On Tuesday, former UFC light heavyweight Jon Jones avoided jail time (for now) with a plea bargain agreement that will see him serve a probationary period before being sentenced again in 18 months. How that will go depends entirely on whether he fulfills the terms of his probation.

These developments clear a path for him to return to the Octagon, but questions remain. How soon will he return? Was the sentencing too lenient? What does this mean for Jones' career?

Here are five lessons learned from Jon Jones' hearing yesterday in Albuquerque, N.M.

1. Either this is a turning point or it's not, but it's the most telling point in Jones' professional career.

If there's any detectable pattern to Jones' life, it's that, generally speaking, Jones' professional achievements have white washed the mismanagement of his personal errors, especially as it relates to his MMA success in the adult portion of his life. There are likely other contributing factors to this pattern. Perhaps he has enablers. Maybe luck plays a role. Whatever the case, he's never really been forced to confront the weight of his mishandling. It's either been overlooked or underplayed or run over altogether through the force of professional success.

The situation now, however, has escalated. Even with relatively lenient sentencing, he has not put his troubles behind him. The next 18 months of his probationary period serve as a referendum on whether he can make the pivot towards consistent personal life management. If he fails to do so this time, he risks untold consequences with respect to his life outside of fighting, but this time, life inside of the Octagon as well.

Either Jones cares enough to do the right thing or he doesn't. The idea this life event was frightening enough to put him on the straight and narrow is only true if he wants to make it true. External incentives matter and can help in that regard, but it's ultimately his choice. If he doesn't want to because maintaining the practices that brought him to this place is a greater priority, none of yesterday matters. And if it doesn't, the world's best fighter risks turning himself into a living parable about what happens the your priorities are so askew, you throw the baby of your personal stability out with the bathwater of your professional fighting career.

2. It's not surprising Jones' punishment was lenient, but it matters.

I'm not suggesting I want Jones to go to jail. There's a number of reasons I say that, not least of which is I don't want to be unnecessarily cruel. If he doesn't need to go jail for the problem to be solved, why should he be forced to go? Incarceration isn't necessarily situated to help him any lasting way. But there is also a part of me that wonders whether the punishment he received is stiff enough to make Jones do something he has yet been forced to truly do: comply; comply with the demands of living in civil society, comply with the requirements of sobriety, comply with the very idea he has to be told how to live by others or else.

What matters ultimately is what works. If Jones meets the terms of his probation, all's well that ends well. What would be regrettable beyond the fact that Jones finds himself in this predicament at all, is if his access to legal resources has enabled him to unearth the very sort of punishment that never actually forced him to confront his problems or made them even worse by skirting the real issues.

3. Nick Diaz's punishment is and isn't relevant.

The miscarriage of justice Diaz suffered is inevitably being compared to the relatively lenient plea bargain Jones was able to work out with the local prosecutor. The comparison is not relevant given the mechanics of how both happened. One suffered at the hands of an out-of-control athletic commission, the other worked his way through court proceedings. Using these events to further impugn Jones' character isn't fair or particularly helpful.

The comparisons between their situations is relevant, though, in the following sense: it's a reminder of Diaz's outrageous mistreatment not because there's distance on the justice continuum between his predicament and Jones'. Instead, Jones serves as an example of what's possible when a fighter has rights as well as resources. The proper prism by which to view this situation is one that highlights how much more work needs to be done to help Diaz and alter the circumstances that created his unfair treatment, not how Jones should be sunk to Diaz's level. When athletes have rights and work through a hearing system that has respect for evidence, procedure and precedent, there is a certain degree of mercy conferred. Asking for the retribution Diaz suffered rather than the mercy Jones enjoyed to be spread is to get it all exactly backwards.

4. UFC's public support for Jones isn't problematic in and of itself, but....

One has to wonder how other fighters feel about the lack of institutional support. Other fighters aren't Jones, of course, but that's sort of the point. It's often the case that one's access to the blessings that can be bestowed upon a fighter is commensurate with their perceived value or favor to the promotion. That's partly understandable, but also underscores just how absent a union or fighters association is here. The role played by UFC brass attending a hearing (a nice gesture, to be sure) is one that should more readily be played by representatives in a fighter's union.

It's not that UFC hasn't publicly flogged Jones as much as they've fanned him. The punishments against him levied by UFC have been fair and thorough. The issue is that every fighter should have access to help beyond what their often meager pocket books have to offer. Institutional support is critical, but as long as its a function of something beyond basic membership to a large group, access to that critical assistance will be fleeting and largely closed off.

5. What is attainable for Jones in the second act?

The prevailing question for me is whether Jones has done irreparable harm to his marketability and earning potential. Maybe even his ability to compete has been compromised, although the chances of that are quite slim. Still, he's lost blue chip sponsors (although somewhat by no fault of his own) and has carved out an identity of an extremely talented if incapable life manager. One wonders how long it will take to change that perception, if that's even possible, at least as far as luring in the leery among corporate America is concerned. Is it really possible to grab in this second act of his career what he could've earned had he never lost momentum? That seems, at best, highly debatable.

One also wonders where he'd be culturally without his penchant for finding legal inconveniences. Could he be as popular and adored as Ronda Rousey? In some ways, her circumstances are unique. Her achievement as an athletic torch bearer for her gender carries a special weight and significance. Yet, Jones was the golden child before Conor McGregor ever appeared: good on camera, surpassingly talented in the cage, comforting with his words, promotional wind at his back. More importantly, there were none of the questions (fair or otherwise) about his abilities or resume. How would Jones do against a wrestler? He'd torch any of them, of course.

The point is this: even if Jones rights the ship and gets back on track, what's really left of the ship? The seas haven't been so stormy they've sunk him, but is becoming everything he can be now the same thing as getting back to what he had or what he always could've been?

I don't know, but in 18 months, I suspect we all will.