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Ja Morant suspended by Grizzlies after showing a gun on video

Massimiliano Macaluso
Updated
Ja Morant has had a busy week
Ja Morant has had a busy weekAFP
The franchise announced this in a short communiqué, pending the NBA's decision.

Ja Morant (23) will not be present on the court at least for the upcoming matches against Los Angeles Clippers and Los Angeles Lakers. The reason? The Memphis Grizzlies suspended him because of an Instagram feed in which he showed a gun.

Ja <mark>Morant</mark> shows a gun on Instagram live
Instagram

In the last few hours, the NBA also announced that it had started investigating the incident.

Morant apologized later on Saturday and said he planned to take some "time away."

"I take full responsibility for my actions 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 away to get help and work on learning better methods of dealing with stress and my overall well-being."

It was not a quiet week for the All-Star player: the guard was accused of threatening the head of security at a Memphis mall in an incident that occurred last summer, according to a police report. The altercation began after Morant's mother had a dispute with an employee at a shop, which led her to call her son.

Four days after that incident at the mall, Morant was later accused of punching a 17-year-old boy and brandishing a gun during a basketball game at his Memphis home. The teenager's mother filed a police report on the day of the incident and took her son to the hospital the following day.

Then, in January, as CBS reported, the NBA investigated another incident involving acquaintances of Morant. After a game between the Grizzlies and Pacers, someone in an SUV Morant was travelling in pointed a red laser at a group of boys. They believed it was a gun, however, the NBA said it could not 'confirm that an individual threatened others with a weapon'.