The problem with Ja

 Ja Morant is the most electrifying player in basketball. If you don't think so, you've either never seen him play or don't know the difference between a drop step and a cough drop.

He's also 23 years old going on 15. Or so it seems.

Right now, see, he's not playing for/been suspended by the Memphis Grizzlies because he posted a video of himself on Instagram brandishing what appears to be a firearm in a Denver nightclub. Police in Colorado are now investigating, because even though Colorado is an open-carry state, it's illegal to possess a firearm while under the influence of alcohol. It's also unclear whether Morant has a gun permit that's valid in Colorado.

This after an accusation that Morant beat up a teenager during a pickup basketball game last summer, after which he left and then came back flashing a gun in his waistband. Morant claims he was only defending himself -- which doesn't explain why a multi-million-dollar NBA asset was playing pickup ball with a bunch of teenagers in the first place.

I have an explanation: Go back and read the second paragraph of this Blob again.

Now, I'm not prepared to call the kid some of the dog-whistle stuff others have, but I will say he clearly has a lot of growing up to do. There are young men equipped to handle at 23 the mind-blowing whirl of 21st-century athletic fame, and there are young men who are not.  Ja Morant is clearly among the latter.

What ought to concern both the Memphis Grizzlies and the NBA is his apparent fondness for firearms, which is never a good thing when mixed with the sort of immaturity Ja has displayed. Preach (and misinterpret, natch) the Second Amendment all you want, but people tend to wind up dead when you let adults-in-name-only treat guns like some sort of cool status symbol.

The right to bear arms shouldn't include the right to shoot someone just because he looked at you funny (although it might in stand-your-ground states, where it's legal to shoot someone if you feel "threatened").  Yet how many times does that happen when unformed humans buy guns because they think they're cool, and because they're so abundantly available.

I'm not saying that's what we're dealing with here with Ja Morant. But it sure seems the path down which we're headed.

And no one wants to see that. Do they?