Ja Morant Jokes Go Viral Amid NBA Suspension Rumors
Ja Morant #JaMorant
Has Ja Morant Been Suspended By the NBA? Star Shares Cryptic Post
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Jokes about Ja Morant have flooded social media after he was accused of hitting a teenager a number of times during a pickup game.
The Memphis Grizzlies guard, who recently started the NBA All-Star game, was rumored to be suspended by the league following the allegations, but that has proved to be unfounded and the internet has seen plenty of memes about the basketball star.
The Washington Post revealed that a 17-year-old had told detectives from the Shelby County Sheriff’s Office that Morant had him “12 to 13 times,” and that his friend had struck him a further “four to five times.”
The teen also claimed that after the fight, which he said happened after he accidentally threw a basketball into the face of Morant, that the NBA star re-emerged with a gun clearly visible in his waistband and that he had his hand on the gun.
The 23-year-old basketball star was sued last September by the teenager, with the details of police documents being revealed earlier this week.
Morant has claimed that the scuffle was in self-defense and while playing against the Houston Rockets on Wednesday, he celebrated teammate Desmond Bane’s three-pointer in front of the Memphis bench by pretending to shoot a gun with his hand.
While Morant is seeing the funny side of the serious altercation, he has also been the subject of many jokes on social media, with tweets flying about how he would celebrate various incidents, which mainly state him beating on a minor.
One clip was posted with the caption, “Ja Morant and his boys after threatening a minimum wage HS Junior cashier,” and has gone viral on Twitter, with nearly 4 million views.
Another meme shared on Twitter sees a grown man picking a fight with a toddler after disagreeing with how the youngster is looking at him. The tweet is captioned “Ja Morant every time he’s around a minor” and has racked up more than 1.2 million views.
Former NFL star Shannon Sharpe has been among those who have commented on Morant and has urged him to “move differently” in the future after details of the incident became public.
Appearing on his sports show, Undisputed, alongside Skip Bayless, Sharpe said that Morant’s actions were showing that he is “hustling backwards” and that he needs to be more aware of his newfound status in the NBA.
Sharpe said on the show: “I’ve said it before, Ja, you’re going to have to move differently. You’re in a different stratosphere now. I just think he needs to conduct himself as a person that’s in that same stratosphere.
“He portrays that he is like something that he is not … He’s hustling backwards … Ja, just move differently, bruh…”
Sharpe continued: “I would never give you any advice on how to play basketball, but I would try to give you some advice on how to move.
“Let somebody else’s lesson be your lesson … Ja there are a lot of lessons out there for you to learn without having to learn that same lesson through your own hardship, that’s all I would say to him.”
Following The Washington Post’s report, rumors began circulating on social media that Morant had been suspended from the NBA.
This stemmed from a hoax video by Twitter parody account Buttcrack Sports. It shared a clip of NBA commissioner Adam Silver that had been dubbed over. It appeared that Silver said he had “decided to suspend Ja Morant from the NBA indefinitely.”
These claims are false, and Morant has not been suspended by the professional basketball league.
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