It’s been a pretty rough week for Ja Morant and the Memphis Grizzlies.
Last week started with reports about different bouts of aggression that, ultimately, led to police investigations on Morant. The Grizzlies All-Star wasn’t charged, but that’s still not a good look.
To follow that up, though, he also brought an apparent gun to a nightclub in Denver on Saturday after the Grizzlies’ matchup against the Nuggets. This has turned into a huge deal. Morant has been suspended by the team and there’s no timetable for his return. Morant is also reportedly being investigated by the Colorado police department for the gun he was carrying while on the road in Denver.
What makes that even worse, though, is that this could’ve all been avoided if Morant had just listened to his teammates. Steven Adams, in particular.
He didn’t call Morant out by name, according to a report from The Athletic’s Shams Charania, but Adams did talk about discipline and staying “away from going out” on the road in a team meeting. And that was before his IG Live video at the Denver nightclub.
Reporting on @TheRally for the latest surrounding Grizzlies star Ja Morant – and details on a recent players-only meeting where a veteran pushed for better discipline on the road: pic.twitter.com/ICXC6YlrXF
“I’m told there was a playeres only meeting recently where Steven Adams, there veteran center, he spoke out about how the team needs to show better discipline on the road…And I’m told, those in the room, when Steven Adams spoke out, they knew exactly who he was directing this to. It was no one other than Ja Morant. And, so, clearly, Ja Morant still went out in the early hours of Saturday. That video was posted with a gun, and there’s questions.”
Morant is one of the NBA’s brightest young stars. You absolutely hate to see things like this happening to him.
But this is a situation he put himself in. And it’ll be on Morant to pull himself out of it. Obviously, there are folks who are trying to help him along the way and that’s a great thing. Let’s hope Morant opens himself up to that a bit more next time.
Dillon Brooks just finally told us what everyone already knew
There’s absolutely no love lost between the Grizzlies and the Warriors. These two teams have developed a legitimate rivalry over the last couple of seasons and it’s been fantastic.
Add all this together and you get two teams who very clearly don’t like each other all that much. Dillon Brooks took things a step further in an interview he did with ESPN’s Tim Keown.
Not only does he not like the Warriors, but he specifically doesn’t like Draymond Green.
Keown actually compared Brooks to Green because of their similar defensive tenacity and their similar dispositions that got them to where they are currently. Brooks scoffed at the mere thought of being compared to Green — who is almost certainly a future Hall of Famer! — in any way. It was hilarious.
He went in on Draymond. He gave him a compliment toward the end, sure, but he absolutely led with hate.
“I don’t like Draymond at all,” he says. “I just don’t like Golden State. I don’t like anything to do with them. Draymond talks a lot. Gets away with a lot, too. His game is cool — with Golden State — but if you put him anywhere else, you’re not going to know who Draymond is. He plays with heart, plays hard, knows the ins and outs of their defense. I guess that’s why they like him over there.”
Green’s response, according to Keown, was just to laugh, which is also just as incredible as this quote.
Of course, Brooks doesn’t like Draymond. Remember when he trolled him with the whole “4 rings” thing? (He later denied this because of course he did).
These are the true NBA title contenders you need to worry about
Well, folks. We’re finally here. It’s the final countdown. The NBA has hit the last stretch of games before it’s playoff time.
The doldrums on the way to the All-Star break are gone. No more talking about how to fix the game — all that is done. This is when teams begin to ramp up. They start to experiment with some of their best lineups that they’ve pocketed all season long and really start to shape their individual identities for the playoffs.
But everyone in the league isn’t a contender, though. Most teams don’t actually have a shot at winning a title this season. Only a handful can actually claim to be in that conversation.
By my estimation, there are 8 of them. Let’s dive into all of them and talk about what we should be watching for as the season winds down.
The Memphis Grizzlies, man. Drama is just following them all over the place so far this season. Well, to be honest, it’s following Dillon Brooks, in particular.
First, it was the near dust-up with Shannon Sharpe a few weeks ago. They got into a spat that felt like it could’ve spilled onto the court at any minute, which was pretty ridiculous.
Now, Brooks is in the middle of a beef with Donovan Mitchell. Mitchell has good reason to be mad, too — it was Brooks that started things this time.
“Him and I have had our personal battles for years. Quite frankly, I’ve been busting his ass for years…The one game he does an alright job on me, he decides to do something like that. There’s no place for that in the game. You’ve got to protect yourself at the end of the day.”
WHEW that is spicy. “Quite frankly?” Nah, man. Mitchell didn’t hold anything back there. As the Grizzlies say, he wanted all the smoke.
Protests and demonstrations have emerged across the country after the city of Memphis released body camera footage of five police officers severely beating 29-year-old Tyre Nichols, who died three days later.
The officers, who were charged with second-degree murder on Thursday, have been relieved of duty. But that won’t bring Nichols back to life. Nor does it take away the sting of knowing that yet another unarmed Black man doing no one any harm has lost his life as a result of police brutality.
We’re still here as a society. This is the same pain everyone felt after police officers killed George Floyd in Minnesota. And when police officers in Louisville killed Breonna Taylor. And when Trayvon Martin was killed in Florida — and that happened more than a decade ago. It’s the same pain over and over again.
Tyre Nichols’ life mattered, as USA TODAY’s Mike Freeman writes. Nichols was a father. He was a son. He was a skateboarder. He was a regular person like the rest of us. He didn’t deserve this.
Everyone has had enough. The NBA world tried its best to put a voice to that.
Yes, that Shannon Sharpe. And those Grizzlies. This is all so wild
No, you did not read that headline incorrectly. Shannon Sharpe got into it at the Lakers game with the entire Memphis Grizzlies team and Ja Morant’s dad.
It all started with a spat between the Undisputed co-host and Dillon Brooks. Sharpe told Brooks he couldn’t guard LeBron James in a much less kind way. Brooks responded. Sharpe responded back and then things just unraveled from there.
What follows is everything we know so far about the incident. In the time since LeBron James has reacted, Dillion Brooks has also reacted and Sharpe peaced things up with Ja Morant’s dad.
Ja Morant is fierce on the court — there’s no doubt about it. Just ask Jakob Poeltl.
But he seems to still have a pretty caring side, too. Morant set out on the internet looking to make things right with a young fan who had a basketball autographed by multiple players over the years stolen from her.
The fan, Ellie Hughes, is an 11-year-old Grizzlies fan. She’d been attending home games with her grandfather for years. When she attends the games, she’d normally bring her basketball with her.
Earlier this week, though, while trying to get Ja Morant’s attention, two adults swiped her ball, according to a Facebook post from her mother. After seeing this story on the local news, Morant asked if anyone knew the family’s information via Twitter in an effort to, presumably, reach out to them.
Morant was finally able to get a hold of them. And when he did, he gave Ellie a gift that she’ll absolutely never forget.
Morant gave her his game-worn jersey and shoes from the Grizzlies’ matchup against the Spurs.
Ellie might have lost her basketball, but it’s got to be pretty awesome to get these gifts from Morant in return. This is a memory that will stay with her forever.
Man, somebody needs to give Jakob Poeltl some help.
Jakob Poeltl isn’t just the NBA variation of Wordle — he’s actually a pretty fantastic defender and one of the best rim protectors in the NBA.
We actually saw that defense in play against the Grizzlies on Wednesday night. San Antonio may have lost the game, but Poeltl himself actually had 5 blocks which is extremely impressive.
It’s just too bad that nobody is going to care about that.
Ja Morant’s poster dunk on him renders all of the things I just said about Jakob Poeltl irrelevant — at least it will in the eyes of most fans. Of course, he’s still a great player. But, man. Ja did him dirty. Diiiiirty, y’all. I’m telling you.
Bruh. That dunk was ferocious. Violent. Visceral. Spectacular. There are so many things you can call it. But that’s not even the kicker here. Get this — that dunk was actually the second time Ja Morant put Poeltl on a poster in the last calendar year.
Poor Jakob, man. What can you do? Morant is just showing no mercy here. He was asked why he keeps putting Poeltl on posters over and over again and he had the wildest response.
Warning: There is NSFW language in this video
"I guess he ain't get the memo last time" – Ja Morant on his dunk over Jakob Poeltl pic.twitter.com/obhoFQsvLu
“Obviously, I guess he ain’t get the memo last time…He’s a great shot blocker so I know if I went up with a layup he would’ve blocked the **** out of it, so I went up with authority.”
HE AIN’T GET THE MEMO LAST TIME. Man. Somebody put that on a t-shirt or something. Fans loved this.
There are all these weird little hacks that players come up with to — not cheat the game — but give themselves advantages by pushing rules as far as they can go. We see it all the time, honestly.
One of the tricks that always makes folks laugh is when the inbounding team rolls the ball up the court. The shot clock doesn’t start until after a player makes contact with the ball, so it gives the inbounding team a pretty lengthy possession.
We’ve seen plenty of players push this rule to the limit — Chris Paul, Marcus Smart, LeBron James, Russell Westbrook.
None of them have quite done it like Ja Morant just did, though.
The Grizzlies point guard burned 20 seconds off of the game clock by just standing over the ball against the Hornets. Literally, that’s all he did. He just stood there. It was wild to watch.
This is hilariously brilliant stuff from Ja. The game clock was running but the shot clock was not. Neither the 8-second backcourt count nor the shot clock starts until the ball is touched. Morant would’ve been content to just let the quarter run out if Terry Rozier hadn’t gone and pressured the ball at all.
Is this actually part of basketball? No, not really. But it is brilliant.
LaMelo Ball made a shot for the Hornets around the 3:40 mark but Charlotte didn’t get the ball back until nearly a minute later because of this gamesmanship. As a team with a lead, the goal is to always get to the end of the game with that lead. Finding any way to get to that result faster is always the way you want to go. Morant found an extremely clever way here and he took things over the top.
One could argue that this is in poor taste here — the Grizzlies are up 30 here and this feels like one big embarrassing troll for them. But, hey, man. Rules are rules. Pressure the ball and this doesn’t happen.
There were lots of varying opinions from fans on this.
Welcome to Layup Lines, our basketball newsletter where we’ll prep you for a tip-off of tonight’s action, from what to watch to bets to make. Subscribe here to get it delivered to your inbox every afternoon
Seasons greetings, folks! Happy Holidays. Welcome to the Festivus edition of Layup Lines. It’s Sykes here to guide you into the weekend’s NBA action.
First, I have some Festivus grievances about this season so far that I need to get off. For those of you who don’t know, Festivus is the day during the holiday season in which you air your grievances about, well, whatever. Seinfeld made it a popular thing, thought it isn’t nationally celebrated.
So let’s dive right into it. Here are my 5 Festivus grievances about the NBA season so far.
Can we talk about league parity more? I mean, my goodness, man. This is what people have said the NBA has been missing for so long. Now, we’ve got 6 19-win teams in the West and 6 18+ win teams in the East. There are no super teams. It feels like anyone can win it all. Let’s celebrate that instead of talking about other team’s shortcomings. Speaking of which…
Stop talking about the Lakers. I don’t want to hear about the Lakers anymore. Not until LeBron James breaks that scoring record. They don’t really have anything to trade outside of two current middle schoolers and that’s not enough to move anyone. So let’s move on.
Nikola Jokic might be MVP again. Deal with it. I’m starting the conversation here now. The Nuggets are the No. 1 seed in the West and the dude is averaging nearly 25 points, 11 rebounds and 9 assists. The Nuggets are legit contenders. Don’t get all whiny about analytics if he wins the thing again. That’s not a good look.
Put some respect on the Cavaliers. All you hear about in the Eastern Conference is the Boston Celtics and Milwaukee Bucks. But the last time I checked, the Cavaliers have handled them both quite well. They’re 1 game back of the No. 1 seed in the East. They’re a legitimate contender and need to be addressed as such.
Some NBA goodness from around the USA TODAY Sports network.
Mandatory Credit: Isaiah J. Downing-USA TODAY Sports
Ja Morant isn’t worried about the rest of the Western Conference at all. When asked by ESPN’s Malika Andrews what teams he saw as the Grizzlies’ competition, he said the Boston Celtics.
That’s a team Memphis would have to meet in the finals. The implication here is that he’s not worried about anyone in the West as competition which, uh, I don’t know. There are lots of pretty good teams out there.
But my guy Cole Huff actually thinks Morant has a point. He wrote about it on Thursday.
“Based on Morant’s response, there’s no one in the West to worry about. But you can see where he’s coming from.
The Grizzlies are 19-11 on the season, which is tied for the best record in the conference. And they’ve done all of this damage without their starting lineup having logged a single minute together this season due to injuries.”
That’s a fair point. We’ll see how this shakes out come May.
Nets (-2.5, -105) vs. Bucks (+120), O/U 228.5, 7:30 PM ET
The Nets and Bucks have formed a bit of a rivalry over the last few years. This is always an incredible matchup. You’ve got two of the best five or so players facing each other head to head in Kevin Durant and Giannis Antetokounmpo.
Milwaukee just took a tough loss to the Cavaliers and they’ve only lost back-to-back games once so far this year. I’m taking Milwaukee +2.5 in a close one.
That’s all, folks! Enjoy the weekend. Happy Holidays!
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![Donovan Mitchell had an honest explanation for Dillon Brooks’ low blow: ‘I’ve been busting his [expletive] for years’](https://feeds.usatodaysports.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/02/Memphis_Grizzlies_at_Cleveland_Cavaliers-1200x800.jpeg)
