Episode 11 - Season 2 - Memphis Grizzlies Star Ja Morant And His Questionable Behavior: Was His Time Spent In Counseling - Enough?

This has been a challenging season for Memphis Grizzlies star, Ja Morant. The number two overall pick in the 2019 NBA Draft is in his fourth season at point guard for the Grizz and each year he’s improved. His team is currently ranked second in the Western Conference, poised for a serious playoff run. But this season has not come without its controversy. 

Ja, his father, and his best friend have been involved in a number of courtside altercations - including one with NFL Legend Shannon Sharpe and another with Indiana Pacers players. After both episodes, the Washington Post wrote an article about a case involving Morant last summer, where it’s alleged he punched a teenager after an altercation in a pickup basketball game. The teenager claims that Morant flashed a gun at him, but Morant and his representatives have held strong to the story that he was acting in self defense. There’s not been enough evidence to bring charges against Morant.

Then, over the past month, Morant was at a strip club after a game in Colorado, and flashed a gun while broadcasting his visit on Instagram Live. Ja voluntarily went to mental health counseling after the incident, for what we have since learned was approximately two weeks, and NBA Commissioner Adam Silver retroactively suspended him for eight games. The short suspension had Ja out of counseling and back on the court in a short period of time, following the incident with the gun and the revelation of the help he was getting - causing many fans and pundits to question: did Ja have enough counseling over enough time, to get the help he appears to believe he, himself, needs?

This episode Darren and Eric had on Dr. Andrew Pleener, an Integrative Psychiatrist with an MD who was trained in the traditional medical model and decided to form his own practice out of Florida - Regional Psychiatry - where some of his clients are professional athletes. The questions of “How much counseling is enough?” and “How do you compare different forms of counseling one to the next?” were discussed along with a number of other important topics related to the modalities Ja says he learned while inpatient. With Darren’s expertise in media and Eric’s in Sport Management, the trio had a very interesting discussion that shed a lot of light on this Morant story and how players, leagues, and even fans and media can better handle these situations with public figures and their help seeking, after we hear about their questionable behaviors.

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