Jontay Porter's suspension highlights a major issue with the NBA

Let's get this out of the way, the NBA should absolutely suspend Jontay Porter for life from the NBA for gambling. The integrity of the game is the most important thing, and the NBA can't let it seem like they're going to let sports fixing be a thing. Porter bet against his previous team, the Toronto Raptors, to lose a game that he could have or did play in. When you have the ability to affect the outcome of a bet, that's where things get really nasty.

It's also why sports gambling should have never been legalized, as this is just going to become more and more of a problem. But that's a different rant for a different day. Porter's potential sport fixing for money is a bad look for the NBA and one that should be scrubbed from existence.

The only problem is, at the end of the day the only thing Porter really did was try to profit off of the league even more than he already was. He may have fixed a game, he may even have affected his team's ability to win more. That's bad, it's not defensible. But at the end of the day, all he tried to do was profit off of a system, albeit illegally.

That doesn't cause the same kind of damage to people as other crimes we've seen committed by NBA players. NBA Twitter/X is all a flutter with this revelation and many fans are rightfully pointing out that guys like Miles Bridges are still in the NBA, despite their crimes against people. Bridges is on probation for what he refuses to take responsibility for.

Jason Kidd abused his wife when he was a player and is still somehow able to coach in the association. Ron Artest started a riot and was still able to win titles in the NBA. And heck, Karl Malone knocked up (dare we use even more harsh terminology?) a 13-year-old girl when he was in college. Then didn't take responsibility for the child he sired with the poor girl until he was a pro athlete.

Not only did no one ban Malone from the NBA, but when the All-Star Game came to Salt Lake City, Malone was front and center.

The NBA has so many skeletons in its closet and if they want to be seen as a respectful institution, one that actually values the integrity of the game, they can't be afraid to start dropping lifetime bans on others for far more heinous crimes than white color ones. Yes, Porter deserves to be banned for life, but so do far more men than the NBA refuses to do the same too.

We're not asking that people like Porter not be punished, we're just asking that everyone who commits a crime of a serious magnitude be punished as well, and to the same degree. Otherwise, these types of punishment look more like the association is more worried about protecting its earnings than anything else.