Ja Morant is one of the NBA’s brightest lights, a popular, 23-year-old star earning millions as the All-Star leader of the Memphis Grizzlies, one of the league’s rising elite.

Last summer, Morant signed a new five-year contract slated to kick in next season reportedly worth at least $193 million and potentially up to $231 million. His first contract pays the No. 2 pick in the 2020 draft nearly $40 million over four seasons.

He also has a lucrative Nike deal as one of just 23 players with whom the company created a signature show—the Ja 1, which debuted just last month.

Now, Morant is idle while being investigated by the NBA and Colorado police after flashing what appeared to be a gun on an Instagram Live at 4:19 a.m. Central Time while making possible gang hand signals at what seemed to be a strip club in Denver hours after a Grizzlies loss to the Nuggets.

Morant quickly released an apology, taking responsibility for his actions. He also deactivated his Twitter and Instagram accounts. He was immediately sanctioned with a suspension of at least two games (he’s missed one so far; Memphis blew a 15-point 4th-quarter lead to the Clippers Sunday night in Los Angeles) with “no definite timetable” for a return, Grizzlies coach Taylor Jenkins said following the game.

“This is a dangerous situation,” NBA Hall of Famer and TNT analyst Charles Barkley told AL.com. “I’m not sure what he was thinking. He couldn’t have been thinking.

“Why have you got a gun in a nightclub? If you have to be in club carrying or if you have to go through a metal detector to get in you probably should be in there.

“He needs to grow up and get better friends around him.”

The Denver incident wasn’t Morant’s fist misstep, which likely contributed to the suspension and the uncertainty of his return:

In January, Morant’s long-time friend Davonte Pack was banned from Memphis’ home games following an NBA investigation of a report that a person in the player’s SUV aimed a laser connected to what looked to be a gun at the Indiana Pacers team bus after a game when Pack stepped onto the court as opposing players jawed at each other during a heated third quarter.

On March 1, just days before the strip club incident, the Washington Post published several allegations at Morant, including a reported fist fight between the player and a teenager in a pickup game at the player’s home last July. The Post reported Morant showed the teen a gun in his waistband, but no such action was listed in the police report and the player’s attorney and agent, in statements to Andscape. have vehemently denied the Post account, saying Morant was acting in self-defense and did not wield a firearm.

Nevertheless, Barkley said: “One incident is a lot, three is way too many. He had no choice [but to make a clear and immediate statement of responsibility and accountability] because the NBA was going to nail his ass to a cross.”

Barkley sighed with frustration because in this age of salaries and endorsements worth wildly more than he and peers earned (“My first contract was four years, two million,” he said) Morant, like other highly paid Black athletes, has a unique, historic opportunity to change the economic conditions of their families and communities.

“As Black guys, you’ve got a chance to change so many peoples’ lives when you get that life-changing money,” he said. “There’s so much you can do.”

Morant and other successful Black athletes, too, he added, carry an additional burden at a time of heightened crime in too many Black neighborhoods.

“With so much violence in the Black community—he’s a guy who made it out, is probably making fifty million a year and he could screw things up,” Barkley said. “If he keeps getting in gun situations, something bad’s gonna happen.

“I’ve always said we [NBA players] have the best job in the world,” he continued. “We don’t have to work in steel mills. We just have to play basketball.

“With success, you can’t put yourself in bad situations. [Ja] needs to take a timeout and figure out if he wants to be a thug or a great basketball player. Which one do you want to be?

“You can be a thug, but they’ll say; ‘You can’t be a thug and make our money.’

“[Morant] hit the lottery,” he said of the player’s new near $200 million deal. “And when it ends, he’ll only be 28-, 29-years old, so he’ll get another one.

“That’s generational wealth,” Barkley added. “All you’ve got to do is don’t act like a damn fool.”