Coach Taylor Jenkins said Sunday night that there is no timetable for Ja Morant to return to the Memphis Grizzlies. The All-Star guard knows he has made “difficult decisions and poor choices” that he has to take responsibility for.
Morant was not with the team in Los Angeles for games against the Clippers on Sunday and the Lakers on Tuesday. This is because the NBA is looking into a social media post in which Morant seemed to be holding a gun.
Jenkins said of the video, “Definitely a very hard time.”
Morant posted the video to his Instagram account early Saturday morning. It showed him at a nightclub holding what looked like a gun, just hours after he had played in Denver. In a statement released by the agency that represents him, he said that he takes “full responsibility” for what he did and would “take some time away to get help.”
RELATED MORE: After a Fatal Crash and Arrests, Kirby Smart Defends Georgia’s “Culture.”
“He understands he’s made some difficult decisions and poor choices in the past that he’s got to account for,” Jenkins said. “He is accepting the mistakes he has made, but only time will tell if that is a good thing. We’re going to help him and hold him responsible for making those changes.”
Jenkins wouldn’t say what Morant needs to do to get back on the team, saying, “We care about him, love him, and want the best for him. It will be hard, but we have a great group to help us get through this.”
He said it was “a long-term process of healing.”
If the league finds that Morant did something wrong, it could fine or suspend him.
Morant was also looked into by the league after an incident in Memphis on January 29 that he said led to one of his friends being banned from home games for a year. That incident occurred after a game against the Indiana Pacers. Several news outlets said that Pacers players saw a red dot pointed at them, and a team security guard thought the red dot was a gun.
The NBA confirmed that unnamed people were banned from the arena, but its investigation found no evidence that anyone was threatened with a weapon.
Jenkins said, “This is a hard time for a young kid who needs to grow and get better.” “He has a lot of responsibilities for both the team and the city as a whole, but I know how he was built to care and what steps he is now taking. It’s a step towards being the best possible version of himself.”
Jenkins said that Morant was “a great person in general, a great father, brother, son, and member of our community.”
“My hope is that he just gets better,” Jenkins said. “He knows a lot of people love and care about him.”
