The NBA currently has no standardized or enforceable protocol for addressing behavioral incidents categorized as “conduct detrimental to the team,” nor for responding to mental health concerns that arise in connection with injury. There is no requirement that a player receive a mental health evaluation before being disciplined, suspended, or waived, and the league has not established a uniform crisis‑response procedure. Likewise, there is no injury-specific mental health protocol, despite substantial research documenting the psychological risks associated with long‑term rehabilitation.[1] Once a player is waived, daily access to team clinicians ends immediately, and the league provides no mandated transitional support, follow‑up care, or structured check‑ins.
More broadly, the NBA lacks leaguewide standards for identifying players in distress, determining escalation procedures, conducting mandatory assessments, or implementing required interventions. Although the NBA and NBPA both promote mental health initiatives, these programs function as resources, not regulatory frameworks. The league’s NBA Mind Health program, launched in 2018, focuses on education, stigma reduction, and access to a network of licensed mental health professionals across the NBA, WNBA, G League, BAL, and 2K League.[2] The NBPA’s Mental Health and Wellness Program, created the same year, similarly provides confidential access to independent clinicians and support for players entering the league. But neither initiative establishes binding procedures, mandatory assessments, crisis response protocols, or standards for when mental health intervention should precede discipline. The programs offer services, not rules—and without rules, teams and the league default to discretionary, often punitive responses.
This absence of formal guidelines places cases like Jaden Ivey’s in a structural gray zone: the league offers resources, but not rules. Without standardized procedures, mental health responses become discretionary, inconsistent, and often punitive. As a result, “conduct detrimental” is frequently treated as a disciplinary matter when it may instead reflect an underlying mental health concern—and the NBA has no mandatory mechanism to distinguish between the two.
Ivey’s trajectory over the past two seasons illustrates the consequences of this gap. He suffered a broken left fibula in 2025 and later experienced knee complications that limited him to only four games in Chicago before he was shut down for the year. His role diminished sharply in Detroit, with his scoring average falling from 17.6 to 8.2 points per game, and he was left out of the active rotation before being traded mid‑season. Ivey has been open about his past struggles with depression, describing experiencing suicidal ideation during his rehabilitation from the 2025 leg injury.[3] His subsequent social media activity—including a series of emotionally charged livestreams in which he spoke at length about religion, personal turmoil, and feelings of being misunderstood—further suggested a player experiencing distress rather than engaging in deliberate misconduct. Yet the Bulls, waiving Ivey, framed the situation strictly as a disciplinary matter that appears more oriented toward organizational optics than toward supporting a player in crisis.[4] Ivey needed support, not expulsion, but the NBA has no mechanism to distinguish between the two.
The Bulls’ waiving Ivey stands in stark contrast to how the NBA has approached behavioral issues involving high profile players. When Ja Morant received a 25‑game suspension for “conduct detrimental to the league” after displaying a firearm on Instagram Live for the second time, the league required him to complete a counseling program before reinstatement.[5] Yet the NBA never specified the nature of the counseling, who provided it, the standards used to assess completion, or how the intervention related to the underlying conduct. The league’s public messaging emphasized brand protection, characterizing Morant’s behavior as “alarming” and “reckless,” signaling that reputational concerns were central to its response. In practice, the counseling requirement reflected a reinstatement condition rather than a genuine mental health intervention, highlighting the extent to which the league’s response prioritized procedural clearance over clinical engagement.
A similar dynamic appeared in the NBA’s handling of Draymond Green. Following a series of on‑court incidents, the league imposed an indefinite suspension, making his reinstatement contingent on satisfying a set of conditions that included participation in counseling.[6] Although Adam Silver publicly stated that counseling was required, the league did not articulate what clinical standards governed the process, how progress would be assessed, or what benchmarks would determine the end of the suspension. The result was an individualized, discretionary approach driven largely by commissioner judgment rather than by any established policy framework.
Together, the Morant, Green, and Ivey cases illustrate the extent to which the NBA’s responses to behavioral concerns are shaped by discretionary judgment rather than by any league‑wide mental health framework. For Morant and Green, counseling was introduced only after a disciplinary incident and functioned primarily as a condition of reinstatement, not as part of a proactive or clinically grounded intervention.[7] The league provided no standards for identifying distress, determining when counseling was appropriate, or evaluating progress, underscoring that these decisions rested with the commissioner rather than with a defined policy. Across all three incidents—two governed by league discipline and one by a team decision—the NBA’s broader approach was the same: reactive, discretionary, oriented toward brand protection, and unsupported by any standardized mental health policy. Without standardized guidelines, players in crisis are disciplined before they are supported, and post‑discipline care is effectively nonexistent.
Rather than responding only after an incident occurs, the NBA should adopt a standardized mental health protocol that operates proactively and consistently across teams. Before imposing discipline for “conduct detrimental,” the league should require a formal mental health evaluation to determine whether the behavior reflects underlying distress. The NBA should also develop specialized support structures for players managing long‑term injuries, given the well- documented psychological risks associated with extended rehabilitation. In situations involving acute behavioral concerns, teams should follow crisis response guidelines oriented toward assessment and intervention rather than punishment. And if a player is ultimately waived, the league should ensure transitional mental health support so that care does not end the moment a contract does.
If the NBA continues to use therapy as a prerequisite for reinstatement, it must articulate the scope, duration, and evaluative standards that such interventions entail. More fundamentally, the league must develop mechanisms to identify and support players in distress before behavior escalates into an incident that triggers discipline. A system that treats mental health care as an extension of punishment cannot credibly claim to prioritize player well‑being. If the NBA is serious about its commitment to mental health, reform must redirect the league’s disciplinary model away from image management and toward a framework that centers clinical support rather than compliance. Real reform requires the NBA to choose care over optics; until then, its mental health posture will remain reactive, inconsistent, and fundamentally punitive.
[1] Katherine A. Tamminen & Natalie Durand‑Bush, Athlete Well‑Being and Mental Health: Stress, Coping, and Injury, 14 J. Clinical Sport Psychol. 1 (2020).
[2] Dupere, K. (2023, May 4). This is Who Is Helping NBA Players Keep Their Mental Health in Shape. Men’s Health. https://www.menshealth.com/health/a43740779/nba-mental-health-kensa-gunter-friday-sessions/
[3] Staff, T. (2026, April 1). Jaden Ivey opens up on mental health amid controversy, nearly attempted suicide. Yahoo Sports. https://sports.yahoo.com/articles/jaden-ivey-opens-mental-health-155859914.html
[4] Collier, J. (2026, March 30). Bulls waive guard Jaden Ivey after anti-gay comments – ESPN. ESPN.com. https://www.espn.com/nba/story/_/id/48350464/sources-bulls-waive-jaden-ivey-anti-gay-comments
[5] Everything you need to know about Ja Morant’s 25-game suspension – ESPN. (2023, June 16). ESPN.com. https://www.espn.com/nba/story/_/id/37864109/everything-need-know-ja-morant-25-game-suspension
[6] Youngmisuk, O. (2025, January 13). How an indefinite suspension revitalized Draymond Green’s career – ESPN. ESPN.com. https://www.espn.com/nba/story/_/id/43361611/how-indefinite-suspension-revitalized-draymond-green-career
[7] Dennis, D., Jr. (2024, January 4). Ja Morant, Draymond Green and the NBA’s rehabilitation conundrum. Andscape. https://andscape.com/features/ja-morant-draymond-green-and-the-nbas-rehabilitation-conundrum/
Kaitlin Gruber is a second‑year law student at the University at Buffalo School of Law whose work focuses on sports law, collective bargaining, and the regulatory structures that shape professional basketball. Her research examines how legal doctrine intersects with competitive integrity in the NBA. She brings a lifelong love of basketball to her writing, exploring how legal rules shape the modern game.