Ja Morant‘s behavior prompted Memphis to have a players-only meeting, and that was before he brought a gun to a strip club.
Shams Charania reported that the Memphis players had a meeting to discuss their behavior on the road. While center Steven Adams spoke to the whole team about the need to “show better discipline,” the players reportedly thought he was addressing Morant specifically.
“There’s an understanding around [the Grizzlies] that this was bound to come to a head,” Charania reported. “There were re-ocurring issues with Morant, and now there will be an onus on Morant to take responsibility.”
Memphis is 12-20 on the road this year, the worst record of any top-eight Western Conference team save the Golden State Warriors (7-23). Morant’s box score statistics are only slightly worse on the road this year — 26.6 points, eight assists and 5.1 rebounds on the road versus 28.2 points, 8.4 assists and 6.9 rebounds at home — but the advanced stats say his defense is far worse away from Memphis: a defensive rating of 116 points per 100 possessions compared to his 108 rating at home.
At the meeting, Adams discussed how the team needed to refrain from going out when on the road, just days before Morant live-streamed from gentlemen’s club Shotgun Willie’s at 3:13 AM.
That may be part of why coach Taylor Jenkins told reporters “there’s not a definitive timeline” for Morant’s return to the team. He did call Morant a “generally amazing person,” and there’s no sense that the Grizzlies organization has soured on Morant long term.
The upside is Morant can’t show poor discipline on road trips when he’s not allowed to go on road trips for a while. He appears to have deactivated his Instagram, so he won’t be tempted to go live either, but Adams couldn’t scare Morant into good behavior, he really does have some work to do on himself.
