Those who believe the NBA shouldn't punish Ja Morant are categorically mistaken

The argument that the NBA lacks the right to discipline Ja Morant for flashing a firearm in an Instagram Live video due to the Second Amendment and the fact Morant broke no law is so ridiculous that those making it must be acting with purposeful duplicity.

“Those guys are just, theyre just freaking idiots,” Charles Barkley said Wednesday on TNT of the Morant defenders in the media. “I only say freaking because yall won’t let me say what I want to say.”

They probably aren’t idiots. They are just choosing, for whatever reason, to ignore the obvious.

To recap, the Memphis Grizzlies indefinitely suspended Morant after he recently appeared in a social media video waving a firearm. This came just over two months after the Memphis star was suspended eight games for previously being filmed with a gun in a Denver strip club.

The NBA is free to prohibit such actions under the rules of Morant’s contract and a conduct-detrimental-to-the-league clause in the collective bargaining agreement it has with the players union.

The league has other specific rules that apply to guns, notably no firearms in locker rooms, team facilities, planes and on other occasions.

The question is Should it do these things Well, the NBA legally negotiated the right to make that decision.

Start with this The Second Amendment protects a citizen from government action. Neither the Grizzlies nor the NBA is the government, so this is a completely moot point.

The NBA isn’t saying the 23-year-old can’t own a gun. It isn’t even saying he can’t brandish it. It just doesn’t want him doing it on a publicly available video. It’s a significant difference.