Grizzlies player Morant was seen displaying a gun at a nightclub on his live Instagram account.
The Memphis Grizzlies NBA team, from the US state of Tennessee, has suspended Ja Morant for at least the next two games after he was seen displaying what appeared to be a gun at a nightclub on his Instagram live.
An NBA spokesperson said the league was aware of the appointment and was investigating. Morant apologized later Saturday, saying he intended to take “time off.”
“I take full responsibility for what I did last night. I’m sorry to my family, teammates, coaches, fans, partners, the city of Memphis and the entire Grizzlies organization for letting you down,” he said in a statement.
“I’m going to take some time off to get help and work on learning better ways to deal with stress and my overall well-being.”
The 23-year-old All Star player was the subject of a Washington Post article this week that said he had been accused in police reports of hitting a teenager multiple times.
In interviews with the police, the teenager said that Morant entered his house and “came again with a gun that could be seen in the waistband of his trousers”.
Morant told police he “moved at first” but felt he was acting in self-defense after the teenager threw a basketball that hit him in the head, later giving the impression that Morant was finding a threat.
In police records, the unnamed teenager accused Morant of hitting him “12-13 times”. Morant allegedly made threats against the head of security at the Memphis facility, which led to the filing of a police report, the newspaper said.
Morant is averaging 27.1 points, 8.2 assists and 6.0 rebounds in 53 games this season for the Grizzlies, who are currently in second place in the Western Conference.
The suspension means he will miss Sunday’s game against the Clippers and Tuesday’s game against the Lakers.
Guns in the USA
Gun violence is a major problem in the US, which saw 647 mass shootings last year, with at least four people killed or killed by a shooter, according to the Non-Violence Archive website.
In 2020, firearms surpassed vehicle crashes to become the leading cause of death among children and teens in the country, according to data from the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
More than 44,000 people died from gunshot wounds in 2022 across the US, and more than half of those were suicides.
