Lil Wayne Defends Memphis Grizzlies’ Ja Morant After NBA Suspensi

The Memphis Grizzlies’ Ja Morant has been facing a wave of criticism after he was suspended by the NBA for waving a gun on social media for the second time in two months. Lil Wayne, however, is saying people shouldn’t jump to judgement and is defending the troubled point-guard.

Lil Wayne was a guest on Showtime Basketball‘s All the Smoke podcast on Thursday (May 18), where the avid basketball fan was asked to speak on Ja Morant’s apparent inability to not pull out a gun when someone pulls out a camera phone. Weezy was empathetic with Morant.

“I’m trying to do the cliché: put myself in his shoes,” Lil Wayne explained in the video below. “The best I could do is remember when I was younger and my homies, my squad, my n***as around me, at the age where they don’t have money. I’m the one with the money, and I don’t even know how much money I’ll end up with, but I’m the one with some money in my pocket. I know I got a bright future.”

“My homies, they ain’t on a payroll. They my homies. They live good when they with me,” Wayne continued. “When I gotta go to work and all that, they gotta go back to being who they gotta be. So what I’m saying that to say, they in them streets and I was aware of that. So if I was going through something at that point in time, something public what slime going through, I could imagine the rebellious attitude I would have if my homies is egging that attitude on.”

Lil Wayne went on to say most of the people judging Ja Morant’s antics do not know him personally and are unaware of what kind of issues he may be having behind the scenes.

“Do y’all know that boy? ‘Cause I don’t,” Wayne added. “I know him from dunking and jumping, and I only started knowing him when I started paying attention to him around his last year of college. He come from like a town with 3,000 people. Like, what? What y’all expect? Y’all gave him $200 million.”

“I just said, a town with 3,000 people. You expect him to be responsible. Now we tripping,” Wayne said. “That’s magic. ‘Cause I could tell you now, I come from a real well-raised, beautiful mother, nice…My mama would bust her ass to make sure everything around me was nice, and I still was a knucklehead. I shot myself. And that young man, I could imagine if I came from a fucking place with 3,000 people and I became who I am. Boy.”

The NBA suspended Ja Morant over the weekend after video surfaced of him showing off a gun in an Instagram video. This after he was suspended for eight games in March for doing the same thing. Lil Wayne isn’t the only rapper to excuse Ja Morant’s actions. BlocBoy JB also recently defended the hoops star. Fat Joe, however, had a different take.

See Lil Wayne Defending Ja Morant on the All the Smoke Podcast Below