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‘You’re not a thug, you’re not a criminal, you’re not a crook. You’re a guy making $200 million a year to dribble a stupid basketball. You hit the lottery!’
A livid Charles Barkley went off on NBA star Ja Morant during an NBA Playoffs telecast Wednesday night, after the young superstar’s seeming obsession with guns went viral again, in a social-media video on the weekend.
Whether such acts, on their own, are legal or not is far beside the point, argued Barkley — an NBA superstar from 1984-2000, and for years now an outspoken basketball studio commentator.
Morant, a 23-year-old guard with the Memphis Grizzlies, reportedly faces another lengthy suspension for showing off a gun Saturday in an Instagram live video.
This, after the NBA suspended Morant for eight games in March for conduct detrimental to the league — displaying a gun inside a Colorado night club.
The Grizzlies this week suspended Morant from team activities while the league investigates.
NBA commissioner Adam Silver on Tuesday said Morant’s latest incident of gun flaunting “shocked” him, especially as it came just two months after Silver announced in a statement, regarding the Colorado night-club incident, that “Ja’s conduct was irresponsible, reckless and potentially dangerous.”
Everyone from politicians, to sports talking heads, to celebrities has weighed in this week. Those defending Morant’s penchant for showing off a six-shooter for all to see have got it way wrong, according to the 60-year-old Barkley.
His rant, in full:
“We’ve got some idiots, some fools, some jackasses on TV that really just piss me off, making a stand, saying Ja didn’t break any laws, he didn’t do anything wrong … Those guys are just freakin’ idiots … It pisses me off when I hear guys say that.
“Yo, man, when you’re making $100 million a year to play sports, your life changes. There are certain rules and regulations that you have to live by, plain and simple. You can’t do stupid stuff. That’s the tradeoff.
“Now, if you want to do all that stuff, and give all that money back, more power to you. You can make that stance: ‘You know what? I want to do what I want to do. I want to flash my gun and make videos and do things’ — OK. That’s fine. But you can’t make money on the (NBA’s dime) doing this stuff.
“I just hope that he grows up and realizes … you’re not a thug, you’re not a criminal, you’re not a crook. You’re a guy making (actually) $200 million a year to dribble a stupid basketball. You hit the lottery! We all hit the lottery!
“You’ve got to look in the mirror and say, ‘Yup, you know what? Maybe I’m the problem.’ It’s disappointing because the kid’s a great player. But to be a fool already, then to be a bigger fool a couple months later — and this is, like, your fifth or sixth gun thing.
“And I’m a gun guy. But I don’t understand why you’re flashing it. My bodyguard teaches me, ‘Man, if you’re going to touch your gun, you better shoot somebody. It ain’t for everybody to know you’ve got (one).’”
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