The NBA needs to let Ja Morant be Ja Morant with his grenade celebration

Welcome to Layup Lines, For the Win's basketball newsletter. Subscribe here to get it delivered to your inbox every Monday, Wednesday and Friday. Here's Mike Sykes

Happy Friday, folks! Welcome back to Layup Lines. Thanks so much for joining me today. I hope you've had an awesome week. Ja Morant sure did seem to have a lot of fun.

A lot has been made of Morant's new 3-point celebration. For those of you out of the loop, the Grizzlies' star point guard is tossing imaginary grenades into the crowd and covering his ears to celebrate the 3-point bombs he drops.

If you recall, last week Morant was fined $75,000 by the NBA for making a gun gesture as a 3-point celebration a mere game after the league warned him not to do it again. So, instead of getting fined by the NBA for a gun gesture again, Morant is lobbing fake grenades to fans.

What makes this hilarious is that Morant says that's not actually what he's doing. At least not according to him. "I’m going to take my words, I’m going to throw them out there, and then I’m going to block out the noise," he said about his celebration.

Yup. Sure. That's definitely what that is.

This is clearly Morant thumbing his nose at the NBA. He doesn't seem to enjoy being told what to do. This is a rebuke of the NBA's authority — albeit a small, insignificant one.

Surely, you can understand why the NBA has taken such a hardline stance with Morant here. The finger-gun celebration is a common one around the league. When Morant was initially warned for it, it's because he was going back and forth with Buddy Hield. It's not an uncommon celebration. Morant's history with guns and suspensions makes the action a bit more loaded when it comes to him specifically.

That's why some folks — even some of my colleagues here! — think Morant deserves another suspension for his behavior here. Basically, he's playing in the NBA's face. We all know it. The league surely knows it.

But I've got to be honest. I just don't think this is worth the trouble.

Discipline too hard here and now all 3-point celebrations have to be brought into question. Again, he's not the only one who does these. Everyone doesn't have his history, but it'd be unfair to judge him off of that history alone, considering that it's been nearly two years since his prior incident.

Plus, can we be honest? This grenade celly is kind of fun! It's a bit out of pocket, sure. It's definitely a creative way to push back against the league. But it's fun!

The NBA should let Morant cook. The league is more fun when he's around — especially when he's pushing boundaries and causing a stir. I'm sure Adam Silver probably isn't thrilled with what's going on here but if Morant goes into the NBA playoffs dunking on dudes, he'll get over it pretty fast.

The final countdown

I told y'all the Western Conference would be a bloodbath. But even I didn't think things would be this tight by the end of the season.

We're heading into the last weekend of the NBA's regular season and there's still so much at stake. Homecourt advantage through the No. 3 and No. 4 seeds are still up for grabs in the West. Six teams still have something to play for.

The standings:

• No. 3: Los Angeles Lakers (49-31) - If LA can win one of its next two games, it'll be locked in for the No. 3 seed with tiebreakers over the Clippers and Nuggets.
• No. 4: Denver Nuggets (48-32) - The Nuggets need to win their next two games and hope the Lakers lose their next two to clinch the No. 3 seed.
• No. 5: L.A. Clippers (48-32) - The Clippers hold tiebreakers over the Grizzlies and Warriors but still need to win its next two games to hold off Minnesota and potentially catch Denver for the No. 4 seed.
• No. 6: Golden State Warriors (47-33) - The Warriors hold tie breakers over Memphis and Minnesota. They'll play the Clippers in the final game of the season, which could potentially catapult the Warriors up if L.A. loses to Sacramento and Golden State beats Portland.
• No. 7: Memphis Grizzlies (47-33) - Memphis will play Denver for their tiebreaker on Friday night. If the Grizzlies win, they'll be out of the play-in tournament.
• No. 8: Minnesota Timberwolves (47-33) - The Wolves can escape the play-in if they win out against Brooklyn and Utah this weekend, but they'll also need the Nuggets and Clippers to drop at least one game. The Warriors and Grizzlies hold the tiebreaker over Minnesota.

I hope you're ready for some chaos this weekend. Cheers.

Shootaround

— 6 players who improved their draft stock through the NCAA tournament, from Bryan Kalbrosky.

— Here's Robert Zeglinski on David Adelman putting his foot down with Russell Westbrook.

— Nico Harrison will never get another free beer in Dallas again.

— Nikola Jokic looks like a good player-coach candidate. If only it were possible. Charles Curtis has more here.

That's a wrap, folks. Thanks for reading. Peace.

-Sykes