‘The alligators got him’: The transformation and troubles of Ja Morant
Credit to Author: Baxter Holmes and Tim MacMahon| Date: Mon, 23 Oct 2023 15:55:58 EST
ON FEB. 18, 2022, Memphis Grizzlies superstar Ja Morant was on a private jet en route to Cleveland for the All-Star Game, surrounded by friends and family. The occasion was momentous, and he decided to chronicle it.
Before taking his seat, he began streaming on Instagram Live. He settled in, stretched his legs and inquired about a deck of cards. He bantered with his grandmother.
Then, Morant grabbed a bottle of Clase Azul Tequila, one of the most expensive tequila brands in the world. With 10,500 people watching, he propped up his phone near a window, held the oversized white bottle at his side with both hands and aimed it at the phone, cocking the bottle back and forth, like a machine gun. He then did the same with a bottle of Casamigos tequila.
“Choose your poison,” he said.
Soon after, Morant panned the camera toward Kevin Helms, the Grizzlies’ head of team security, who is often by Morant’s side. “Kev, say what up Kev,” Morant said. Helms, sitting in a different row, flashed a peace sign.
“Y’all see my dog rocking that MBNO,” Morant said of Helms, referencing the logo on his hooded sweatshirt. Those letters are tattooed on Morant’s stomach and stand for “My Brothers No Others,” a moniker for those in his inner circle and a clothing brand led by his childhood friend Davonte Pack, who sat nearby.
The livestream continued, as tequila was passed around the plane.
“Y’all babysitting that bottle?” Morant asked the group behind him.
Morant then asked viewers to come to the MBNO pop-up in Cleveland, which the Grizzlies’ verified Instagram account commented on with four flame emojis.
Bottles continued to be shared. “I’m trying to get the bottle,” Morant said. “They’re babysitting the bottle.” He’s handed one, and he takes a long pull.
“Oh man, we was lit,” Morant later said of the flight.
It was that weekend, multiple sources in and around the Grizzlies organization said, that some early warning signs became habitual. When concerns around the team and league deepened. And it is when, sources said, Morant’s misconduct accelerated, becoming more frequent and public.
In the 18 months since, more serious allegations have surfaced. Lawsuits and subpoenas have been filed and remain open. It is a period in which a 22-year-old rising superstar struggling with the excesses of fame has become a 24-year-old man whose actions are jeopardizing his career.
“He went to that first All-Star Game,” one team source said, “and then the alligators got him.”
THE JA MORANT now mentioned in court documents and police reports, and the subject of multiple NBA suspensions, is not, according to Grizzlies insiders, scouts and Memphis business owners who interacted with him frequently, the Ja Morant who entered the league just four years ago.
Before being drafted by the Grizzlies with the No. 2 overall pick in 2019, scouting reports on the high-flying point guard out of mid-major Murray State revealed little in the way of red flags.
“Zero,” said one veteran NBA scout who scouted Morant for a lottery team in position to draft him. “He was the consummate coachable teammate, a choirboy. Underrecruited. Didn’t have many scholarship offers. Played with a chip on his shoulder. Glowing stuff. Nothing. There was absolutely nothing.”
Said a second veteran NBA scout: “I studied him inside and out. There was not one person who had a bad thing to say about him. Very much a late bloomer. Good family. Had a work ethic. Humble. He checked every single box.”
In their Morant scouting reports, which were reviewed by ESPN, his coaches in high school and at Murray State offered glowing remarks on the court and, notably, away from it. His high school coach, Dwayne Edwards, of Crestwood High School in Sumter, South Carolina, said that Morant had no off-the-court issues. An AAU coach of Morant’s said Morant’s father didn’t interfere and would always support his son. A Murray State assistant coach, James Kane, said Morant didn’t drink, didn’t smoke and created no issues. Murray State head coach Matt McMahon said he’d had no problems with Morant. Others around the team praised his work ethic, commitment in the weight room and the film room. They said he was respectful, humble, tough, coachable. That he could be silly but nothing problematic, a leader, a gym rat, unfazed by fame.
They missed him.
During his first season in Memphis, there were positive returns, with Grizzlies staff passing along intel to scouts that the eventual Rookie of the Year was always asking questions and great to work with. Morant established himself in just his third NBA game, scoring 17 of his 30 points in a comeback fourth quarter, blocking a potential winning shot from Kyrie Irving and tallying the winning assist on a buzzer-beating overtime winner over the Brooklyn Nets.
“It’s just my edge,” he said then. “The chip I have on my shoulder from what I had to go through to get to the NBA. My dad always told me that I was trained to go, basically that I’m built for the moment. And my mom always told me I’m beneath no one.” After that game, he went home to watch film with his mom and dad, as he often did.
Around Memphis, some who interacted often with Morant and his father, Tee, felt similarly. “They were very humble and respectful people,” said one longtime Memphis business owner whose establishments Morant and his father frequented. “They would never overstep the boundaries. Easy to talk to. The customers enjoyed them. It started like that.”
Said another Memphis businessperson who frequently interacted with Morant: “He would always kind of come off very humble. He would ask questions, ‘Man, if you don’t mind, can I have a seat right there?’ Very courteous.”
But some warning signs emerged early in his pandemic-shortened rookie season. Team sources said there were concerns about how frequently Morant, underage and often accompanied by his father, would go out drinking, and at some of Memphis’ seedier establishments and strip clubs, including on nights before games.
Throughout that 2021-22 season, during which Morant was named the NBA’s Most Improved Player, a pattern emerged whenever the Grizzlies traveled. After landing, a Sprinter Van would often be waiting at the team hotel to shuttle Morant out for the evening with friends and family, whom he had flown into that city on a private jet, according to team sources. Morant would cover their lodging and foot the bill at establishments they visited. In some instances, team sources said, it wasn’t unusual for Morant to appear hungover, or to be late to team events the next day.
“There was no discipline,” another Grizzlies source said. “They felt like they could do anything they wanted. In my opinion, the enabling was out of control. Just constant. Definitely s— was swept under the rug.”
On the court, though, Morant was electrifying, almost single-handedly fueling the Grizzlies into contention. He led the team to a 22-win improvement by just his third season — while authoring high-flying acrobatic dunks that lit up social media on an almost nightly basis.
By February 2022, Morant made his first All-Star appearance and became just the second Grizzlies player ever to be named an NBA All-Star starter.
Five months later, Morant signed a five-year, $194 million deal, the biggest contract in franchise history.
Around that same time, some in Memphis noticed a change in Morant. “He went from being a nice guy to every time you look up, the kid was always into it with somebody,” said one of the Memphis business owners whose establishments Morant had visited frequently. “A staff member, security, always wanting it his way. It’s just so much. I can’t say all of it. It just went bad, bro — like the way he carried himself. First, he told me he was coming with his best friend. The next thing, he started coming with an entourage. The next thing, he’s got a platinum grill in his mouth. The next thing, he’s into it with parking lot security because they won’t let him park somewhere.”
The second Memphis business owner said they’ve hosted just about every big name NBA player one could imagine. Yet, he said, Morant and his entourage became so challenging that, for the first time, the staff “hated” to see Morant and his group walk through the door. That businessperson recalled witnessing a verbal altercation where Morant and his associates “had gotten very disrespectful to a man’s wife. It got so bad that they actually started to threaten each other’s lives.”
ZACH KLEIMAN AND Taylor Jenkins stewed as they walked into a hotel room in early February 2023. Before them was Ja Morant, their superstar, the hope and future of the Memphis Grizzlies — and a man on the precipice, his very career swirling in question.
Days earlier, a postgame confrontation between acquaintances of Morant’s and members of the Indiana Pacers traveling party had led the Pacers to allege a red laser, perhaps attached to a gun, had been pointed at them from an SUV Morant was in. The NBA had launched an investigation.
For too long, years even, Kleiman, the Grizzlies’ general manager, and Jenkins, the team’s head coach, had — along with others in the organization — struggled to get through to Morant. But his conduct had become increasingly troubling, moving far beyond early concerns of their star enjoying the nightlife too much.
Now, they had reached a tipping point.
Inside the hotel room, the two men tried to convey to Morant how his conduct had become a major concern, how it had impacted the team he was supposed to lead. Facing the then-23-year-old, their message, said one team insider, was simple:
You’re f—ing up.
Grizzlies brass believed there had been more than enough incidents already to warrant such a meeting and such a message.
Like the July 22, 2022, altercation at a Memphis mall, where a sneaker store salesperson and Morant’s mother allegedly engaged in a heated confrontation, after which the salesperson said that Morant and several friends showed up and threatened him. (Later, the mall’s head of security alleged that Morant threatened and shoved him in the parking lot.) Or an altercation less than a week later at Morant’s house, where a 17-year-old was allegedly struck by Morant and a friend, leading to an ongoing civil lawsuit. Or a Sept. 22, 2022, incident, when Morant’s sister engaged in an argument in the stands of a high school volleyball game, after which Morant, his family members and others arrived, leading to an altercation in which witnesses allege that one of Morant’s associates threatened a student. Or the Jan. 29, 2023, postgame confrontation with the Pacers — after which the NBA’s investigation “could not corroborate” that a gun had been involved. There had been four public incidents in the past six months.
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