Over the last few years, Ja Morant has run afoul of the NBA multiple times for gun-related incidents, which have led to a pair of suspensions for conduct detrimental to the league. On Saturday, Morant was suspended for the third time in his pro career—however, this penalty is neither gun-related nor issued by the league.
Morant entered the contest averaging 23.4 points but was held to a season-low of 8 points on just 3 of 14 shooting versus the Lakers. Afterward, he was asked by the media what went wrong with him in the game.
Finally, a reporter asked Morant what he could have been done differently—besides asking the coaching staff—to get a different outcome in the game.
“According to [the coaching staff], probably don’t play me, honestly,” Morant said. “That’s basically what the message was, after. It’s cool.”
The Grizzlies will do just as Morant said, as the team won’t play him on Sunday against the Toronto Raptors. Memphis is off to a 3–3 start this season, alternating wins and losses in every game. Friday’s defeat to the Lakers also happened to be opening night of the NBA Cup, with three more pool games scheduled for the team.
Friday’s game started off well for Memphis as it reeled off 19 straight points during the second quarter and possessed a lead by as many as 15 points. But behind a returning Luka Doncic, who had missed the three previous games, Los Angeles rallied in the second half, taking a lead by as many as 12 points, marking a 27-point swing.
The Grizzlies led entering the fourth quarter, but the Lakers quickly gained the lead and never relinquished it. Doncic led Los Angeles with 44 points, 12 rebounds, and 6 assists, while former Grizzly Jake LaRavia had 13 points, 5 rebounds, 3 steals, and 2 assists in his first game in Memphis as a visitor.
Morant seemed disinterested during the Lakers’ rally, attempting just two shots in the fourth quarter. In addition to a season low in points, he also had season lows in field goal attempts (14), free throw attempts (2), and rebounds (1). Morant also went 0 for 6 from beyond the arc and is shooting 15.6 percent (5 for 32) on 3-pointers this season, which is the worst percentage among the 173 NBA players with at least 15 attempts.
The Grizzlies coaching staff that Morant referenced throughout the postgame media session is led by first-year head coach Tuomas Iisalo. The first Finnish-born coach in the NBA, Iisalo spent last year as an assistant with the Grizzlies, following a decade as a head coach in Europe.
Iisalo served as interim head coach last season, after Taylor Jenkins was fired late in the season. The Grizzlies were able to nab a playoff spot via the Play-In Tournament under Iisalo before the team was then swept by the eventual champion, Oklahoma City Thunder, in the first round of the playoffs. Despite that result, Iisalo was promoted to full-time head coach shortly afterward.
One of the reasons that Iisalo secured the interim job was because Jenkins had appeared to have lost the locker room. Now, Iisalo is at odds with the team’s star player less than two weeks into the 2025–26 NBA season.
For the year, Morant is averaging 20.8 points, 6.7 assists, and 3.3 rebounds, while shooting 40.6 percent from the field. All of those are either his lowest, or tied for his lowest, averages and percentages in at least five years.
The Grizzlies, at least, have familiarity in playing without Morant, as he’s been unavailable for multiple reasons over the last few years. In March 2023, he suffered his first gun-related suspension and sat for eight games. After another incident, Morant was suspended again, this time for 25 games in July 2023 to begin the 2023–24 NBA season.
Just nine games after returning to the court, he then suffered a shoulder injury that knocked him out for the remaining 47 games of that year. Then to tip off the 2024–25 NBA season, Morant played in just eight games before injuring himself again, this time suffering a hip ailment while attempting a dunk. That led to an eight-game absence, and he was in and out of the lineup all season, playing in just 50 of a possible 82 games.
By the time Sunday’s game versus Toronto comes to a finish, Morant will have played in just 81 of a possible 201 Grizzlies games since his first suspension.
