Ja Morant doesn't learn: from celebrating with 'guns' to doing it with 'grenades'
The Memphis Grizzlies star didn't learn much during the sessions that the NBA imposed on him after his gun incidents
Ja Morant is once again at the center of controversy. After recently being fined $75,000 for making a gesture simulating pointing a gun after scoring a 3-pointer, the Memphis Grizzlies point guard has chosen a new way to celebrate his long-distance baskets: pretending to throw an imaginary grenade.
During his team's loss to the Minnesota Timberwolves (141-125), Morant performed his new celebration several times after scoring from the perimeter — he finished with a 5 for 13 on 3-pointers. On each occasion, he mimicked the motion of pulling a pin and throwing an invisible grenade, even covering his ears as if anticipating an explosion.
"That will be my celebration now, until someone else has a problem with it, and then I'll look for another," Morant declared in the pre-game shooting session.
The league imposed the fine on April 4, after Morant repeated the gun-pointing gesture twice during the victory over the Miami Heat on April 3 (110-108). However, the NBA's attention to these gestures began in the April 1 game against the Golden State Warriors. After a formal warning, Morant made the gesture again against Miami, leading to the sanction.
This situation adds to other incidents related to weapons that have marked Morant's recent career. At the start of the 2023-24 season, he was suspended for 25 games for appearing in a video showing a gun in a car. Previously, he had been suspended for eight games for a similar incident at a nightclub in the Denver area.
"I wasn't surprised [by the fine]," Morant commented after the game against Minnesota. "It's just showing people what has been evident in the last two years."
His teammate Vince Williams Jr. was also not surprised by the new celebration: "I would have done the same. It's good for him, because that way he can save money. Anything that helps him not spend, I fully support."
However, the celebration did not go unnoticed by analysts either. On the TNT program, Kenny Smith pointed out that, given Morant's history, "maybe he shouldn't be doing that." Shaquille O’Neal was more direct: "He knows what he's doing, because you guys will keep talking about it." Charles Barkley noted that perhaps the happiest with all this is likely the former coach of the Grizzlies, Taylor Jenkins, who was fired on March 28: "He no longer has to deal with these immature things."
This is an automatic translation. You can read the original news, Ja Morant no aprende: de celebrar con "pistolas" a hacerlo con "granadas"
