Kobe Bryant's Rape Case, Domestic Violence, Pedophilia and Gun Imagery In The NBA

Kobe Bryant, Miles Bridges, Karl Malone, Jaxson Hayes, Kevin Porter Jr. and Ja Morant. One of those names is not like the others. Kobe has been credibly accused of sexual assault, Bridges, Hayes and Porter Jr. have all been credibly accused of domestic violence and Karl Malone is a pedophile, something he does not even deny. Morant has not been accused of violent crimes against women or pedophilia like the other names on the list, yet he has faced the harshest punishments. The NBA seemingly has no tolerance for waving around guns on Instagram but has zero qualms tolerating abuse against women.

Ja Morant

Last season Morant found himself in hot water for two incidents involving showing off guns on live streams. Morant was suspended for 8 games due to a March 4th incident in which he went live on Instagram while intoxicated in a Denver strip club. Morant waved a gun at the camera, something the NBA did not appreciate. Two months later Morant showed off a gun on a livestream again while in a car on the way home from some sort of social gathering. The NBA suspended him 25 games without pay, forced him to go to therapy and has since taken a zero tolerance policy on Ja Morant’s tom foolery. These incidents also each come just months after the Indiana Pacers alleged that a car containing Morant and his friends pointed red lasers into the Pacers team bus, lasers which were assumed to be attached to weapons. Morant has also had several other notable incidents including allegedly punching a high school kid during a pickup basketball game as well as threatening violence against another minor who had gotten into a verbal altercation with Morant’s younger sister. The league has since taken a zero tolerance policy with Ja surrounding guns. The NBA even recently fined him $75,000 for mimicking a gun in the direction of the Golden State Warriors’ Buddy Hield. Morant has followed the NBA’s wishes and stopped mimicking guns and has subsequently switched to pretending to throw grenades into the crowd by pulling an imaginary pin with his teeth and then tossing the make believe grenade into the stands before covering his ears. It seems as if Morant is daring the NBA to suspend him. I want to be very clear this is not a Ja Morant sympathy piece in any way. I have no issue with the NBA coming down hard on Ja Morant for repeated gun related incidents as well as threatening high schoolers. I dislike the argument that the NBA is wrongfully punishing Morant for a gun he owns legally. At any other job you would most certainly be fired if you went live on Instagram while intoxicated and waving a gun in a strip club. Even within the NBA, if most role players did that they may never see an NBA floor again. Morant is one of the league's bright young stars, he represents the league and its business and thus it is absolutely appropriate for them to be strict with him. Do I think Ja Morant pretending to shoot a bazooka at Buddy Hield or waving a gun in the strip club is going to normalise gun violence? No, I do not. The United States is a nation where gun culture and gun imagery is everywhere and cracking down on Ja Morant is not going to change that. While being an NBA player is far from just a regular job, the NBA is certainly no different than any ordinary employer in not wanting their employees to show off weapons. People of all ages and backgrounds watch the NBA. Keeping the product family friend is important both for moral reasons as many kids look up to athletes, but also for financial reasons. The league relies heavily on ad revenue and one of the major ways they can keep the value of an ad placement high is by maintaining a family friendly image. At a previous job I learned that children's content is highly sought after by advertisers as it typically lacks controversy. Additionally, making the NBA product child friendly is important for growing their fan base. Gaining children as fans is great as children will ask for things like jerseys, hats and game tickets for holidays and birthdays, additionally as those children grow up and become adults they will spend their own money on the NBA and its related products. I think the NBA’s responses to Ja Morant’s actions have been appropriate, however what I do have a problem with is the lack of severity with which the NBA treats other issues. Plain and simple, the NBA has a domestic and sexual violence problem. The problem may not exist to the extent to which it exists in other leagues like the NFL, however it is almost more infuriating the way the NBA handles these issues because of how the league likes to portray themselves as a progressive force within the world of sports. While the NBA takes on performative actions surrounding various other social issues, they do not even pretend to care about violence against women.

Domestic Violence

Miles Bridges, Jaxson Hayes, and Kevin Porter Jr. have all had high profile domestic violence cases in recent years and the NBA has handled each case in a pretty similar fashion. In 2023 Porter Jr. was alleged to have violently assaulted his then girlfriend and former WNBA player Kysre Gondrezick. For Porter Jr. this was not the first time he was alleged to have been violent with women. He had allegedly punched a woman in the face and ripped her weave out back in 2020. Porter Jr. also not only has a history of violence against women but really violence against everyone and anyone which includes having assaulted a member of the Cleveland Cavaliers staff, with hot soup being his weapon of choice. In addition to this, Porter Jr. has also previously faced charges related to a 2019 arrest including improper handling of a firearm and marijuana possession. In each of his previous incidents he has either never been charged or had charges dropped, however Porter Jr. plead guilty to charges of misdemeanor assault and misdemeanor harassment in relation to his 2023 domestic violence incident. Porter Jr. entered a plea deal that essentially let him go free, he was put on probation for a year and sentenced to complete a court ordered domestic violence program. Upon completion of the program and managing to not get arrested during his year of probation Porter Jr. was allowed to withdraw his guilty plea which functionally clears his criminal record as if nothing ever happened. Despite Porter Jr.s guilty plea, he still to this day has not faced a suspension from the NBA. They essentially allowed him to just take a year off while playing basketball in Greece before returning to play for both the Los Angeles Clippers and Milwaukee Bucks. In the case of Miles Bridges, he faced three felony charges. Bridges was facing one charge of felony domestic violence along with two charges of felony child abuse under circumstances or conditions likely to cause great bodily harm or death. It is alleged that Bridges choked the mother of his children to the point of unconsciousness along with smashing her phone, with both of these events occurring in front of their children. It is also alleged that during a custody exchange Bridges hurled billiard balls through the windshield of her car while the children were in the backseat. Bridges pleaded no contest to the domestic violence charge. The child abuse charges were dropped due to unsufficient evidence. It is unfortunate that crimes of violence against women and children are incredibly hard to prove in court leading to the perpetrators often facing little to no punishment. Bridges was sentenced to three years of probation as well as he was ordered to complete 52 weeks of parenting classes, 52 weeks of domestic violence counselling and 100 hours of community service. Bridges was initially suspended for 30 games which the NBA later reduced to ten games as they felt Bridges had learned his lesson. Lakers starting center Jaxson Hayes has also been at the center of a domestic violence investigation without any suspension from the NBA. Hayes' case even includes footage which TMZ has obtained and released to the public. In the video Hayes appears to drag the victim through a doorway and the victim can be heard yelling “stop, let go of me”, “I’m not going to let you hit me anymore”, and “do I look like a punching bag”. The incident occured back in 2021 and Hayes has since been sentenced to three years of probation, domestic violence classes and community service. Of course the NBA has not fined or suspended Hayes for this incident. The league claims to have conducted a thorough investigation, however the victim’s legal representation has come out and stated that the NBA said they wanted to speak with the victim as part of their investigation, yet never bothered to follow up. Four years on from the incident the league still has never spoken with the victim as part of their “thorough” investigation. While Ja Morant served two separate suspensions totaling 33 games for his conduct on instagram live, Bridges, Porter Jr., and Hayes received a singular 10 game suspension between the three of them. The $75,000 fine Morant incurred for pretending to shoot Buddy Hield with a bazooka was more punishment than what Porter Jr. and Hayes ever received. Obviously the morally correct thing to do would be to not continue to employ these violent abusers. It is baffling that any of these three men are still employed in the NBA, not only are they violent abusers but none of them are even particularly good at their jobs. Bridges has been a good player at various points in his career but Hayes and Porter Jr. have both never been good NBA players. Someone’s basketball ability really should not matter when it comes to being punished for something this severe but unfortunately most sports leagues will be more lenient with star players as they want them playing as much as possible. The fact that these men are not even good players and yet still going unpunished really speaks volumes about how little the NBA cares.

Kobe Bryant

Not only does the NBA not care to punish these individuals, but the league actually goes out of their way to celebrate sexual abusers and pedophiles. Many won’t like to hear it, but Kobe Bryant was likely a sexual predator. The details of his 2003 sexual assault case are frankly shocking. When I first read the case details, my immediate thoughts were to compare it to the OJ Simpson case in the sense that it is utterly shocking that both men were able to walk free. The evidence against Bryant was overwhelming. In 2003 a staff member at a Colorado resort alleged that Bryant had raped her. Bryant initially denied ever meeting the woman. In Police interviews for which the transcripts are publicly available, Bryant changed his tune. Bryant first told the police that he never hugged or kissed this woman as well as he stated that he never had sex with her. Bryant then switched his story again claiming that they did have sex but it was consensual. Bryant says that her body language implied consent and he clarified that he never explicitly asked for consent. Kobe’s first thought was to ask the police whether it would be possible to settle this immediately to avoid his wife finding out. Immediately after that he admitted to having cheated on his wife with another woman. Kobe’s victim sustained injuries to her neck and vaginal walls, while evidence such as her blood on his shirt was recovered from the scene. Rather than focusing on the crime at hand, Bryant’s defence team went on the offensive by slut shaming the victim and attempting to frame this as a white woman victimizing a black man with false accusations. Rather than defending Bryant they turned the case into a media circus focused on attacking the victim and her credibility, a tactic that is unfortunately extremely common in sexual assault cases. The court reporter also mistakenly leaked the information of the accuser which led to television crews camping outside of the victims house. The case was dropped as the victim refused to testify, citing her identity being leaked as a primary reason why she was unwilling to continue. Bryant settled with the victim outside of court, the details of which were kept private. Bryant did issue a public apology to the victim and her family for the pain they endured. Not only did the NBA not punish Bryant but they actively celebrate him constantly. Bryant refused to comment on the case for the remainder of his life and the case was seemingly forgotten for about 15 years until the “me too” movement brought it back to light. Kobe is an NBA legend and cultural icon yet most people and most NBA fans are unaware of his violent sexual past. Kobe has been allowed to play out the remainder of his career, win an Oscar and be celebrated as an NBA great and an advocate for women’s basketball.

Karl Malone is another NBA player who has an awful past yet the NBA continues to celebrate him and invite him to partake in events like All-Star Weekend. Rather than engaging in sexual acts with women who do not consent, Malone chooses to engage in these acts with women who are not even old enough to consent. Karl Malone is a pedophile, something he does not even deny but rather chooses to ignore. When he was a 20 year old college basketball star, Malone impregnated his 13 year old girlfriend. A girl who at the time was still in middle school. Like I stated Malone does not deny these allegations at all, he certainly did do this and does not even bother to argue otherwise. Malone told the Salt Lake Tribune “I’m not discussing any of that backlash. I don’t care. That’s my life, that’s my personal life, and I’ll deal with that like I’ve had to deal with everything. So, whatever.” A 1986 paternity lawsuit which was exposed more than a decade later confirmed beyond any doubt that Malone was a pedophile. Malone, who made over 100 million dollars during his NBA career, infamously protested that $125 a month for child support was excessive. It is absolutely horrifying that the NBA knows of Malone’s crimes yet continues to market him and allow him to take part in festivities which are meant to celebrate the game.

The NBA loves to dole out punishments in pursuit of protecting their brand image and seemingly for no other reasons. It is horrifying that they deem Ja Morant’s idiotic behaviour on social media to be a worse offence than beating your partner within an inch of her life, impregnating a child or raping someone. The NBA likes to position themselves as a progressive organisation at the forefront of social issues yet, as Tyler Elman puts it “the NBA seems to be always vouching for some of the biggest scums the world has to offer”.