Line of Scrimmage: Young stars need guidance in their early years
One of the biggest talking points in recent weeks in the basketball world is Ja Morant’s conduct off the court. After losing to the Denver Nuggets 113-97 March 3, Morant went live on Instagram at a nightclub, seemingly enjoying himself. He would then make the most serious mistake in his young career and show a gun. While Morant faced no charges from the Colorado police, it sparked a lot of discussion in the NBA world about his actions and how the 23 year old carries himself.
With personalities like Shannon Sharpe and Skip Bayless, among many others, commenting on Morant’s blip, much of the conversation is talking about how the Memphis guard needs to use this experience as a valuable lesson as a public face. The NBA suspended Morant for eight games, letting him off lightly in comparison to the speculated 50 games that he could have faced.
This debacle uncovered a bunch of other things that Morant has done in previous years, like beating up a 17-year-old kid during an off-season pick-up game and threatening multiple people on-and-off the court.
It’s not the first time a young superstar has put themselves in trouble and, unfortunately, I don’t think it will be the last. For example, take Mario Balotelli and his early years at Inter Milan and Manchester City. The Italian was a young problematic striker who, even he admitted, “[does] strange things” off the field. While he was an issue with his antics, he had all the talent in the world to become one of the best players in the game.
“If Mario is not one of the best players in the world it will be his fault, because he has everything,” said Roberto Mancini, Balotelli’s manager at Man City during his stint. “Mario can be one of the top players in Europe. I don’t want him to lose his talent.”
Mancini’s words proved to be prophetic, as the Italian sensation would fall off immensely, becoming a journeyman as the years went by, bouncing around clubs looking to regain his powers and prove himself to be what everyone wanted him to be: a superstar. While he did have some fruitful years in France at both OGC Nice and Olympique de Marseille, the adage of old habits die hard would be the case. He fell out of favor with then-Nice manager Patrick Vieira for showing up late to practice during pre-season as he weighed his options about a move out of the club. While he performed well during his six-month tenure at Marseille, scoring eight goals in 15 games, the French side opted to not offer him a contract for the 2019-20 season.
One of the Italian’s most famous mishaps was when he blew up his house after lighting fireworks inside the bathroom. While thankfully there were no injuries, it proved to be one of the dumbest things I’ve ever heard about an athlete. Also, during the infancy of his career, the then 20-year-old striker was spotted touring the estate of Scampia with two mob bosses, which caused a stir in the media. While Balotelli proved to have no real affiliation with the pair, his curiosity put him in the public light in a negative manner.
Moving back stateside, another potential star in the NBA faced controversies during his time. Former Charlotte Hornets forward Miles Bridges is another case of being an enigmatic talent. The Flint, Mich. native was selected 12th in the 2018 NBA draft and looked to be well on his way to becoming a perennial All-Star for the rest of his career as he averaged 20.2 points, 3.8 assists and seven rebounds in the 2021-22 season.
However, the up-and-coming talent later got charged with domestic violence after assaulting his then-girlfriend. Bridges was given three years probation, facing no jail time and was “required to complete 52 weeks of domestic violence counseling and 52 weeks of parenting classes, serve 100 hours of community service and undergo weekly narcotics testing with marijuana allowed only if there is a valid doctor’s prescription,” according to ESPN.
Along with that, Bridges didn’t do himself any favors of putting him in a favorable light before that whole issue went down. The 25-year-old is also a rapper, going by the name of RTB MB, with RTB standing for Real Trench Baby and MB being his initials. In his song, “Intro,” his most streamed song on Spotify, there’s multiple lines about guns, having shooters, women and everything that would appear on a typical trap song.
While I wouldn’t really bat an eye if I heard this from artists like Future and Young Thug, knowing that Bridges was literally a standout player at the Hornets boggles my mind as to why he’d portray himself in this manner. I’m not saying he shouldn’t juggle rapping and hooping, as superstar guard Damian Lillard does the same, but the topics that the two rap about are night and day in comparison. While Dame D.O.L.L.A. does flaunt his luxurious lifestyle in his songs, he’s not dropping lines like “We got Glocks, we got chops, ain’t no runnin’ up,” or “I ain’t even hit her, ‘cause before, she was spinnin’ me (Bitch) / Pop him and his mans, they remind me of the Kennedys.”
It’s evident that mentorship is needed for these players with high potential. With new riches and fame comes a lot of newfound responsibility, which can be difficult to handle when everything you used to do was lowkey. Nowadays, people look back at what high-profile athletes used to say on social media platforms and critique them so the new generation needs extra surveillance and care on how they conduct themselves in the public eye.
With Morant touted to be the new face of the NBA once LeBron James retires, hopefully he can use this suspension as a lesson and at others and their outcomes and learn from that to keep him on the right path. It would be a shame to see another world-class talent’s career go up in flames because of some preventable actions.
Jason Lopez Lopez is a senior writing about the intersection of sports and sociopolitical issues in his column, “Line of Scrimmage.” He is also a sports editor at the Daily Trojan.