Ja Morant Issues Odd Statement Following Alleged Gun Incident, Cites Stress Before Deleting Twitter Account

Memphis Grizzlies star Ja Morant has released a statement after news broke that he is stepping away from the team for two games -- and a wild story that has dominated headlines in the last 48 hours just keeps taking new twists and turns.

His two-game hiatus is the result of a video that circulated on Saturday that showed Morant flaunting a gun on Instagram.

While it's a positive step the NBA star actually made effort to publicly address the issue -- his choice of wording which didn't include a single apology to anyone -- wasn't the best look.

"I take full responsibility for my actions last night. I'm sorry to my family, teammates, coaches, fans, partners, the city of Memphis and the entire Grizzlies organization for letting you down," Morant's statement reads. "I'm going to take some time away to get help and work on learning better methods of dealing with stress and my overall well-being."

The wording of Morant's statement — blaming his wildly poor decisions on "dealing with stress" — was an interesting choice.

There are other ways to deal with stress including anything and everything short of committing crimes and waving guns at your while streaming on Instagram.

The video didn't just lead to lead action from the Grizzlies, According to an NBA spokesman it will also be at the center of a league investigation.

This incident was just the latest in a series of highly-questionable moments from Morant.

OutKick has covered each angle as it developed. Here is our Dan Dakich reacting to the news he would be away from the team for two games, although it wasn't officially called a "suspension."

He’s been accused of being in a vehicle with people who flashed a weapon at the Indiana Pacers. It was also recently revealed that he allegedly punched a teenager and flashed a weapon at him.

Somehow, despite all of that, he was seemingly oblivious to the poor optics of doing a gun celebration against the Rockets earlier this week.

We will continue to monitor new developments as it seems like this isn't the end of the Ja Morant saga.

Follow on Twitter: @Matt_Reigle