After a video showing the star guard Ja Morant clutching a gun began circulating on social media on Saturday night, the Memphis Grizzlies suspended Ja Morant from all team activities and place him on indefinite administrative leave.
In a statement released on Sunday, the Grizzlies confirmed the suspension, which will take effect after the league completes its investigation. This comes two months after the NBA handed Morant a suspension for a similar incident. The group made no more comments at this time.
“We are aware of the social media post involving Ja Morant and are in the process of gathering more information,” an NBA spokesperson named Mike Bass stated in a statement released on Sunday.
On Saturday, the All-Star basketball player displayed a handgun while driving and rapping along with a rap song during an Instagram Live session that was broadcast on account of Morant’s friend Davonte Pack. After some time, the video was removed from the website.
In March, after a video showed him clutching a gun while intoxicated at a Denver bar while the Grizzlies were in town to play the Nuggets, Morant resigned from the Grizzlies and enrolled in a rehabilitation program. The incident occurred while the Grizzlies were in Denver to play the Nuggets. After a discussion with NBA Commissioner Adam Silver, who described Morant’s behavior as “irresponsible, reckless, and potentially very dangerous,” the league ultimately decided to punish him for eight games.
In an interview with NBA Online Betting PH conducted at the time of the ban, Morant stated that he is aware of “what I have to lose” and intends to make an effort to be “more responsible, smarter, and staying away from all of the bad decisions.”
In the past year, Morant has been involved in a number of events that took place off the court. A brawl broke out during a pickup game in Morant’s backyard, and the high school prospect claims that both Morant and Pack punched him in the head during the altercation. As a result, the high school prospect is suing both of them. The young man reported to the authorities that after the conflict, Morant went into his residence and came back outside while carrying a revolver in his waistband.
Following the altercation after the game with the Pacers’ traveling party, Pack was barred from attending matches at the FedEx Forum in Memphis. After Pack walked onto the court during the game to argue with members of the Pacers, security personnel removed him from his courtside seat.
After the game, in the aftermath of an altercation between Morant’s companions and members of the Pacers’ traveling party at the loading dock area of the arena, a red laser was pointed from an SUV that Morant was riding in. The National Basketball Association investigated that it “could not corroborate that any individual threatened others with a weapon.”
Morant acknowledged that he needed to improve his self-control after the Grizzlies were eliminated from the playoffs in the first round.
Following his team’s defeat against the Lakers by a score of 125-85 on April 28, he stated, “I’ve just got to be better with my decision-making.” “That sums it up very well. Off the court, we were confronted with a number of challenges that impacted the company as a whole. Just [in need of] more self-control.”
This upcoming season will mark the beginning of Morant’s maximum five-year contract, worth $194 million. It had the potential to grow to a supermax if he had made All-NBA this season; however, he was not elected onto that team, which set him back almost $39 million in future earnings. In addition, although he has endorsement deals with Nike and Powerade, the sports drink firm dropped an ad starring Morant nearly as soon as the footage from March became public.
Morant finished the season with a point-scoring average of 26.2 and was a key factor in Memphis earning the No. 2 seed in the Western Conference playoffs.
