Ja Morant is a suburban kid from a nice two-parent home who's now extremely wealthy.
However, he never misses the chance to play the gangsta card.
In the latest example, Morant's crew confronted the Indiana Pacers staff and flashed a laser pointer at them. The incident resulted in some of Morant's friends being banned from FedEx Arena, where Memphis plays its home games.
Shannon Sharpe gave Ja some advice on Undisputed this morning.
Acquaintances of Ja Morant reportedly aggressively confronted members of the Pacers organization:
— UNDISPUTED (@undisputed) February 6, 2023
"I wish Ja would realize he's not a thug. You're not about that life! No one looks at you and thinks you're hood. Stop pretending!!" — @ShannonSharpe pic.twitter.com/YSmx9lJKjC
"I wish Ja would realize that he's not a thug. Ja is a really good basketball player. Ja did everything he could to lift himself and his family out of this type of environment and to get away from this and for some reason he wants to surround himself with these type of people. Why? Bruh, you not hard. That’s not your life. People in that life would give anything to be in your life. You got a $200 million contract and you want people in the NBA to think you're hood. To think you're gangsta. Cause you roll with these type of people. You put yourself in harms way when you don't have to," Sharpe said.
Sharpe isn't the first elder to call Morant out like this. Last year, Kendrick Perkins said this about Ja.
"Y'all are not gangsters. Y'all are not hood. Y'all are professional basketball players that are really, really good ... leave the hood sh*t alone. The people you trying to be cool for, the hood people that you trying to get the OK from so they could say 'Oh, you a real one', is the same people if you happen to fall you couldn't even go ask them for $20," Kendrick said.