‘Stopped Me in My Tracks’: Skip Bayless Calls Ja Morant’s Latest Instagram Posts a ‘Cry for Help’

The NBA community was left worrying about Ja Morant on Wednesday when the Memphis Grizzlies star posted a series of cryptic messages on Instagram.

Earlier in May, Morant once again came under fire when he was seen on a friend’s Instagram Live waving a handgun. He was suspended from team activities while the NBA investigates.

On Wednesday, the 23-year-old posted several photos of family members with captions like “love ya ma” and “love ya pops.” The final post was a photo of him with his back to the camera. The caption simply read, “bye.”

He deleted the posts shortly after.

yo wtf ja morant mean by all this?? #nba pic.twitter.com/zwnNumgcKF

— jay t. (@donnymonarch) May 24, 2023

Fox Sports 1’s Skip Bayless viewed it as “cry for help.”

“When I first saw this earlier this morning, it stopped me in my tracks,” Bayless said on Undisputed, “because — to your point — we take this very seriously. Was this a cry for help? I don’t know for sure, but it felt like it. In the context of what’s happening, it certainly could be.”

Bayless’ colleague, NFL legend Shannon Sharpe, agreed.

“Normally, people don’t get on IG and say, ‘Bye, Mom. Bye, Dad. Love you, Mom. Love you, Dad,’ and then show himself walking away,” Sharpe said.

Bayless added that rapper Lil Wayne — a close friend of his — reached out asking Bayless to connect him with Morant to offer him guidance. Morant has yet to respond to Bayless.

“Lil Wayne said, ‘I speak from experience because I made a mistake and I wound up on Rikers Island in prison for a while,'” Bayless said. “So he said, ‘I wanted to talk to Ja about that.'”

A few days before the Instagram posts, online shoppers noticed that Nike removed the latest color variation of Morant’s signature shoe — the Ja 1 — from its online storefront. Additionally, ESPN’s Michael Wilbon even said he wouldn’t let his son wear Morant’s shoes in the aftermath of the second gun incident.

Still, Bayless believes Morant can turn things around.

“I’m gonna say it one more time: there’s good in this kid. There’s good,” he said. “He turned his game around and won Most Improved Player. You can also then say, ‘Can you turn your life back around?’ Sure, you could. But you gotta commit.”

Watch above via Fox Sports 1