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Memphis Grizzlies’ troubled star, Ja Morant, will be sporting a new massive back tattoo when he returns to the court after serving his 25-game suspension at the start of next season.
Morant’sback tattoo includes two massive tributes to late basketball legendKobe Bryant.
Tattoo art took over 10 hours to complete
The former NBA Rookie of the Year was featured in tattoo artist Andres Ortega’s Instagram feed, where he showed the recent art that he and his team created on Morant’s back.
According to Ortega, the basketball star had to sit for more than 10 hours to complete the artwork in one day.
Ortega and his team are based in Glendale, Arizona, but traveled to Miami to meet the player there.
Morant’s lower back now features Kobe Bryant’s24 jersey number along with his Mamba logo.
The rest of the artwork, which is a history of the player’s basketball career, includes the logos of his high school, college, and NBA teams as well as his jersey number (12), and the legend “Life is a gamble” surrounded by four aces and two dice.
The tattoo session also included work on Morant’s chest and stomach where he got his birth year (1999), doves, a 100 emoji, crosses, and an eye in the middle of his chest.
Morant’s recent discipline issues
The 2022 All-Star nominee will face a 25-game suspension at the start of the 2023-24 season for a repeat offense of brandishing a gun on an Instagram live video posted by his friend Davonte Pack.
The player is set to lose over $7.5 million dollars with the suspension. He was supposed to earn $33.5 million dollars in the upcoming season.
Morant already served an eight-game suspension in March after showing a firearm while intoxicated in a Denver nightclub.