Memphis Grizzles point guard Ja Morant and Charlotte Hornets forward Miles Bridges are battling to see who can conduct the biggest offseason offense.
During a boisterous house party on June 4, Memphis Grizzlies point guard Ja Morant made a bold declaration: “I’m the only one who will show you how I really live.”
Ever the competitor, Charlotte Hornets forward Miles Bridges soon one-upped Morant’s party, posting a photo of himself holding what appears to be a cup filled with a purplish-pink liquid and a rolled marijuana joint.
When fans began speculating that Bridges was sipping on lean, an intoxicating drink infused with codeine, Bridges deleted the photo from his Instagram Story, but he still tried to do damage control on Twitter.
Bridges told a Twitter user that the drink in question was pink lemonade, but that tweet has now been deleted.
The internet doesn’t really buy that Bridges was pairing pink lemonade with a joint, especially since Bridges is a bonafide rapper, and lean is a product of Houston’s hip hop scene.
Whatever the drink was, NBA Twitter has now pitted Morant and Bridges against each other in who can get a meeting with NBA commissioner Adam Silver faster.
Ja Morant, Miles Bridges celebrate the NBA offseason in partying competition
While there hasn’t been any discussion of actual discipline to come from either of these occurrences, social media users are already punishing Bridges for what many believe to be an implausible cover story. Even NBA Paint had a go at Bridges, recreating his likeness as a cup of lean.
The imagined discipline from Michael Jordan, who owns the Charlotte Hornets, has fans joking that Bridges just lost all leverage in any future contract negotiations.
Just as Jordan comes from a different era of basketball, so did David Stern, the longtime NBA commissioner who oversaw 30 years of growth in the league. Many imagine that Stern would not have tolerated these shenanigans in his NBA.
The only way Bridges can redeem himself after drinking “pink lemonade” is by dropping an album to go with it.
After all, the photo could have been nothing more than a way to promote Bridges’ future music. Bridges recently dropped “Don’t Be So Nice“, so perhaps the photo encapsulating his RTB MB persona means more music is on the way.