Pacers’ players threatened by Ja Morant and associates after Grizzlies game

I always hate writing about things that are off the court, but this one needs coverage. The Athletic just came out with a piece detailing a situation that happened when the Pacers were leaving Memphis earlier this month.

The game had gotten heated to the point where one of Ja Morant’s longtime friends had to be escorted off the court after getting into a yelling match with players on the court.

So to say the least tensions were running high. However, the Athletic details that things go much more crazy from here on out.

As the Pacers players were loading onto the bus, they were aggressively approached by Morant’s friend who was escorted off the floor and other associates of Morant. The article quotes multiple things that were yelled at the Pacers players. Kravitz and the Athletic write:

"“According to the sources, the remarks directed at them by Pack and others included: ‘Come get some of this’ and ‘you don’t know how we roll’ and ‘I’ll show you what I got.”"

And while this is certainly less than ideal, this is not the biggest issue of the whole ordeal. After a few minutes, Morant arrived and got into the cars with his friends and associates. At that point, when everyone was in the cars, the Pacers players and coaches noticed that they had red laser lights on them and that they were coming from the car that Morant and his friends had entered. Kravitz and the Athletic write that:

"“A Pacers security guard in the loading area at the time remarked: ‘That’s 100 percent a gun.’‘We felt we were in grave danger,’ one person who was present said.”"

The league must do something and do it quickly.

The problem is that some of these events are filtered secondhand from a few sources. However, if even a little bit of this is true and Morant is not disciplined by the league, that will be preferential treatment for star players and neglecting player safety.

Players should not have to fear for their life when leaving arenas. And it certainly shouldn’t be happening within the NBA brotherhood. Hopefully we get more details soon around the altercation and what the NBA plans to do about it.