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In Memphis, Ja Morant's summer of trouble went unchecked by authorities

MEMPHIS - One night last summer, two deputies for the Shelby County (Tenn.) Sheriff's Office responded to a modest home, where a 17-year-old boy told them he had been repeatedly punched by two men during a fight on a basketball court.

"You got a good ol' knot on your head," Patrolman Gregory Stratman told the teenager, Joshua Holloway, as he used a flashlight to examine Holloway's injuries.

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Then, as Holloway recounted who punched him, the deputy interrupted.

"You talking about, like, basketball player Ja Morant?" Stratman said, according to body-cam footage obtained by The Washington Post. "Like, Memphis Grizzly Ja Morant?"

When Holloway assented, Stratman asked: "So a grown-ass man just hit you in the face? Why?"

Minutes later, the deputies emerged from the home, certain that they were in the center of something that was going to make instant headlines. "Like, we're about to go have to arrest Ja Morant," Stratman told his partner.

Morant, a budding basketball superstar, was by far the most famous man in Memphis. He had only three weeks earlier signed a contract extension with the Grizzlies that could pay him upward of $200 million, cementing his status as the face of the team, the city and possibly the NBA.

"You know this is going to hit the news, right?" Stratman's partner asked.

"F--- yeah," Stratman responded.

Instead, not a word was reported about the case in the media for half a year. The detectives assigned to the case handled it gingerly: It was six weeks before they interviewed Morant about punching Holloway, records show, and even then they avoided asking Morant key questions. By October, prosecutors had quietly shelved the case. They cited a lack of evidence following an investigation during which police did not indicate they interviewed a single witness about the teenager's allegation and hadn't identified Morant's best friend, who also allegedly punched Holloway.

A similar pattern emerged in two other incidents in which Morant and associates were accused of threatening or violent behavior last summer, records and interviews show. In basketball-obsessed Memphis, when the suspect was Morant, police in multiple departments failed to ask basic questions or interview key witnesses, didn't follow up with alleged victims and neglected investigative leads.

When a shoe salesman went to police to describe how he had cowered for nearly an hour in the back of a sneaker store as Morant threatened him, Memphis police did not list Morant as a suspect and recorded the name of his mother, Jamie Morant, as "Unknown" - shielding both from public scrutiny. The salesman, Givon Busby, whose report has not been previously disclosed, never heard from police again, he told The Post.

And when Morant, his family and friends stormed into a high school volleyball game after his sister got in a verbal spat with another student, police on the scene didn't identify an associate of Morant's who was accused of threatening teenagers and "slapping" a cellphone out of one of their hands. Instead, officers ceded that duty to the Grizzlies, a police report shows.

Word of Morant's behavior spread quickly through parts of sports media, some journalists would later say publicly. And behind the scenes, records and interviews show, the Grizzlies worked with police. But months passed with no public discipline or media coverage of the allegations against Morant. Neither the Grizzlies nor the NBA, which said it requires teams to report incidents involving police, reached out to the alleged victims in incidents involving Morant, three of them told The Post.

Through it all, Morant's star continued to rise, with a new signature Nike shoe, a top-selling jersey and a deal as the face of Coca-Cola's sports drink, Powerade. Then he filmed himself on Instagram Live with a gun. The NBA immediately announced an investigation and, later, an eight-game suspension.

Morant has expressed regret for flashing the gun. He sought counseling, he said, and acknowledged he needed the "time away to become a better Ja." But he has otherwise waved away allegations of violent and menacing behavior. "All those incidents you seen recently - most of them is a lie," Morant said in an interview with ESPN's Jalen Rose just before his return to the Grizzlies last month, in time for the upcoming playoffs.

The NBA and Grizzlies have not publicly countered that notion. When the league suspended Morant, it made clear that the discipline was only in response to Morant waving a handgun while intoxicated.

The NBA declined to comment for this story, and the Grizzlies did not respond to multiple requests for comment. The Shelby County Sheriff's Office and district attorney's office also declined to comment.

But The Post found that Morant's other alleged conduct was more serious than how it had been portrayed, in the press and by Morant himself. And for the people on the other side of encounters with Morant, the memories have been hard to shake.

Busby, the shoe salesman, said he spent nearly an hour in the storeroom, at times "shaking" with emotion, as Morant, who arrived at the sneaker store with eight or nine others, shouted through the door, threatening that he would wait for him to come out.

"I was actually afraid," said Busby, an aspiring science teacher who, at 5-foot-3, is nearly a foot shorter than Morant. After Morant left the shoe store, he allegedly threatened a security guard in the parking lot, the man told police in a separate report, which The Post previously reported.

Holloway, the high school basketball player punched by Morant, said he idolized the Grizzlies star and considered him a mentor, brimming with pride when Morant appeared at one of his games, gifted him sneakers and invited him to his home for pickup games. Then his basketball hero attacked him, Holloway said, after he threw a ball that slipped through Morant's hands and hit him in the chin. Morant kept hitting him even after he fell to the ground, Holloway told police.

The knot on the side of Holloway's head faded, but he has been left feeling anxious and betrayed. He filed suit against Morant and his friend, Davonte Pack, in September. Morant and Pack's lawyers have called the lawsuit a "shakedown" orchestrated by Holloway's mother, who initially asked for $11 million to settle her family's claims.

One of those attorneys, Keenan Carter, told The Post that witnesses and signed affidavits refute Holloway's allegations and back up Morant's assertion that he was acting in self-defense when he struck the teenager. "More than 20 people were present at the incident. We have spoken with all of them," he told The Post. "None of them supports [Holloway's] version of what transpired that evening."

Carter declined to make Morant available for an interview.

Holloway has not previously been identified or interviewed. His mother filed the lawsuit on his behalf last year. But he turned 18 last month and refiled it under his own name, and last week a judge unsealed the case.

Holloway is a point guard at Oak Hill Academy, a top prep school in Virginia. Even though taking on the most famous man in his hometown has cost him friends, he said, it boiled down to a value his grandparents taught him.

"They haven't taken any accountability for their actions," Holloway said of Morant and Pack. "I don't think you should be jumping a kid over a basketball game, regardless of any situation that should happen. So that's why I just keep pursuing it."

- - -

Morant, 23, is known among basketball fans for his electric play and inspirational backstory. His mother Jamie and father, Tee, his coach and harshest critic, were fixtures at high school and college games and remain so on the NBA sidelines. Morant's sister is now a highly regarded basketball player at Houston High, near Memphis.

In his interview with ESPN, Morant told Rose that most of the recent incidents were a matter of protecting that family, including the confrontation in the mall.

"I went to make sure my mom was safe," Morant said. "Once I realized that, you know, I left the scene again."

But Busby, 22, described it differently.

Busby was not named in the initial police report and has not previously been interviewed. Employees at Finish Line, in the Wolfchase Galleria mall, said they couldn't speak about what happened, but they referred a reporter to Busby, who agreed to a phone interview.

As he handled a busy day at the store, Busby said, a customer became angry that he had helped two White women before her. Busby, who is Black, said he never intended to disrespect anyone.

But she became angrier still, Busby said, when he informed her that he didn't have the shoe she wanted - the Nike VaporMax 2021, in orange and cheetah print - in her size. She began following him around and yelling, Busby said, saying she would call her son. Busby's managers sent him into the back, he said, fearing for his safety.

Busby said he didn't learn that the woman was Jamie Morant, Ja's mother, until the superstar arrived with a group of around nine people. (Reached by The Post, Jamie Morant hung up on a reporter after they introduced themselves.)

"Where's the short guy with the dreads?" Morant kept shouting, according to Busby. Morant went into a part of the store where customers weren't allowed, Busby said, and looked through the window of the stock room. He said Morant then shouted, "I'm gonna wait until you get off work."

"I thought, 'Oh, he's really trying to get me," Busby said. "Like, he's trying to hurt me.'"

After Morant left the store, Busby's managers eventually told him he had to leave, and he slipped out of the mall fearing Morant might be waiting for him.

"I was actually scared to walk out, because I didn't know what was going to happen," Busby said. "I've never been in a situation like that ever in my life."

Busby, who made $9.25 an hour, said that losing his pay for the rest of the day stung; he was saving for his next semester of college. He posted on social media about the incident that night, describing it the same way. Four days later, he went to a Memphis Police precinct to report what happened. The resulting police report, which The Post obtained through a public records request, showed that Busby told the same story to an officer. He told the police that the store had security cameras, so they could review footage if needed.

But the police never followed up, Busby said. "I just feel like they thought I was lying, basically," Busby said.

The report lists the potential offense as "intimidation." It lists Morant's mother as "Suspect #1 Unknown," despite her identity being a Google search away. And though Busby said it was Ja Morant who did the intimidating, the officer did not refer to him as a suspect in the report, which helped shield the report from the public eye. Memphis Police told The Post it had no reports listing Morant as a suspect.

Busby goes to college outside of Tennessee. He hasn't filed suit against Morant and said that with a busy school schedule, he wasn't likely to. "I'm not the type of person to try to get money from a famous person just because of something they did to me," Busby said.

But he said he felt driven to speak out, even if he remained afraid.

"I still want to be heard because I feel like it's important," Busby said. "[Just] because you're famous, you can't just do anything to people that you feel like is regular. Like, we all are the same."

- - -

On the same day Busby filed his report with the Memphis Police, the Shelby County sheriff's deputies arrived at the Holloways' home, where the elite high school player explained to them how he'd been jumped by Morant and his friend earlier that day.

Holloway tossed a basketball to Stratman, using it as a prop to demonstrate what had occurred on the court at Morant's mansion in Eads, about 30 miles from downtown Memphis. Holloway said that during a game filled with trash talk, Morant took offense at how hard the teenager checked the ball to him, hitting Morant in the face.

Morant threw the ball back, Holloway said, and then got in his face, asking his friend, "Should I hit him?"

That's when Morant punched him in his face, Holloway said, while Morant's friend "snuck" a punch to the back of his head. The teenager described falling to the ground, attempting to cover his face with his arms, while the men continued to hit him.

Stratman informed the Holloways: "Chances are, our detectives will probably drop a warrant on him for assault."

Holloway didn't bring up some allegations he would later make to police and in his lawsuit. Holloway later told police that as he left the home, he saw Morant flash a handgun. And in an early version of a civil complaint, he claimed that Morant's sister joined the fight "and began to kick and punch" Holloway. Morant's lawyers have denied both allegations.

Holloway told The Post that in the heat of that initial police interview, which took place less than two hours after the fight, he didn't think to mention everything, including the gun.

"Adrenaline was rushing, and they was asking me questions, and I was just answering them," Holloway said. After the police left, "everything started coming back to the picture, and my thoughts started to settle down," he said. "That's when I started thinking about everything that happened."

Outside the Holloways' home, the deputies discussed whether Morant should be arrested immediately. Stratman got a call from his supervisor, whom he had called to appraise of Holloway's allegations. Now, she called back with instructions.

"Okay, on your end we're going to handle it just as normal," then-Sgt. Annette Cotton said in a conversation captured by Stratman's body camera. "I have a couple of things I need to take care of on my end, but nothing that affects anything there."

The sergeant then reiterated: "For your purposes, nothing is different from any other assault. I do understand why you called me, and I'm very glad you did, for other reasons."

Cotton and the deputies who interviewed Holloway did not respond to an interview request made through the department.

Morant wasn't arrested that night, or ever. The case stagnated, records show, without Morant being interviewed about Holloway's allegations. Two weeks after the altercation, however, the Morant family met with a lieutenant to file their own complaint, alleging that Holloway threatened "to light the block up" as he left Morant's house. The Morants feared Holloway was going to "come back and shoot at them with a firearm," they told police, according to a report.

"No, I don't remember making any statements like that," Holloway said recently when asked about the alleged threats.

While the Morants "did not wish to pursue a prosecution at this time," the report stated, "if the threats continued, or escalated, they may reconsider that in the future." Though police hadn't yet interviewed Morant about Holloway's allegations, the lieutenant didn't ask him about it, records show.

It would be six weeks after the altercation until Morant would face a question on the record about Holloway's allegations. That interview, on Sept. 8, took place in his attorneys' Memphis office. According to a police transcript of the interview, Morant apologized to the detectives for "rescheduling on y'all."

"Aye, you good man," said Detective Aaron Avant. "At least you got in within a month's time."

Morant recounted to the detectives that after Holloway threw the ball at his face, the teenager "like, pulled up his pants," which he took as a threatening gesture. "At that point, I felt in danger," Morant said. "So, that's me protecting myself."

"I got you," Avant responded. "Coming from where I come from, I know when you pull those pants up - aye, you mean business."

Morant's lawyers were former top federal prosecutors: Edward L. Stanton III, the former U.S. Attorney for the Western District of Tennessee, and Carter, one of Stanton's former deputies. Carter assured the detectives that he and Stanton had investigated the allegations against their client "like we would if we were prosecutors."

The attorneys provided the detectives with eight affidavits they had collected from witnesses. Two said they didn't see the fight, but did see that Morant's sister wasn't involved. The other six said they witnessed the fight and supported Morant's version of events, using mostly identical language.

Holloway threw the ball "forcefully," they said, didn't apologize and "squared up" as if to fight. Morant hit him once, they said, before "another participant" hit Holloway once "from the side."

None of the affidavits named Pack, Morant's friend, and detectives appeared largely disinterested in learning his identity.

"Um, can you tell me who it was?" Avant asked Morant. "You don't have to give me a - you know - if you know his nickname, or whatever, if you feel comfortable with giving me his nickname."

"Yeah, it's my brother, pretty much," Morant responded. "Not blood, but . . ."

"Got you," responded Avant. The detectives never brought him up again.

Morant's tight bond with Pack is well documented; Pack told a podcast interviewer that they have been friends since they were rec league teammates at eight years old. According to court filings, Pack lives in Morant's mansion in Eads. Pack was banned from the FedEx Forum, where the Grizzlies play, after a February game in which he walked onto the court to yell at Indiana Pacers players. Members of the Pacers' traveling party then reported fears that someone in Morant's SUV had pointed a gun with a laser attached to it in the parking lot, which the NBA could not corroborate.

Detectives were similarly cursory in probing Holloway's allegation that Morant flashed a handgun. Morant acknowledged owning one. But after they raised Holloway's allegation, and before Morant could respond, they offered him a potential explanation.

"Because you know, the retort to that is, 'Well, if he said he was going to light my house up . . . ain't no telling what he was gon' do when he got to his car,' " Avant told Morant.

"You doing your job," Morant responded without elaboration, and the detectives did not directly ask if he produced a gun that day.

Morant also informed the detectives that while he has security cameras at his house, they weren't operable that day. "We was in the process of changing them out," Morant explained.

Police records show that Morant's lawyers had already given police the names of the witnesses whose affidavits they turned over that day. The detectives wrote that they either couldn't reach or were stood up by all of them. The Post reached three of the eight witnesses, each of whom declined to be interviewed.

Most, if not all, of the affidavits were from people in Morant's inner circle, frequently tagging their photos #MBNO on social media. The acronym, meaning "My Brothers No Others," is also the name of a clothing company co-founded by Pack and frequently worn by Morant.

Two played basketball alongside Morant at Murray State University, and another is Morant's personal trainer. Social media posts show that they have traveled with Morant and Pack, including by private jet, to destinations such as an NBA All-Star Game. Two others were at the time high school basketball players from the Memphis area. Social media posts show those teenagers sitting courtside at basketball games with Morant, including recently cheering his comeback from floor seats at a Grizzlies game.

Carter, the attorney representing Morant and Pack, noted that the high school basketball players who signed affidavits were more familiar with Holloway than Morant. He said that no witnesses they interviewed backed up Holloway's claim that Morant flashed a gun, or that his sister joined in the fight.

"All eight of the affidavits that you mentioned corroborated what you call Mr. Morant's 'version of the events' - because it is the truth," Carter told a reporter.

- - -

During their own interview with detectives, the Holloways attempted to provide evidence of their own, sharing messages that Alex Lomax, Joshua Holloway's cousin and a guard for the University of Memphis basketball team, sent to Morant and Pack on Instagram confronting them about the altercation.

"Dam whats good?" Lomax wrote. "Yall beat up my youngin yesterday? Lil Joshhh?"

"[A]sk lil bruh what he did," Morant responded, according to the messages which were later filed in Holloway's lawsuit. "[I] gave em chances. wouldn't do a youngin like dat for no reason . . . lil bruh want people to feel sorry for him, for something he caused."

"Real n--- aint movin like that," Lomax wrote. "Thats a kid."

"[R]eal n--- aint gon get disrespected or a ball thrown at they face either," Morant responded.

The detectives, though, appeared unimpressed.

"I guess this gonna sound bad but, to play devil's advocate, with a kind of situation like that, he doesn't really state what he did," Detective Melvin Harris told the Holloways.

When asked about the messages by The Post, Carter questioned the "veracity and relevance of isolated Instagram messages." He did not respond when asked for any additional context on the messages. Lomax did not respond to messages seeking comment from The Post.

During Morant's interview with detectives, his lawyers said that Myca Holloway, Joshua's mother, had a "history of trying to profit off of bad situations or circumstances, and this is no different." They pointed to previous lawsuits the mother filed against a fire department and school district, which were later dismissed.

Records reviewed by The Post show that the month earlier, the Holloways entered into confidential mediation with Morant and Pack. In the interview with detectives, Morant's lawyers said they had agreed to the mediation "just to try to make it go away."

Holloway's then-attorney sought a "substantial financial resolution" of $11 million, the documents show, and the mediation failed.

Myca Holloway told The Post that she believed the claims in her previous lawsuits were valid and that her son deserved recourse. "That's why we have laws, because things happen to people where things are not right, and justice need to be served," Holloway said.

She filed her lawsuit on Joshua's behalf last September. But even as she pursued Morant in civil court, the mother continued to push police and prosecutors to charge him, emails show.

"I'm going to get to the bottom of this and won't stop until I have answers as to why two grown men that beat up my son have not been charged and arrested," she wrote to Shelby County Sheriff Floyd Bonner, Jr., in October, adding: "My son ain't went to Ja Morant's house and beat up himself."

But by then, detectives had submitted their case to Shelby County prosecutors, who declined to charge Morant because "there is not sufficient admissible evidence in the case file." Prosecutors made no reference to Pack, who unlike Morant has not publicly claimed self-defense. Pack's lawyers did not offer an explanation as to why he punched Holloway, despite repeated requests from The Post.

Rebecca Adelman, a lawyer who took over the case from the Holloways' previous attorneys in November, said that a focus of the litigation going forward is exploring "the glaring failings in the law enforcement response to the claim that a minor was assaulted" by a famous and powerful figure in the city. With the file unsealed, she said, "people can now see what the investigation included and what it did not include."

- - -

Not long after the Holloways filed suit, and with the Grizzlies' season opener weeks away, a third Memphis-area police department handled an incident involving Morant. This time, the disturbance was at his sister's high school in Germantown, Tenn.

The altercation again involved teenagers and family pride. Ja, his mother Jamie and father Tee, and a group of unidentified men showed up to a volleyball game after his sister alerted him about a dispute with another student, according to a police report authored by an officer who witnessed the altercation. TMZ first reported on the incident, which the police said was sparked by Morant's sister and another student cursing at each other.

The Germantown officer described having to block Morant and his group from heading up into the balcony where the students were. Jamie Morant, holding Morant's young daughter, yelled at students and a vice principal, the officer observed.

When asked about the incident recently by Rose, Ja Morant explained: "It was just me checking on my family's safety. Once my family, you know, was safe, I left the scene."

But one man who was with the Morants moved past the officer who was attempting to de-escalate the situation, according to the report. When the man was upstairs, students told police, he "slapped" a cellphone out of one student's hand as he attempted to film and threatened that he would "beat" them.

Though one of the parents wanted to press charges, a Grizzlies official, Kevin Helms, showed up to help smooth over the situation. Police asked Helms, who the report describes as the team's head of security, to issue trespass warnings to the parties involved.

The police report suggests that police on the scene made little effort to identify Morant's associate, only describing him as wearing a "red hat, gray shirt and shorts." The report shows that the police asked Helms to identify who was with Morant that day, but that at the time of its writing "we have not received that information."

The officer noted that they obtained video surveillance of the incident for further investigation, and collected nine student statements. Germantown Police Captain Kevin Simpson would not say whether detectives assigned the case eventually identified the man who allegedly threatened students, but no adults were charged in the altercation. The department would not release the police report concerning the incident, which The Post separately obtained.

Helms was a familiar figure to Morant. A former lieutenant in the Shelby County Sheriff's Office, he flew via private jet with Morant to his first All-Star Game, in Cleveland in February 2022, a trip chronicled by Morant on Instagram Live. Amid introductions to his grandmother and other family members, Morant panned to Helms.

"Kev, say what up, Kev," Morant said. "Kev rocking the MBNO."

Helms flashed a peace sign, wearing a hoodie emblazoned with the "My Brothers No Others" logo made by Pack's company. In other parts of the video, Morant aimed bottles of tequila at his cellphone like they were guns, and he, Pack and other members of Morant's party took turns swigging from them.

The Grizzlies did not respond to questions concerning Helms, and he did not respond to repeated messages seeking comment.

Though he only recently faced scrutiny, Morant's troubling behavior appears to have been an open secret in basketball circles. Morant and Pack's fight with a high school basketball player became the stuff of legend in the city last summer, several Memphians told The Post, even as no media outlet reported it for months.

One of ESPN's top basketball reporters, Brian Windhorst, recently remarked during a segment that he "got a call from a Hall of Famer the next morning" telling him about the fight. "And I promise you the league office knew about it before I got the phone call."

Windhorst told The Post that while it was well-known to basketball insiders that Morant "liked to party and definitely had a group that sometimes got a little rambunctious," the more serious tenor of the allegations that have recently emerged came as a surprise.

As for hearing about the fight the next day, Windhorst said the call came with few details. "I would've classified it as a rumor," Windhorst said.

The sport's silence surrounding Morant's behavior began to erode this month, after The Post reported the news of the altercation at the mall and disclosed that Holloway had also alleged to police that Morant flashed a gun last summer following their fight on the court. Two days after that article was published, Morant filmed himself holding a gun at Shotgun Willie's, a Colorado strip club.

But when the NBA suspended him, the league did not address any incident other than the gun in the strip club. During his interview with Rose, Morant said he took "full responsibility" for that incident, calling it a "bad mistake."

When it came to the rest of his behavior, Morant took a different tone. Asked specifically about Holloway, Morant told Rose that while he was constrained about talking about the case, "pretty much everything you see. . . that's going on with that is a lie."

Holloway saw the video of Morant flashing the gun. But he said it hadn't affected his resolve to confront Morant publicly for the first time. He lost an idol, he said, cut ties with lifelong friends and even lost interest in basketball for a while after the altercation, he said, because it made him anxious. But counseling has given him ways to cope with his stress.

Holloway said that the altercation has now become fuel for him: to make it to the NBA himself, he said, to be a better role model than Morant was to him.

"I don't fear him at all," Holloway said. "You can't be afraid of the truth."

- - -

Timeline of Ja Morant controversies

Ja Morant is one of the NBA's brightest young stars, with a new signature Nike shoe, a top-selling jersey and a deal as the face of Coca-Cola's sports drink, Powerade. But off the court, allegations of assault and threatening behavior - which Morant denies - have drawn increasing scrutiny. Here's a timeline of controversies.

- July 22, 2022: Givon Busby is working at a shoe store in a Memphis mall when Morant's mother gets angry with him and says she will call her son. Busby alleges that Morant and eight or nine friends showed up and threatened him as he hid in a back room, with Morant saying he would wait until Busby got off work. Busby later files a police report.

- July 22, 2022: The head of security at the same Memphis mall alleges that Morant threatened him during an altercation in the mall's parking lot after he left the shoe store. The guard also alleges that a friend of Morant's assaulted him by shoving him in the head. The guard files a police report. No arrests are made.

- July 26, 2022: Joshua Holloway, 17, files a police report alleging Morant and a friend repeatedly punched him in the head and knocked him to the ground during a basketball game at Morant's home. Morant claims self-defense. Prosecutors decline to file charges. Holloway is suing for damages.

- Sept. 22, 2022: Morant, his family and others storm into a high school volleyball game after a fight involving Morant's sister and another teenager, according to a police report. Students say an associate of Morant threatened them. One parent tells police she wants to press charges against Morant and his mother. No adults are charged.

- Jan. 29, 2023: A friend of Morant gets into an argument during a game against the Indiana Pacers and is shown off the court. Later, Pacers employees say a laser is pointed at them (some believe it's from a gun) from a car containing Morant and others. An NBA investigation finds no evidence of a gun. Morant later says his friend was banned from home games for a year.

- March 4, 2023: After a Grizzlies loss to the Denver Nuggets on March 3, Morant goes live on Instagram, where he briefly appears to hold up a gun to the camera while rapping and dancing at a Colorado nightclub. Morant later apologizes. The NBA investigates and ultimately suspends him for eight games without pay.

- - -

The Washington Post's Brandon Gee and Jayne Orenstein contributed to this report.

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