NBA investigating Ja Morant gun gesture toward Warriors bench

Ja Morant’s fascination with guns hasn’t seemed to wane.Morant, who has a checkered past of playing with guns on camera, made a gun gesture toward the Warriors bench at the end of Tuesday night’s loss, clearly upsetting Warriors stars Stephen Curry and Draymond Green.It has drawn the attention of the NBA, which is investigating the gesture, along with one made by the Warriors’ Buddy Hield, according to ESPN.Morant re-posted on X a close-up picture of Hield also throwing a gun sign at Morant on the sideline.Surely Morant’s history will be taken into account here, given he was previously suspended twice for gun-related actions.Morant was first suspended eight games in March 2023 for brandishing a gun at the Shotgun Willie’s strip club outside of Denver.Two months later he flashed a gun in a video on social media that got him suspended the first 25 games of the 2023-24 season.Morant, 25, has played in just 46 games in 2024-25, and many have speculated that the firing of coach Taylor Jenkins, the franchise’s all-time winningest head coach, was about keeping Morant happy in Memphis.Brian Windhorst said on Monday’s “Hoop Collective Podcast” that the Jenkins firing “was a decision that was about optimizing Ja Morant.”Windhorst added that Morant could get moved this offseason, and this move was about avoiding that potentially ugly situation.“Look, there has been noise about Ja being unhappy all season long,” Windhorst said.“There has been noise about, ‘Hey, you know, could Memphis look to move Ja this summer? Could Ja look to get out of Memphis this summer? Could Ja look to force a trade, or at least request a trade? And would Memphis shop him this summer?’ There’s been a lot of that.

[…] They got away from [optimizing Morant] for a lot of this season, and they’re leaning back hard into it.”The Grizzlies are still in the thick of a Western Conference playoff race where they are clinging onto the No.6 seed....