Four-time NBA champion John Salley, in a recent interview, endorsed gun ownership as emblematic of American culture.
Salley, the first player to win an NBA championship with three different teams — the 1988-1989 and 1989-1990 Detroit Pistons, the 1995-1996 Chicago Bulls, and the 1999-2000 Los Angeles Lakers — told journalist Vladislav Lyubovny, popularly known as DJ Vlad, that “we’re Americans, we feel safer with guns. This is the culture.”
During his playing career in Detroit, Salley said he carried a gun even though the team had security, though he later opted not to carry when he played in Los Angeles.
“It’s better to be a warrior in a garden than a gardener in the war,” Salley said.
The NBA’s efforts to separate itself and its players from gun culture have been going on for decades.
The Washington Wizards in 1996 changed their name from the Washington Bullets, for example.
During the 2009-2010 season, star Wizards player Gilbert Arenas was punished for storing unloaded guns in his locker and for an incident where he and teammate Javaris Crittenton pulled guns on each other over an earlier game of cards.
“It was about me calling his bluff. You say you’re going to shoot me? Fine, I’ll bring you the guns to do it,” Arenas told Action Network in 2022.
Arenas was ultimately suspended for the rest of the season and pleaded guilty to the felony of carrying an unlicensed pistol outside a home or business.
More recently, Memphis Grizzlies star Ja Morant was suspended twice during the 2022-2023 season for two separate incidents where he showed himself brandishing a gun on Instagram Live.
After Morant made a gun-themed celebration in a game in December 2023, Salley came to his defense, saying “He’s not saying, ’Forget ya’ll — I got my gun!’ He probably didn’t even realize it. It’s nothing meaning anything,” Salley told TMZ Sports.
• Brad Matthews can be reached at bmatthews@washingtontimes.com.
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