Grizzlies suspend Ja Morant after appearance of another gun video

The Memphis Grizzlies have suspended star guard Ja Morant after he appeared to be brandishing a gun in another social media video.

The Grizzlies made their announcement surrounding Morant on Sunday, just hours after a video circulated online showing the 23-year-old team superstar holding a gun while singing along to rapper NBA Youngboy’s lyrics during a friend’s Instagram live stream.

“We are aware of the social media video involving Ja Morant. He is suspended from all team activities pending league review,” the team said in its statement. “We have no further comment at this time.”

In a statement, NBA spokesperson Mike Bass told The Hill that the league is “aware of the social media post involving Ja Morant and are in the process of gathering more information.”

This is the second time Morant has garnered controversy surrounding his actions off the court. It’s been less than three months since Morant, a two-time NBA All-Star, was seen on an Instagram livestream brandishing a gun inside of a Denver, Colo. area nightclub.

That viral video drew immediate backlash, as the league suspended Morant for eight games, which cost him about $669,000 in salary. The incident also led Morant to announce that he was taking time away from basketball to seek help, attending a counseling center in Florida during his time off.

In a sitdown interview with ESPN, Morant, a former standout at Murray State University, told ESPN NBA analyst and host Jalen Rose that he takes full responsibility for the actions that happened in the Colorado video.

“I don’t condone any type of violence,” Morant told ESPN in the March interview. “But I take full responsibility for my actions. I made a bad mistake and I can see the image that I painted over myself with my recent mistakes. But in the future, I’m going to show everybody who Ja really is, what I’m about and change this narrative.”

This is also the third known incident involving Morant, whose Grizzlies were upset by the Los Angeles Lakers in the first round of the NBA playoffs.

The league investigated Morant’s actions after his team’s contest against the Indiana Pacers, in which multiple members of the Pacers said that they saw a red dot pointed at them, with a team security guard saying he believed it was a laser attached to a gun.

The NBA confirmed in its investigation that they found no evidence that anyone was threatened with a weapon, and they banned unnamed individuals from attending Grizzlies home games, including Morant’s friend who was banned for a year.

– The Associated Press contributed to this report.

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