Ja Morant’s Parents Involved in Racially Charged, Lewd NBA Fan Incident

Basketball fans have been back in the stands, and as a result, lots of fan incidents. During the Jazz’s playoff game against the Grizzlies, three fans were banned after an altercation with Ja Morant’s parents. And according to his father, Tee Morant, some of the vulgar comments were racially charged.

Here’s what an ESPN report by Tim MacMahon had to say about the incident:

“According to Tee Morant, another Jazz fan told him, “I’ll put a nickel in your back and watch you dance, boy.” Several other Jazz fans, who had been enjoying good-spirited trash talk with the Morants and their family friends, confronted that fan and alerted security. Tee Morant said he was shocked that the Jazz fan, who was ejected, made such a comment with the man’s young daughter by his side.”

“I know heckling,” Tee Morant said in a phone interview with ESPN on Thursday night. “We were doing that the whole game. But that’s different than heckling. That’s straight up disrespectful. That was too far out of line. You don’t say nothing like that heckling. That’s beyond heckling.”

Ja Morant's dad Tee told ESPN that one of the banned Jazz fans said to him: "I'll put a nickel in your back and watch you dance, boy."

Another made a sexually explicit remark to Ja's mom Jamie. The third told her: "Shut the f— up, b—-."

ESPN story: https://t.co/vfuuL2EYsq

— Tim MacMahon (@espn_macmahon) May 28, 2021

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Ja Morant, in a tweet posted later Thursday, agreed with Utah’s decision to ban the fans, writing, “my family should be able [to] cheer for me & my teammates without getting inappropriate s— said to them.”

as they should . my family should be able cheer for me & my teammates without getting inappropriate shit said to them 💯 https://t.co/CWiJIpkq03

— Ja Morant (@JaMorant) May 28, 2021

This isn’t the first time Jazz fans have been banned from Vivint Arena for harassing a fan, and the team released a statement after Game 2 about the incident with Morant just hours before a Utah judge threw out a lawsuit against Westbrook for defamation after heckling him in 2019.

A Utah judge tossed out a $100M suit against Russell Westbrook and the Utah Jazz filed by two fans banned from Jazz games after taunts toward Westbrook in a March 2019 game, per court documents. Shane Keisel and Jennifer Huff claimed defamation and infliction of emotional stress.

— Adrian Wojnarowski (@wojespn) May 27, 2021

I think we can all agree fans have been in the news far too much lately.

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