Former NBA star Stephen Jackson believes Ja Morant deserves what’s coming to him, but he also thinks the league isn’t blameless after the Grizzlies guard’s latest gun incident.
The 45-year-old, who is currently a co-host on Showtime’s “All The Smoke”, posted an Instagram video on Wednesday both condemning and defending Morant after he was filmed flashing a gun on Instagram Live for the second time last weekend.
“Ja deserves all the punishment he’s going to get. He has to be held accountable,” Jackson said in the video. “But we have to make it make sense.
“ESPN, it was a couple games where the Memphis Grizzlies were coming out, and they were playing the same songs, making the gun signs to the camera marching out getting ready to go play their game, and it was all cool.
“The NBA, every event you have these same rappers rapping these same lyrics about guns and shooting at all their events. Just make it make sense. That’s all I’m saying. Yes, Ja needs to be held accountable, holding guns is not cool. I don’t do that, I don’t stand for that, I don’t support it. But at the same time, make it make sense.”
Morant was suspended indefinitely by the Grizzlies after a video of him flashing a gun while in a car with his friend surfaced over the weekend – the second time he has done so on Instagram Live.
Previously, he was suspended eight games during the season for flashing a gun while out at a Denver-area strip club on March 4.
The gun incidents have made him a national talking point, but Jackson seemed to imply there is another side to him that the public ignores, noting that Morant showed compassion to his family when his brother, Donnie, died in a car crash.
“Ja called my nephew, because my nephew wanted to be just like him,” Jackson said. “Ja called him and showed him some love. I want him to be like Ja, but I don’t want my little nephew to be holding guns and thinking holding guns is cool.”
Morant has been in the news for a number of off-court incidents other than the two gun snaps.
He was accused of threatening a teenager with a gun after a pickup basketball game at his Memphis-area home last summer, and he and his associates also allegedly got into a confrontation with a security guard at a Memphis mall.
The 23-year-old signed a five-year, $194 million rookie max contract last offseason with the Grizzlies after being the second overall pick in the 2019 NBA Draft.
