Ja Morant’s 2023–24 NBA season is done, and to be honest, it hardly got begun. Due to his improper use of a handgun on social media for the second time, he was suspended for 25 games at the start of the season. After only nine games, Morant had a shoulder injury that the Memphis Grizzlies said would prevent him from playing for the remainder of the season. From 2023 until 2024, all he and the Grizzlies will have is his buzzer-beater upon his return on the court and his slam on Victor Wembanyama.

A club press statement said that Morant sustained the shoulder injury on Saturday during practice. A complete and total disappointment. He had endured the embarrassment and financial hardship of that ban, and now he must spend months in rehabilitation. Furthermore, his club will continue to be stuck at the bottom of the rankings.

In order to ensure that Morant returns to a stronger team the following autumn, the Grizzlies should stomach this whole awful season and then trade their 2024 lottery selection over the summer. Making choices in basketball is simple. It will take a lot of creativity to figure out how to keep Morant’s mind in the proper place until the 2024 training camp begins.

Before the second gun incident, in the early morning hours, Morant said on Twitter, “seem to go my hardest, when I’m going through it.” In a 2021 interview with Taylor Rooks, Morant discussed his negative tendency of ignoring his emotions and how it had affected him during his time spent in isolation in the Orlando bubble at the end of the 2020 season.

“When I’m in a bad place and I try to make sure everyone else is good, even though I know I’m not good, it just gets harder,” Morant said to Rooks.

The commissioner, Adam Silver, expressed worry years ago about the high percentage of disgruntled players in his league. Those worries were expressed by him two years prior to the COVID-19 epidemic at the Sloan Sports Analytics Conference. In May, Silver said that in addition to Morant’s suspension, a program will be implemented to assist in altering his “trajectory” on the Dan Patrick Show.

Now is the chance for the NBA and the Grizzlies to demonstrate to him that their worries went beyond just not wanting one of the top players in the game to make them look bad. Both organizations must get in touch with Morant even more than they did during his suspension, since he will be absent from the field for a significant amount of time for non-disciplinary reasons.

Hopefully, the program that was implemented has made him more inclined to speak out when he is having a bad day. Nevertheless, there is no 8-game or 25-game regimen recommended for his health. That is an ongoing procedure.

There has been a setback lately. This time, his actions had no bearing on it. All he had was bad luck. After only nine games, an unexpected occurrence put a stop to his 2023–24 season. Many athletes feel alone when they are injured and unable to perform.