Getty Ja Morant speaks to Steph Curry during an NBA playoff game.
Ja Morant is breathing new life into his previously dormant feud with the Golden State Warriors.
The Memphis Grizzlies star revisited the spat this week, which originally kicked off with a statement from Klay Thompson after the Golden State Warriors wrapped up the NBA Finals and included a number of testy exchanges over the coming week. Morant spoke about the beef, saying he doesn’t understand why the Warriors players were still so fixated on his Grizzlies.
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Morant Speaks Out
The Warriors defeated the Grizzlies in six games in a Western Conference semifinal that grew contentious at times, and the tensions rose again weeks later when the Warriors defeated the Boston Celtics to win the title.
It started when Warriors guard Klay Thompson called out the Grizzlies’ Jaren Jackson for a comment after a late season win over Golden State that Thompson saw as mocking Golden State. Morant responded by hinting that the Grizzlies were living rent-free in the heads of Warriors players, which led to some further exchanges with Warriors big man Draymond Green.
In his interview this week, Morant said he was surprised to see the Warriors players so fixated on the Grizzlies and mocked them for taking on the Memphis team pump-up song in their post-Finals celebrations.
“If I won a championship, I wouldn’t think about no other team or what somebody said months ago,” he said. “I would be celebrating a championship, I would be happy with my teammates, but as you see after they won the championship everything with the Grizzlies–playing ‘Whoop that Trick’ in the parade, ahowing it in the club, talking about Jaren and this and that. I feel like, knowing you win you can say anything, but I lost and I’m gonna still be jiving.”
Ready to Move on
While Morant was ready to revisit the Warriors feud, he also hinted that it was overblown. The Grizzlies star accused outsiders of turning the beef into something much larger than it was, noting that he is on good terms with the Warriors players and told them personally after their series that it was their time to win another title.
“If I won a championship, I wouldn’t think about no other team or what somebody said months ago” 👀
Ja Morant on his Warriors real estate tweet after the NBA Finals
“We’re all competitiors at the end of the day, we’re all battling in this league to be the best we can be and to win championships, and that’s what comes with it,” Morant told Rooks.
Steph Curry already shared a similar sentiment. Speaking to reporters after the Warriors eliminated the Grizzlies, the Golden State star predicted that Memphis would remain on top of the conference and that the two teams would grow their rivalry.
“They are going to be around for a long time, fighting for Western Conference prowess. So we’ll enjoy this and keep moving toward our goal, but you have to understand that they are going to be around for the long haul, and he’s a problem,” Curry said. “So definitely an amazing matchup, fun, entertaining, high-level basketball, all the antics and pettiness and all that stuff, I love all of it.”
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