"Ja is a really good basketball player," Sharpe said on his Fox Sports show, "Undisputed." "Ja did everything he could to lift himself and his family out of this type of environment and to get away from this and for some reason he wants to surround himself with these type of people. Why? Bruh, you not hard. That's not your life. People in that life would give anything to be in your life."
Others believe Morant's issue is more about maturity and adjusting to his newfound fame and money.
Morant grew up in a rural area of South Carolina and went to high school in Sumter, with a population of less than 50,000. Teammate Tyus Jones told The Athletic that Morant is just going through growing pains.
"Each year [Morant] is getting more attention, and he'll become one of the faces of the league," Jones said. "So with that comes more responsibility both on and off the court. Sometimes that just takes some growing pains that you have to go through. It's not the same situation for him as it was last year. It's not the same last year as it was the year before. So you have to continue to grow, continue to learn. It's just life lessons."