teenager. Nor are they anxious that he was awash with tequila while visiting seedy strip clubs in Memphis, not to mention every road city.
What concerns Adam Silver is that he’s saving a life, which is also what he says about Draymond Green, though neither claim is known as steadfastly true. Never mind how other American companies, including ones that offer athletes for public consumption, would have terminated both players and ruined them in workplaces. When it comes to Morant, Silver thinks of his electric, acrobatic plays that made him a young face of the league. When it comes to Green, Silver thinks of four championships and dirty-workism in Golden State.
He thinks of these folks making money for his operation, for billionaire owners, for broadcast networks, for sneaker firms. And, by extension, the same goes for a county judge in Tennessee, Carol Chumney, who told Morant this when he left an immunity hearing that will refrain from nailing him in a lawsuit filed by a 17-year-old: “Go play basketball.”
“Still got a while,” said Morant, smiling.
By Tuesday night, his 25-game suspension will have passed. He will return to the Grizzlies, who are 6-17 this season and 1-10 at home, and the bosses will be thrilled to have “straightened” him out. I would laugh if it wasn’t so sad. A matter of months cannot fix anyone swallowed by alcohol and guns, and it’s absurd for Silver to state, “To the best of my knowledge, he’s complied with everything he’s been asked to do.” What? No firearms of late on social media? No killer booze behind the scenes? The commissioner seems serious, making us think his checkpoints have rescued Morant from conduct detrimental to the league.
Years after he was drafted No. 2 overall, with nothing but praise for his March-inspired career at Murray State, Morant will give us more words that might mean nothing. What do they ordain? He said at a Friday news conference, “I can’t, you know, make nobody believe me outside of my actions. So me answering this question with just words probably won’t mean nothing to nobody.” He thanked his family, the league and the Grizzlies for saying patient through his therapy and admitted to “some horrible days.”
“I can't go away from being Ja,” he said. “I feel like that's the most important thing. Not trying to lose myself or be somebody that I'm not or at totally different. The change will be my decision-making and how I go about my daily life of being a NBA player, a father, a role model, a son.”
Ja? He’s still his own person, apparently. “Just doing whatever I feel like that keeps me happy, keeps me in a good mood. Right now, honestly, I feel like the No. 1 thing outside of being around my family and having more time to spend around my daughter is being around the team,” he said. “I feel like that's normally when I have my best days, normally when I'm in my best moods. In the coming days, I'll be even happier when it's a consistent thing.
“In the end, I feel like it made me better. I feel like I learned some stuff about myself that I did during that process. It kind of gave me a new look on life. How I go about my days. How I carry myself. Very eye-opening. Just being grateful and thankful that I’m still here and in the position that I’m in.”
Yet, when he left the room, Morant was asked if he still carries a chip on his shoulder. “It’s not a little chip no more,” he said. “It’s a share size.” This from someone critical of how the national media covered his case.
In a country ravaged by gun control, his double crime duty did nothing to ensure fans that he has interest in the topic. Morant was pulled into ugly consequences by a family and friends who have to stay cool. Those people haven’t gone away. Did he speak to NBA players who wanted to make suggestions? “Nah, I didn’t talk to none of them,” he said. “I feel like I have everybody around me now that will help me get to where I want to be. No knock to anybody who wants to reach out. I feel like my family, my organization and my veterans on this team is all I need right now.”
If nothing else, he owes it to a team that was thinking about a championship until Morant fell prey. “Definitely some guilt in that,” he said. “Obviously, I'm not on the floor. Nobody likes losing. I take full responsibility of that. Even though I'm not on the floor, decisions I've made didn't allow me to go to battle with my team.” The head coach, Taylor Jenkins, says Morant has been “unbelievable with the process.” But the process isn’t the warfare. What comes next determines whether he’s the lifeblood of the sport, at age 24, or a handgun maniac.
The rest of us would be axed. I know a guy who had no problems in life and has had no problems since, yet once, someone tried to win a big piece of my money. She failed to claim a penny, yet that story never went public thanks to lapses in sports media. It happened inside my business, to me, forgetting 25 laudable years of columns, TV, radio and worldwide travel. It’s hard to believe Morant crammed guns up Silver’s hind-end and is returning before Christmas. It’s worse to know Green has been suspended four times this year, starting when he literally stomped on the chest of Domantas Sabonis, choked Rudy Gobert around the throat for nine seconds and slammed Jusuf Nurkic to the floor with a wild punch to the face. That doesn’t include punching a teammate, Jordan Poole, and popping LeBron James in the groin area and preventing the Warriors from winning four straight titles.
Anywhere else, Green would be in prison. In the NBA, they’re tending to him. Silver and his top cop, Joe Dumars, suspended him indefinitely, which could mean ceding his way only after the new year. When his distorted actions are taken into account, Green should be suspended for the entire season. Instead, because Warriors owner Joe Lacob gave him $100 million in the offseason, the league and franchise continue to protect him. Do they not sleep at night?
“Makes sense,’’ coach Steve Kerr said of the vague suspension. “To me, this is about more than basketball. It’s about helping Draymond. I think it’s an opportunity for Draymond to step away and to make a change in his approach and his life and that’s not an easy thing to do. That’s not something you say, ‘OK, five games and then he’s going to be fine.’ This is about someone I believe in, someone I’ve known for a decade, someone I love for his loyalty, his commitment, his passion, his love for his teammates, friends, his family. Trying to help that guy. Because the one who grabbed Rudy, choked Rudy, the one who took a wild flail at Jusuf, the one who punched Jordan last year, that’s the guy who has to change — and he knows that.”
He does not know that. He’ll come back and say no one can challenge Dray from being an eternal creep. His friends will say the right things, including Steph Curry, who weighed in, “He can’t do what he’s been doing, and he knows that. Everybody has their mountains to climb, and Draymond’s are his, and I’m confident that he can get over the hump, however long it takes for him to get there. The conversations we had were about him and making sure the focus is getting right and getting on a path that's going to allow him to be who he needs to be as a person, a man, a father, a husband and basketball player, in that order.”
His mountains are beyond the avalanche stage. No employer should be forced to wait as the Golden State dynasty, as most tend to do, is dying nasty. It shouldn’t matter how well he’s playing defensively. The team is 10-14, and the more the Warriors lose, Green deteriorates further. “I think this is something that a lot of people may see as a problem, but we’re looking to turn it into a positive,” general manager Mike Dunleavy Jr. said. “He is at a point in his career and his life where we want to get some things straightened out, and maybe sometimes you need a jolt. There are a lot of parties involved. The biggest thing here to me is not the punishment. It's helping and giving assistance.”
Those who have been subjected to Green’s hostilities have a better plan. “I hope Draymond gets the help he needs,” Phoenix star Kevin Durant said. “I know Draymond. He hasn’t been that way when I was around him and coming into the league. Hopefully, he gets the help he needs and gets back on the court and puts all this stuff behind him.”
Not happening. “You see somebody that's not well inside and suffering,” Gobert said. “You take away the game and all that, and you want somebody to be well and be able to do what we do every night and compete and be happy. I mean, you don't want someone to get badly hurt. You've got to fix that. That's it.”
Nurkic could have hit his head and been locked in a coma. Gobert could have been asphyxiated. Sabonis could have lost breathing capacity. Poole was lucky to get up. Going back to James, he could have missed a game and lost a title. We do not want anyone being victimized, in a career and life, by Draymond Green. Why can’t the league and the Warriors grasp that?
“The whole key for me is what this can do for his life long-term,” Kerr said. “I want him to be happy. I want him to reap the rewards of an incredible career and legacy, and I want him to finish that career in a really wonderful, dignified manner. This guy is one of the great winners of all time, one of the great competitors of all time, but he’s crossed a line. He knows he needs help, and he’s going to get that help, and we’re going to help him with it. There is a lot of this that has to happen with people who are experts in this field. My role in this is to support Draymond as best I can. We want to give him the space, time and assistance he needs to make a significant change.”
The NBA booted Morant for 25 games. In that vein, Green deserves an entire season, given his on-court risks, but Silver listens to the Warriors. Who is more vulnerable to other players? Green. “We want to see you at your best and the best way for you to do that is to get yourself mentally and emotionally back to where you need to be,” said Dumars, who is known to take Green’s phone calls in the offseason. “That's how we got to indefinite.”
Indefinite should be definite. Put Green out of his misery for half of 2024, more than the league did with Morant. I call it the Charles Barkley theory. He was arrested so many times as a player and broadcaster, he can’t remember the number. Think Silver and his superiors care? Barkley has enjoyed a TV career established as a studio great. Guess who is expected to eventually replace him in the TNT booth?
Draymond Green.
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Jay Mariotti, called “without question the most impacting Chicago sportswriter of the past quarter-century,’’ writes general sports columns for Substack while appearing on some of the 1,678,498 podcasts and shows in production today. He is an accomplished columnist, TV panelist and talk/podcast host. Living in Los Angeles, he gravitated by osmosis to film projects.