After a season in which guard Jay Morant’s immaturity threatened the success of the Memphis Grizzlies – and you don’t get more mature than picking up a gun less than a year after signing a $193 million contract – a man on the cusp of becoming one of the league’s new faces has been asked for a leadership role.
“I just had to be better with my decision-making, that much,” he said at a news conference after the Grizzlies were eliminated. “Out-of-court issues affect us as an organization.”
Morant’s definition of better decision making? In another social media live video over the weekend, it’s clear he’s pulling a gun, this time while riding in a car with his men.
Given what’s at stake for Morant — his value to the team, his future earnings, helping his family build generational wealth — pulling a gun again is beyond his reach.
It’s an off-the-court action that reaches Antonio Brown’s level of competence.
This is not about Morant’s Second Amendment rights. In the most armed country in the world – where there are more guns than citizens – Morant has a legal right to own a gun.
This one incident is not about the Morant crew. No one prompted Morant to pick up the gun at the Colorado club, or in the car in the video posted over the weekend. The boy’s reaction was to see the gun being waved and immediately turn on his phone camera.
This is about a man who appeared in a well-known ransom video two months ago and told ESPN viewers, “The gun wasn’t mine. I am not who I am.
Ronald Martinez / Getty Images
So who is Ja Morant?
Is he related to the man’s altercation with the Indiana Pacers in January, when The Athletic reported that red lasers from the SUV he was riding in were trained on the visiting team’s bus?
A member of the Packers’ traveling party told The Athletic that “we felt we were in serious danger,” but the league concluded that “we were unable to confirm that any individual threatened others with a weapon.”
The response from Morant, after ceasing discipline, was to show.
Is Morant the man connected to the teenager’s assault during a pick-up basketball game last summer? The first report from TMZ in January alleged that Morant punched the teenager.
But a more detailed report from The Washington Post They cited police documents that say the Grizzlies star punched the teenager 13 times in March and then flashed a gun.
In the same story, a mall security guard said he felt threatened by Morant after his mother had a beef with a shoe store employee after the second overall pick of the 2019 NBA draft appeared at a mall. Morant was quoted in the police report as saying, “I’ll check what time he’s coming down.”
Three days later, the story of the bomb The Washington Post It was published, Morant pulled a gun on a club, resulting in an eight-game suspension without pay for conduct detrimental to the team.
This makes no sense. Morant is 23 years old, a two-time All-Star, the 2020 Rookie of the Year and the recipient of a five-year, $193 million contract scheduled to begin next season that will set up future generations of his family.
Morant has been featured in national commercials for Powerade and Hulu. Nike is scheduled to drop its signature shoe on May 25th (it was delayed following the first gun incident), a move that could signal its iconic status in the game.
And that’s now at stake with Morant’s “throw ya gunz” move to impress the 111 people who watched the live video.
Adam Pantozzi/NBAE via Getty Images
Those few days of therapy in Florida following an eight-game suspension? Having lived through people and their various addictions, taking a weekend getaway is the equivalent of treating cancer with a Band-Aid.
If you don’t believe you have a problem, you can’t solve your problem. Perhaps a real suspension from the Grizzlies and the league will force Morant to realize what’s at stake.
A season-long suspension without basketball and those heavy basketball checks? That might be the wake-up call Morant really needs.
Chicago Bulls guard Patrick Beverley had an interesting take on Morant’s behavior during the podcast segment. “The music we hear is huge,” Beverly said. “The music says: ‘I keep it [a gun]’… that goes to ‘I want a [gun]. “
Beverly Right Says and Morant are influenced by the lyrics of the rap artists he follows. What impact does it have on Morant’s millions of fans — many of them young and impressionable? The sight of Morant pulling a gun is proof to some.
Back to something I wrote earlier, this latest incident isn’t his crew, and it isn’t.
Morant’s entire problem, however, has to do with the people he hangs with him, the people who have been by his side during each of his crimes. The friend who was suspended from Memphis Grizzlies games following the laser incident is the friend involved in the alleged attack on the teenager and the friend seen in recent video showing Morant pulling the gun.
Sometimes your friends aren’t your friends.
Morant now has a rep off the court: He’s packing, and he’s not afraid to pull a gun. Say there’s beef between Morant’s crew and another crew. Doesn’t that sound like a recipe for disaster?
Where is Morant’s sense of responsibility as a young black man in a country where blacks are disproportionately victims of gun violence? According to the Gifford Law Center to Prevent Gun Violence, black Americans are 10 times more likely to die from gunshot wounds than white Americans. The problem is getting worse, and people like Morant — and his willingness to embrace the thug’s life — don’t help.
At 23 years old, Morant is at an incredible career crossroads.
Does he travel the path of redemption of truth? Can he realize the full potential of his athletic gifts and reach superstar status? Or will he continue his enthusiasm and face an early exit from the NBA?
Gilbert Arenas, as talented a guard as the NBA has ever seen, admitted to keeping a gun in his locker while playing with the Washington Bullets, which he and teammate Javaris Crittenton committed in 2010. And it was drawn. Arenas pleaded guilty to a felony gun charge, and the three-time All-Star was playing with the Shanghai Sharks at age 30.
Who knows how long Morant will be suspended or if his signature shoe will be delayed even longer?
The impact of the action is felt.
The incident cost him money. By not making any of the three All-NBA teams — you could argue that Morant is one of the top 15 players in the league — Morant missed out on $39 million in bonus pay.
The incident made him unpopular. Morant had the sixth-highest selling NBA jersey before the first gun incident and dropped to eighth by the end of the season.
When that sit-down interview took place two months ago today on ESPN, Morant made a promise.
“In the future, I will show everyone who the real Ja is. What am I about? And I’m going to change that narrative,” he said.
Morant showed off his guns over the weekend, showing who he is, and what he’s all about. That’s the narrative on his NBA career right now, with his inability to settle, if it doesn’t change, an expiration date is nearing.
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