After an Instagram Live stream late on Friday night appeared to show Grizzlies guard Ja Morant flashing a gun while at a strip club (Twitter video link), the NBA has announced that it’s looking into the incident, according to ESPN’s Adrian Wojnarowski (Twitter link).
“We are aware of a social media post involving Ja Morant and are investigating,” league spokesperson Mike Bass said in a statement.
While he continues to perform at an All-Star level for the 38-24 Grizzlies on the court this season, Morant has been at the center of a number of off-court allegations.
Morant got into an altercation with a 17-year-old during a pickup game at his house last July and punched the teen several times, claiming later that it was in self-defense. Morant was also accused of threatening a security guard at a Memphis mall and was reportedly involved in a confrontation with members of the Pacers’ traveling party after a January game, resulting in some of his associates being banned from the Grizzlies’ home arena.
Morant hasn’t faced any criminal charges as a result of those allegations, but the growing list of stories about his actions off the court is worrisome, given that the 23-year-old is one of the NBA’s most promising and exciting young stars.
The timing of Friday’s social media stream also reflects a lack of judgment from Morant, given that The Washington Post published a new report about those off-court incidents just a few days ago, prompting the 23-year-old’s lawyer and agent to strongly defend him in statements on Twitter.
Yikes
Mehh, just being young & dumb. He’s a professional though, so his off the court behavior needs to start reflecting that. Still a heck of a player and a heck of a kid.
When your payed millions of dollars to be the face of products you cant run around acting like a little hood rat! Shocking!
No, not young and dumb. That’s an excuse for bad behavior. He has to be better.
Thug eyebrows
Not really sure he’s a heck of a kid but he is surely a one of a kind player
Ja is so far past that point. His friends followed the Pacers bus showing a gun. He needs to be suspended one game to get a wakeup call that he’s in the NBA, not the streets
This man is going to ruin his career just to prove he’s hard.
Mordant wants to be hard like tupac did. See wat happen .
Saw the post debate the other day of “the league don’t care, bla bla”. But now they have to care.
It’s one thing hearing reports, but for the kid to flash a gun while he’s already all over the media regarding issues with guns etc. They have no choice but to do something now.
He’s such a talented guy, and from what I’ve seen, mostly a nice guy. He just needs to grow up and stop with the stuff giving the game and players a bad name.
Well said. Ja needs to realize he’s a professional, and take the same professional approach off the court as he does on the court. I think he’ll figure it out. Tee needs to have a conversation with the young man.
I think Tee is one of the issues. When your old man is the way he is, how can you expect to be any different. I’m pretty sure he was in the vid with Ja so I doubt he’ll say much without being a hypocrite.
What, Great1, is a “professional approach off the court”? Anything that you might categorize as “professional” would simply be the good manners that all of us should display. That’s hardly “professional.” There is nothing special about that. Others who have suggested he should grow up or act more maturely are closer to the mark. To suggest that growing up or acting maturely is “professional” gives a pampered athlete credit for simply acting the way all of us are expected to behave.
The NBA couldn’t really do anything about the other incidents at this point. It seems like it’s all hearsay and there wasn’t any proof. They investigated the incident in Indy. This dumb ass was stupid enough to post this to social media where everyone can see it. So now the league can punish him and he can be damn sure they’ll weigh the other reported incidents into the consideration of punishment.
Definitely disappointing someone with so much talent and potential throwing it all away. I wouldn’t be surprised if Memphis ends up trading him for a boatload of picks and a decent star caliber player just to get rid of the bad publicity.
He would have to shoot and kill someone in broad daylight before Memphis even starts thinking about replacing him…
They need to send Dillon Brooks with him.
They’re gonna disicpline him for something law enforcement didn’t even care to look into.
That’s common when it comes to employees being disciplined.
If you’re a middle manager at an insurance company and there is a video of you flashing a gun at a strip club the same thing could happen. There are clauses built into employment contracts that employees like Morant sign that give employers the right to do such things.
Not saying I agree with it, but its kinda silly to act like it is a surprise.
Oh, I’m not surprised, but it’s still silly to me.
Perhaps the law is waiting til the off-season, when it won’t be a burden on the young man’s career/job/etc.
Oops, got him mixed up with the Georgia football player/NFL prospect.
More media nonsense… A social media post? Yeah, that’s undeniable proof, and evidentiary testimony.
Love the court of public opinion, it would help if 99% of the people knew the Law first, and knew to ask for evidence first, in such a bold, yet general, and unpointed claim.
Could have been a party this guy paid for, and that was a paintball, or airsoft, or BB, or Pellet, or fake, and a “prop” gun just to see what would happen?
Seems pretty hard to prove any lawful facts after the fact. Without first-hand eye-witness testimony, and/or knowledge of the nature & cause of the incident. The eye witness testimony could never reliably testify to the legitimacy it was a firearm at all, and not a fake.
Now you need his friends to rat him out because only they would know the facts at the time of the incident, and be able to corroborate eye witness claims. Which are weak eye witness claims.
Especially with video editors these days, and Hollywood dominating all media platforms large, and small.
So for you unless he shots somebody in the middle of NY you will only believe him. So why doesn’t these stories come out on other NBA stars. let me guess the victim card played by him. He is going down a dark path of having everyone praise him and look the other way. His parents are why he is this way. Calling him because his mother go into a beef with a security guard shows how immature his parents are.
That’s not the point bro. It’s not about breaking the law from the vid, which I agree they can’t do anything about. As with the points you make above.
The point is he’s in the media regarding gun issues. Then responded brandishes a gun on his social. Public or not(looked like a Harden hangout from the vid tbf). Real or not, it’s a dumb call by a kid that should be keeping his head down.
It’s like getting a warning for allegedly drinking at work then brining a 40 to work the next day. Even if the bottle is full of water, it’s a dumb move that would likely get punished by his employer. Part of their job is to present themselves as professionals, on and off the court.
Regardless, lawful wrong doing is the only wrong doing any living man can do. Only those unaware of the Law think, or support undermining, dramatic, unexplained, factless, non-evidentiary, narratives, in the public media.
Yes, Media with money that you are loyal to is how you heard about it. There are many stories about this incident. 1 from every one present, but the 2-5 major media avenues that anyone is loyal to (I don’t know what that is for everyone… ESPN?) is the version the public gets, absent evidence of the claim, and I’m supposed to be ashamed for pointing that out?
I have a bad opinion? Okay fine, but this seems like a distraction piece, an age old media tactic, and not information, and researched happening.
He hasn’t been found guilty of breaking any law, but if I or anybody else posted a video of me saying my Mom was a worthless c@nt, no one would be okay with me or anyone else saying that. This is a billion dollar business and public perception matters for business. The Grizzlies and the NBA don’t want one of their fastest rising stars to be getting this kind of publicity. Doing nothing will only enable him to continue making dumb choices.
Pointing out he has brought all this on himself for acting stupid. There is no excuses for his actions lately. If you care you would be concerned.
I have no evidence any wrong doing happened. If this was to get some hits on a social media platform, or whatever?
When undeniable facts with proof appear in public I’ll adopt the care you deem appropriate.
Getting the facts, and knowing what those are in order for this to have merit at all is caring, and more concerned than anyone I know.
I’d be a happy camper if everyone asked for the facts first. The bad wouldn’t be missed, and good wouldn’t be martyred.
Yet another insane, Trump-thumping take from you. The man showed he had a gun while inside a strip club. On video. He himself posted it. It is illegal in Tennessee to have one inside a strip club, so there goes your weak argument about your vaunted law.
Yet despite there being clear video evidence, you still deny, deny, deny that there was any wrongdoing. Evidence means nothing to people like you, see the 2020 election and the mountains of it that it was fair.
… to be that young and to have almost no boundaries must be hard to navigate. I hope these are just rare incidents and this young man finds more opportunities to build something positive in the world.
I got bashed the other day for saying the NBA needs to get him a mentor on how to conduct his life. His problem is coming from a family that makes everything a drama situation.
You can’t force help on people. If he wants it, when he’s ready, he’ll take it. Until then it’s his business, even if you disagree with his decisions.
This is not your 2K squad where you can make players do what you want them to. He is a human being. He loves his family. You can’t just switch that off because he looks bad in the media. Maybe he cares more about his family than basketball. Does that make him a failure? Or only because it disrupts your evening of entertainment?
I agree you can’t force a mentor on someone that’s a given.
But this hasn’t happened because “he loves his family”. It’s because he’s a dumbass who instead of putting his head down as he was front and centre in the media, rightly or wrongly, regarding guns and attitude. He chose to posts that vid.
For all we know it may not even be a silly kid move. It may be “yeah I got a gun look” cocky move from an arrogant kid knowing nothing will happen but a fine that equates to a few bucks to all of us in comparison to his net worth.
Pattern recognition.
Dude can’t stay out of his own way.
The Ezra Miller of the NBA.
Young and dumb is no excuse…….
I wonder what David Stern (rip) would have done?
As Napoleon Dynamite would say “IDIOT !!!”
Ja is an adult adolescent smh
The league doesn’t NEED him. The sooner he figures that out, the better. (for himself)
#ThugLife