Brandon Jennings fined $35K for 'menacing gestures' amid fierce first week with Wizards

Brandon Jennings has enjoyed one heck of a first week as a Washington Wizard.

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In what has been easily the heartiest first eight days we’ve seen from a late-season, buyout wire pickup, Jennings has been ejected and now fined by the league for his work in Tuesday night’s win over the Phoenix Suns, one that saw the guard (signed on March 1 by Washington) cluck finger guns at Sun forward Jared Dudley after Dudley, the former Wizard, got into an altercation with Washington’s Jason Smith.

Watch:

During that tussle, it was alleged that Jennings made his symbolic move …

… which he explained after the contest:

The NBA disagrees with Jennings. On Thursday, the league announced its reaction. A $35,000 fine “for making menacing gestures on the playing court as part of the same incident.” Dudley, who fingered no fake guns, was also fined the same amount for “for escalating an altercation by confronting and making contact with” Jason Smith.

That tussle, you may recall, came during a contest in which the Phoenix Suns’ gorilla mascot DOVE RIGHT ONTO THE DAMN FLOOR:

A contest that Washington won, by the way, at a 131-127, um, clip.

The Wizards have won three and a row and five of six, the sort of stats we’re used to seeing from a club that now ranks No. 3 in the East, just a game in back of the sometimes-there Boston Celtics.

(The same Celtics, by the way, that feature guard Isaiah Thomas. Thomas was not fined for allegedly showing off a “finger gun” in DeMarre Carroll’s face during a game from February:

… but we digress.)

Washington has worked with the winning rate of a 62-victory club since early December, though, led by stars John Wall and Bradley Beal alongside the emerging Kelly Oubre Jr. and triumphant Otto Porter. The last four games have come with Brandon Jennings, frankly, offering little help. The journeyman point guard has hit just a quarter of his shots in 16 tries from the field, missing 4-8 from the line as well, in four games with his fifth team in four years.

That doesn’t mean coach Scott Brooks, doing brilliant work in his first year in Washington, doesn’t want the guy to let loose. From Wednesday, at CSN Mid Atlantic:

Something like that. Jennings’ touch from the perimeter is notoriously fickle. He emerged onto the stateside scene with his famed 54-point explosion in his first month of NBA (if not “pro”) play back in 2009, but it’s been rough sailing since then.

Jennings enters Friday’s game in Sacramento a little lighter in the wallet, while also offering just a career 38.9 percent mark from the field. He was shooting just under that rate in New York when the Knicks waived him after league disinterest in the 27-year old at the trade deadline.

Following Tuesday’s ejection, Jennings already had borrowed disappointment:

Alas, he didn’t hear anything on Wednesday as the league discussed its options. Apparently still clouded and freed from rhythm, Jennings missed five of seven shots but added four assists and two steals in 17 minutes during Washington’s impressive road win in Denver on Wednesday. That contest featured its own brand of interaction, employing a Morris brother tends to do this to a team, as Markieff will await the NBA’s own brand of punishment in his typical style.

The Wizards will roll on, warts and all, Kings and Trail Blazers and Timberwolves (winnable games, all) left to tangle with between now and the end of the road trip on March 14. Brandon Jennings, ready to put $35,000 on the line just to protect a teammate he’s known for just days, already seems up for the challenge.

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Kelly Dwyer is an editor for Ball Don’t Lie on Yahoo Sports. Have a tip? Email him at KDonhoops@yahoo.com or follow him on Twitter!

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