Ja Morant sat down with Jalen Rose for an interview on ESPN earlier this week. The Memphis Grizzlies star has been in the news for a lot of the wrong reasons this season and learned this week that he is facing an eight-game suspension for, among other things, posting a video of himself brandishing a gun inside of a strip club.
On his radio show on Thursday, Mike Greenberg said he didn’t think anything said in the interview was important.
“I don’t think that anything that he said yesterday mattered, because I don’t think that anyone in his position wasn’t going to say exactly what he said yesterday.”
Instead, the ESPN Radio host said what mattered is that Ja Morant was willing to talk at all. He thinks that may have happened only because ESPN had someone like Jalen Rose available to do the interview.
“Jalen, I think, was a great choice to have do the conversation with him,” Greenberg said, “because there was a level to which Ja was comfortable talking to Jalen that he wouldn’t have been talking to someone that didn’t play, that hasn’t been through the things Jalen has been through in their lives.”
Rose played with six NBA teams during a 14-year career. He, like Morant, was a highly touted guard when he left the University of Michigan in 1994. He was the 13th pick of that year’s draft.
Jalen Rose is also not immune from making some serious mistakes. He spoke recently on ESPN about knowing exactly what position Ja Morant is in right now and understanding the fact that the young star has to make a serious choice about his future.
“I think Jalen could meet him on a wavelength that not all of us could understand,” Greenberg said.
Morant has missed seven games and is currently seeking treatment and counseling. He is eligible to return to the Memphis lineup on Monday when the team hosts the division rival Dallas Mavericks.
