Grizzlies star guard Ja Morant has entered a counseling program in Florida and there remains no timetable for his return to the court, ESPN’s Adrian Wojnarowski and Tim MacMahon report (Twitter link).
Morant has already missed five games. He took a leave of absence following an incident in which he flashed a gun on an Instagram Live video while at a Denver-area strip club. Police in Glendale, Colorado said last week that Morant wouldn’t be charged with a crime for his actions at the club.
However, Morant has allegedly been involved in a number of troubling off-court incidents, convincing him to seek help.
Prior to Memphis’ game on Monday against Dallas, coach Taylor Jenkins was asked about Morant’s potential return date. He did not provide any specifics, MacMahon tweets.
“There are a lot of internal dialogues going on and obviously there’s still things going on at the league level that we’re in communication with,” Jenkins said. “Ja’s fully engaged in this process and ready for whatever comes next after these two games.”
I promise never to do it again !!!!
Grow up Kid …..
Al you remember when you were 23 years old. Come on now. Can’t only be me that was a knucklehead at that age LOL.
I’m not condoning any of his actions and yes the price has to be paid, but you know what, I’ve done a lot of stupid crap and was only caught on some of them.., thank goodness.
The fact that social media and cel phones were not around when I was 23 certainly helped…a Lot….
When people got cellphones and started taking them out in clubs and bars I used to be like..WTF are you doing? Why do you want people to see what we are doing in here?
Why? Were you smoking that Ganja Sanja? ^_^
Yeah we make dumb choices. But we’re not NBA stars. Ready to run the NBA.
Spider-Man ……. said it for all of us.
With great talent n power. Comes great responsibility. Don’t matter how old you are. You can’t blow this. Gatorade has already dropped him.
That’s Powerade (oops) Coca Cola . Big loss here.
link to sportskeeda.com
Get a better attitude. Jordan would school you all day
Kid thinks he’s Jordan when at best he’s Derrick Rose…
A healthy Derek Rose is probably an all time player so….
Good for you, Ja. Best of luck in your recovery.
All the haters you can zip those lips now :)
He could carry Brandon Clarke to all his PT
Lol a lot of people seem to think they’re superior now because a kid made some mistakes LOL. He’s still richer than you are and more successful too LOL
More successful? That’s pretty subjective but okay. I’ll roll with it. Definitely more successful at basketball because he made it to the league and I didn’t.
But anyone who thinks they’re “Superior” is off base because we’ve all made some pretty massive mistakes and only some of us get caught.
Mistake? No. A mistake is when you forget to set your alarm clock or you burn the toast. The guy is a thug, plain and simple. And, naturally, he won’t be charged with a crime. Privilege.
miltpappas, wrong. These are mistakes. Are you saying he’s going to be a thug forever? No no, he can get straightened out. Don’t label him with something forever because of mistakes in his youth.
Ja should leave the NBA to prove a point. The NBA needs him more than he needs the NBA. His sneaker and jersey sales have skyrocketed since the so called “incident.”
The real Kurtis Blow would be insulted by this take. Morant is a star, a great talent, but he isn’t close to Jordan or Lebron, if he never played again the NBA would lose approximately $0.
I know one thing, the real Kurtis Blow likes it when they dribble up and down the court.
Powerade has erased Ja Morant from all of their ad campaigns. They just signed him to a mega-million $$$ deal.
Bahahahahahahahahaha
Ja has already been replaced before he even thinks about doing this…
And once out of the NBA he’d be no more a star than Myers Leonard…
Without the NBA Ja is just a regular jabroni…
Well, he is doing what he should
I can’t fault him for that
He should just read up on Chris Henry
I hope he is sincerely seeking help, he is supremely gifted, but seems to be walking a fine line.
Duh this was the right move from the start
This is not the first case of a early 20 year-old being given not millions…or tens of millions….but hundreds of millions of dollars that gets into a mentality that none of us can remotely comprehend.
I mostly follow MLB. Maybe 3 years ago a poster on MLBTR asked who the bigger star would be – Ronald Acuna Jr., Juan Soto, or Fernando Tatis Jr. I picked Juan Soto because he played a controlled, smart, fundamental game and was about helping his team win. The other 2 guys were me-first hotdogs that thought they were the cats-azz. Both injured themselves, one got caught juicing. Both are now limited in what they can do because their injuries have changed their bodies, while Mr. Soto hasn’t missed a beat.
It’s unfortunate, but the NBA in particular seems reluctant to curb their players. Routinely coaches and GM’s are fired because the star player “ain’t gettin’ no respect”…i.e. is being asked to follow the same rules as the rest of the teams players.
I don’t feel sorry for Mr. Morant, don’t worship him, am surely not going to have any influence on his future. I saw him play some when he first came up and shortly thereafter asked a friend that follows the NBA if that young man was as good as I thought he was. My friend just smiled and nodded his head.
Kyrie Irving and Kevin Durant could have been all-time great players. They aren’t. I’ll take the Hakeem Olajuwon’s, Magic Johnson’s, even Dennis Johnson’s before them.
I hope the NBA gets back to playing team basketball. Until then I don’t watch much. I hope Mr. Morant comes to understand that he has a chance to be an all-time great as opposed to just being a celerity, entertainer, athletic equipment hawker – and subsequently gets on that path.
I’d go out on a limb and say he does something else to bleep it up when thin the next 5 yrs. Agent Zero 2.0
Within ugh
It’s being called “counseling”. A bit more is going on here than that. You can pull a post I made a week ago that told you he was already in a rehab program. Ja will be fine ultimately. He is getting his priorities established again. Ja has got to get rid of the gang he is identifying with. Despite all the issues. At the core, Ja Morant is a respectful young man who was raised by two parents. Trying to get him back to that core. His mom and dad also need to make adjustments and get back to where they were.
Going to Florida?
The Florida man is an international joke now…
Hopefully he finds decent help in his search… This is the first step of many hard steps the kid has to take…
How would you know what steps, or direction Ja Morant needs to take in his life?
Have you been in a 12-step program before?
He is many steps away from being able to return to his position as role model for the NBA child audience…
A 12 step program is the smallest step Ja has to take… It’s not one of the many hard steps, like telling his sister to stfu and play volleyball rather than show up to his sisters high school pretending to be a big man with all his homies there to egg him on…
This story is strange in the least. I even saw another media bit on youtube claiming they have a source who claims Ja Morant paid 2 strippers $50,000 each, by way of a tip on his credit card to keep this thing quiet.
That must have been a trashy club, or 2 of the stupidest strippers in America because you can’t afford a new Pick-up for $50,000 let alone buy-off 2 witnesses of a millionaire waiving his gun around in a relatively public place.
Now Ja is in counseling? This all sounds like cover to keep him out, and delay the announcement of the real reason until there is no other choice.
I doubt if Ja Morant was waiving a gun around, and got away with it he would feel remorse, and volunteer for counseling. This is nonsensical.