It turns out the Memphis Grizzlies held a players’-only meeting, ahead of the team’s current road trip, which began on March 1, where veteran Steven Adams urged the team to have more discipline while on the road. The team is 12-20 on the road this season, and there is a firestorm surrounding their star player Ja Morant, whom Adams reportedly referred to in the meeting when speaking of having discipline.
“I’m told that there was a players’-only meeting recently where Steven Adams, their veteran center, he spoke out about how the team needs to show better discipline on the road, how they need to stay away from going out when they’re on the road,” Shams Charania of both The Athletic and the Stadium reported Monday on “The Rally.” Charania continued, “Those in the room, when Steven Adams spoke out, they knew exactly who he was directing this to. It was no one other than Ja Morant.”
Morant Has Been Engaging In Dangerous Activity
Dating back to Summer 2022, there reportedly has been a string of incidents involving Morant and his associates where violence and/or threats of violence were made either by him or his associates. In three of the four incidents, a gun was allegedly present.
In July 2022, Morant and his associates arrived at a Memphis-area mall after Morant’s mother called her son to inform him that she was having trouble with a store employee. Mall security met Morant and company when they arrived, and a verbal argument reportedly turned physical. One of Morant’s associates allegedly pushed a security guard, and as Morant and company left the scene Morant allegedly said, “Let me find out what time he gets off,” which the security guard took as a threat.
Two weeks later during a pickup basketball game at Morant’s house, a teenager threw a basketball at Morant and hit him in the face. Morant allegedly said, “Do I do it to him?” and reportedly punched the 17-year-old repeatedly, knocking him to the ground where one of Morant’s associates also punched the teen. The teen alleges in a lawsuit that Morant went into his house and came back outside with a gun in his waistband.
Morant filed a countersuit two weeks later, alleging the teen threatened to “come back and light this place up like fireworks.”
On Jan. 29 of this year following a game against the Indiana Pacers in Memphis, where Ja Morant’s father Tee and Ja’s friend Davonte Pack got into a verbal altercation with Pacers players on the floor during the game, the verbal altercation continued at the loading area at FedEx Forum, where the Pacers team buses were.
Someone in Ja’s party flashed a red laser light on the Pacers’ traveling party. Members of the Pacers group reportedly thought it was attached to a gun and feared for their safety.
The NBA conducted an investigation and could not confirm the presence of a weapon.
This behavior has seeped onto the road where Morant is clearly not 100 percent focused on the Grizzlies and basketball.
The players’-only meeting was a last-ditch effort to get their young star teammate on the right path, and it was apparently unsuccessful. Morant took to IG Live in the early hours last Saturday morning, March 4, brandishing a gun inside a strip club.
According to reports, the incident took place at Shotgun Willie’s, a strip club in Glendale, Colorado.
The incident is now being investigated by local law enforcement in Colorado to determine if Morant broke any gun laws.
NBA Security Knows Everything
The NBA and the Grizzlies have been aware of Morant and his associates since the moment he stepped into the league.
NBA security is a robust department filled with former cops, secret service and ex-military. They are connected to every police department and law enforcement in cities where there are NBA teams and NBA events.
Each team’s security is a mini version of the same, focused specifically on the team and anyone in the orbit of people associated with the team.
Morant Can Learn from Others
NBA free agent Carmelo Anthony is a good reference point on what the league knows about its players. Early in Anthony’s career, he was getting into trouble off the court and he recalled a meeting he had with then commissioner David Stern.
“Everybody got like six or seven games. I go speak to him and say, ‘Why’d you do me like that?’ ” Anthony said on “Million Dollaz Worth of Game.” “[Stern said,] ‘Your rap sheet. Do you want to be in the streets, or do you want to be in the NBA? You’re f—ing with a corporation now. You’re going to leave that alone. I know who you with. I know where you live at. I know when you close your eyes. I know when you wake up. And I know what [your friends] are doing. Either tell them to stop or you have to cut them off.’
“And I’m like, ‘Damn.’ That’s when I knew the NBA was f—ing with the feds. He told me, ‘I got to make an example out of you. I know you. I know who is doing what.’ I get it. ‘If I am giving you $100 million, then I need to know everything.’ I didn’t understand that in that point in time. It took me to get older to say, ‘That makes sense.’ ”
Morant is at a pivotal crossroads in his young life. This is not hyperbolic. He needs to decide now what direction and path he wants to walk.
The one he’s currently on will almost assuredly end poorly.
