The controversy began when Morant began livestreaming from a club at 5:19am ET on Saturday, several hours after the Grizzlies lost to the Western Conference leading Denver Nuggets. In the video, which has since been removed after Morant deactivated his Instagram account in response to the controversy, Morant reportedly livestreamed himself "shirtless and rapping along" to the music in the club, while holding what appeared to be a gun aloft in his left hand. There is no indication that Morant pointed the gun at anyone during the course of the video or threatened anyone with it.

In a statement released Saturday afternoon, the Grizzlies said that Morant "will be away from the team for at least the next two games" due to the controversy. Morant himself released a statement saying, "I'm sorry to my family, teammates, coaches, fans, partners, the city of Memphis and the entire organization for letting you down. 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."