Ja Morant just can’t seem to stay out of trouble, or stop himself from waving guns around on video. The Memphis Grizzlies decided once again to suspend the basketball star after another video of him surfaced waving around a gun from the driver’s seat of his vehicle.
Ja Morant via ESPN YouTube
After the video, streamed live on Morant’s Instagram account on Saturday, went viral, it obviously got back to his team pretty quickly because on Sunday, the Grizzlies’ public relations team announced his new suspension.
“We are aware of the social media video involving Ja Morant. He is suspended from all activities pending League review. We have no further comment at this time.”
Source: GrizzliesPR Twitter
According to a statement provided to ESPN’s Adrian Wojnarowski from NBA spokesperson Mike Bass, they are actively in the “process of gathering more information.”
This recent stunt by Morant follows his previous suspension, which lasted eight games without pay in March after he put out another Instagram video of him flashing a handgun at a local Colorado strip club. After an investigation into the matter, the NBA stated that the gun did not belong to Morant, he did not carry it with him when traveling with the team, and he was not being charged with any crime by the police.
Morant was forced to undergo counseling during his suspension, and said at the time that the incident forced him to consider that he needed to be “more responsible.”
Grizzlies star Ja Morant was allegedly seen holding a gun on an IG Live yesterday.pic.twitter.com/bqvwbwgd9m
— ClutchPoints (@ClutchPoints) May 14, 2023
RELATED: Memphis Grizzlies Star Ja Morant Discusses Gun Incident
“I don’t have an alcohol problem. I’ve never had an alcohol problem. I went there for counseling. To learn how to manage stress — cope with stress in a positive way. Instead of, you know, ways I’ve tried to deal with it before that caused me to make mistakes.”
Morant has a history of threatening violence. Last summer, the Washington Post detailed accusations that the basketball star assaulted a teenage boy and threatened to shoot him during a pickup game. He also was alleged to have threatened the head of security at a mall in Memphis, Tennessee.
Former NBA guard Chandler Parsons, who was part of the All-Rookie Team for the league in 2012, and later the Grizzlies from 2016 through 2019, responded in a comment to a Bleacher Report post on Instagram saying that the league should “Suspend him all of next season.”
Source: BleacherReport Instagram
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“I believe this man has some issues,” said Black and White Sport’s John Matrixx. “He’s gonna have to make a decision whether or not he wants to be a thug, or does he want to be a great NBA player. Now if it was me it’d be a very easy choice. There’s much more money in being a very, very good NBA player than a thug.”
“But I believe that Ja Morant is choosing the thug life guys,” said Matrixx. He continued to discuss this latest gun brandishing incident, and said that even after the last suspension and its impact on his inability to make the All-NBA team, that “the man has learned nothing.”
Matrixx’s comments were echoed by NFL Hall of Famer and commentator Shannon Sharpe. On Undisputed, Sharpe was straightforward:
“I wish Ja would realize he’s not a thug. Ja is a really good basketball player. Ja did everything he could to lift himself and his family out of this environment and to get away from this. And for some reason, he wants to surround himself with these types of people. Why? Bruh, you not hard. That’s not your life. People that [are] in that life would give anything to be in your life.”
What are your thoughts on this whole situation? Let us know in the comments below and across social media.
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