Ja Morant scoffs as NBA investigate finger gun celebration vs. Golden State Warriors

Ja Morant had no qualms in posting his disdain for the NBA's decision to look into his celebration against the Warriors.

Ja Morant scoffs as NBA investigate finger gun celebration vs. Golden State Warriors

Ja Morant

Ja Morant has been having a relatively uneventful spell in headlines off the court after a tumultuous situation arising in 2023. The Memphis Grizzlies star was handed an extended suspension after being found in possession of a gun during an Instagram Live broadcast while riding around his city with his friends. Morant’s image has since been severely stunted as other faces began to be promoted for the league.

With the Memphis Grizzlies back in playoff position before the 2025 postseason, Ja Morant is again under the scanner. The 25-year-old invited scrutiny after a finger-guns celebration that he pulled out against the Cleveland Cavaliers. Just a few weeks after that February incident, Morant made another finger gun taunt against the Warriors’ bench. His conduct was revealed to be under NBA scrutiny by Shams Charania.

According to the ESPN NBA insider, the league is also looking into the conduct of the Warriors’ Buddy Hield in the same sequence. Both players will be spoken to by league representatives today. Morant’s disciplinary warning for his finger gun celebration is important because it shows a disregard of the same optics issue that was identified with his conduct during his May 2023 and March 2023 incidents.

The whole of the internet is already calling Morant out for not understanding the issues at stake. Morant has already had to forgo All-NBA team selections due to his actions. However, the franchise star remains indifferent to the public perception of what he likely believes to be a trivial incident. Morant posted two tweets that signal his mood following the uproar around his conduct.

Ja this…Ja that…(Laughing emojis)

Ja Morant tweeted

More details on the incident that has caused the NBA to look at Ja Morant

The first post on this subject to go viral was a tweet by Legion Hoops. The NBA aggregators posted a 7-second clip that showed Morant aiming finger guns with both hands at the Warriors bench. However, the tweet itself received replies that showed 2 Warriors brandishing similar gestures with their hands. One of them has been identified as Buddy Hield.

According to Shams Charania, both these players are going to be looked at by the league office. This incident, which was initially viewed as a failing on Morant’s end, has now taken a different color in onlookers’ eyes. Fans believe that Morant is fully within his rights to reply to a gun gesture with one of his own.

Despite America’s tryst with gun violence, school shooting and Presidential assassination attempts, guns are as steeped in their culture as coffee, football and church. It is hard to ask people in a free country to act santimoniously about guns when they can easily be procured. For the NBA to step in and ask Morant to conform to behavioral standards could very well be viewed as unfair censorship of his right to freedom of expression.

It is clear that the NBA is taking a very heavy-handed approach to the conduct of Ja Morant. In a game that associates scoring points with ‘shooting shots’, gun imagery is but a part of its regular vocabulary. All such related imagery can as well be interpreted as something related to accuracy and marksmanship. Ascribing a need for expressing violent intent to a finger gun celebration reeks of regressive thinking.