UPDATE: The report is Morant will be suspended 25 games in the 2023-24 season.
Since the end of the NBA Finals, we’ve all been sitting around waiting for the NBA’s decision on Ja Morant to come down.
Obviously, we know some sort of punishment is coming after Morant was seen on Instagram Live brandishing what appears to be a gun — again. It happened in the midst of the NBA playoffs, though, so Adam Silver purposefully chose to withhold any announcement relating to the situation until after the finals.
Those finals are over now. The Nuggets are champions. And we’re all expecting Morant to be handed some lengthy suspension from the league at some point soon.
That suspension is going to be a costly one, according to ESPN’s Adrian Wojnarowski. He said Morant will “probably” be suspended for more than 18 games, which will cost him award consideration next year with the league’s new rules requiring award winners to play at least 65 games.
“There’s an expectation that today could be the day. … It’s probably going to be more than 18 games.”
— @wojespn on Ja Morant’s suspension announcement pic.twitter.com/jMTIz48t5o
— Get Up (@GetUpESPN) June 16, 2023
“It’s going to be a significant suspsension. What that number is, no one is really sure. I think you can be confident it’s probably going to be 18 games or more. Why? Because with a new CBA, if you play 65 games or less you are not eligible for postseason awards. And so that’s something that is probably going to be part of the punishment.”
While that’s not set in stone at this point, obviously, Wojnarowski wouldn’t just put that number out there if he weren’t confident in it.
It seems that this decision could cost Ja Morant quite a bit of money on his next contract a supermax extension being tied to the league’s postseason awards.
We’ll just have to wait and see what happens. The decision will probably come soon.