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Ja Morant has spoken up in defense of his father, Tee Morant, after somebody from the Grizzlies organization spoke up against him.
On Wednesday, ESPN published a lengthy story on the troubling behavior exhibited by the Grizzlies superstar over the past 18 months, with one section of the feature dedicated to painting some of the blame on the father.
The story noted that Tee Morant has enjoyed the trappings of fame since his son was drafted second overall in the 2019 NBA Draft, hosting VIP parties at nightclubs and getting shown on camera during games, plus getting into a confrontation with Shannon Sharpe at a Lakers game and having a separate argument with Pacers players during a game.
After Ja Morant returned from an NBA suspension for a litany of issues, including flashing a gun at a strip club on a live stream in March, Tee Morant wore a shirt with his son’s photo on it that said “Redemption.”
“Tee has been a major driving force in all of this,” one Grizzlies source told the outlet. “He never made the NBA, but this was his chance to live like he’s an NBA superstar. That’s been a problem from the beginning.”
On his Instagram story, Ja Morant appeared to respond to the accusations in the article.
“Keep LIVIN the dream OG,” the point guard captioned a photo of himself and his father. “This hoopin shii started with you, i just continued it.”
On X, Morant wrote, “storm dont phase us. too much umbrellas TM x MBNO x [Grizzly bear emoji],” with TM presumably being an acronym for Tee Morant and MBNO meaning “My Brothers No Others,” the name he has for his inner circle plus his childhood friend Davonte Pack’s clothing brand.
Morant’s eight-game suspension last season came after the strip club incident, which followed a lengthy Washington Post investigation that accused the All-Star of numerous instances of threatening and even perpetuating violence (none of which resulted in criminal charges).
Morant was then suspended for the first 25 games of this upcoming season after he once again brandished a firearm on a May livestream.
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