NBA bans Ja Morant 25 games for displaying firearms on social media

Memphis Grizzlies player Jamel Morant, better known as Ja Morant, has been suspended 25 games by the North American Basketball League (NBA) after displaying a firearm in a video posted on social media in May, the organization announced today.

Ja Morant had already been suspended for eight games in March for similar reasons, with NBA leader Adam Silver highlighting the 23-year-old’s “irresponsible behavior” in a statement.

“Ja Morant’s decision to brandish guns on social media again is alarming and embarrassing,” Silver said, applying a penalty that meant the athlete would miss about a third of the next NBA regular season (he has 82 games in total). .

In an Instagram Live in May, Ja Morant climbs into the passenger seat of a car with a gun in his left hand after he was caught, apparently drunk, with a gun at a nightclub in Glendale, near Denver, just two months earlier. Colorado, after losing the Grizzlies to the current champion Nuggets.

In the first case, the Grizzlies “star” went through a psychological support program in Florida and after the end of treatment promised in an interview with ESPN to be “more responsible, smarter and stay away from all bad decisions.” .

Prior to this controversy, Morant, a South Carolina native, was also involved in the attack on a 17-year-old who delivered “12 to 13 punches” at his home in July 2022, with his agent ensuring the athlete acted in self-defense in time.

Drafted second in the 2019 draft by Memphis and named the NBA’s Rookie of the Year the following year, he has since lived up to the high expectations placed on him for both his spectacular performance and his statistical performance.

This season, he averaged 26.2 points, 8.1 assists and 5.9 rebounds per game, but that didn’t stop his team from being eliminated in the first round of the playoffs by the Los Angeles Lakers.