Deposition of Ja Morant’s close friend sheds light on July 2022 altercation with teen

Ja Morant's close friend, Davonte Pack, painted a more complete picture of the altercation that took place in July 2022 between the duo and a teenage basketball player at Morant's house in Eads, Tennessee, in a recently filed deposition.

In the deposition, conducted on May 23, Pack offered his version of events during the altercation at Morant's home and detailed his relationship with the Memphis Grizzlies' star point guard. He also acknowledged knowing that Morant owned a Glock firearm.

The lawsuit, which was filed in September and involves teenage basketball player Joshua Holloway, alleges that Morant and Pack punched the then-17-year-old.

The incident was investigated by the Shelby County Sheriff's Office, and the Shelby County District Attorney's Office declined to press charges due to a lack of evidence.

Also deposed were former Grizzlies player Mike Miller, Morant's trainer Trey Draper III, Alexander Blue and Christopher Brunt, according to the Shelby County Circuit Court docket report. Pack's deposition also mentions that both of Morant's parents, Tee and Jamie Morant, have been already deposed, or will be deposed in the future. Ja Morant was also mentioned as possibly being deposed in the future.

Details about the 2022 incident

A group of people, including Ja Morant, Pack and Holloway, were playing a game of pickup basketball at Morant's home the day of the incident. Pack said the group had played games before the altercation that day, which consisted of trash talk and "punking," but he called that "just normal basketball stuff" in the deposition.

In the game that was underway when the altercation happened, Pack said Morant and Holloway were rolling the ball at one another, and it looked like neither wanted to pick it up.

Morant eventually did and checked the ball to Holloway with a chest pass.

"[Holloway] caught it and threw it back," Pack said. "Boom. So once he threw it, I don't even think [Morant] was ready for the ball for real because it literally just happened within a split second."

After Morant was hit, Pack recalled him asking Holloway "What you on?" Morant and the teen, who was 17 years old at the time, then walked up to each other.

Holloway, according to Pack, "stepped back, he like squared up. Squared up meaning that you put your fists up ready to fight." That was when Morant hit the teen, but Pack said he did not know where he hit him. He said Holloway tried to keep fighting but he didn't "think he got the chance" to hit Morant back.

Pack then said he walked over to the two and hit Holloway in the forehead.

"Once I hit him, he fell," Pack said.

'Literally a second'

When asked if Holloway was threatening Pack, Pack said Holloway "didn't threaten" him, but said he was "just defending [his] brother."

After Holloway was on the ground, he said he pulled Morant away from the teen and told him, "No, you don't need to be doing this. We don't need to be doing this."

The altercation, according to Pack, could not be videotaped because "it was literally a second, maybe."

As Holloway was leaving the court, Pack reiterated that he heard Holloway yell, "I'm going to light it up like fireworks," before leaving the property. Miller said in his own deposition that he heard Holloway say something to the same effect as he left the court, though he said it "didn't even feel like that type of situation" when he was asked if he know if either Morant or Holloway had firearms with them.

Pack said Holloway was then taken to his car by Miller and Tee Morant. Those three spoke for a while and then Holloway left.

"When somebody says they’re going to light something up, you’re talking about two things. You’re going to come shoot a gun or you’re going to actually shoot fireworks. That’s the only thing I heard," Pack said.

Pack and Miller were deposed by Rebecca Adelman, the attorney representing Holloway. Toward the end of the deposition, Adelman asked Pack if the altercation could have been avoided, and if he would change anything if he had the opportunity.

He said he would have done things differently and tried to "avoid conflict" by checking the ball himself. He added that there was "really no reason" he did not avoid hitting Holloway in July 2022.

How Davonte Pack and Ja Morant grew close

Pack was born in Sumter, South Carolina, and played basketball at Lakewood High School. He began playing basketball when he was in elementary school, around the age of 8 or 9, he said, when he met Morant through a recreational basketball league.

"[Morant's] team came in a year, they played, they beat us, I had a little — like a little temper tantrum," Pack recalled in the deposition. "Then their coach actually like roughed me up, like, 'What are you doing?' type and then we just got a connection after that."

Pack said he started staying with Ja Morant after his parents stopped coming to AAU basketball tournaments.

"We just grew a bond from there," Pack said.

Morant played at a rival high school, Crestwood High School, which was not far from where Pack stayed. When Morant left to play college basketball at Murray State, Pack stayed with the Morant family.

"I was still at the crib, so I basically bonded with mom and pops, grew that bond," Pack said. "Me and Ja, we grew up together so we already had a type of bond, but once I got closer to mom and pops, it was like a family."

Pack refers to Tee Morant and Jamie Morant as "pops" and "mom," respectively throughout the deposition. He and Ja Morant also refer to each other as "brothers."

More: Notable moments of Ja Morant's Grizzlies career, both on and off the court

Pack and Morant's connection in Memphis

Pack moved to Memphis in 2021 and later moved into Morant's house in Eads. He has been a frequent spectator at Grizzlies games, though he was ejected from a game following an altercation with players from the Indiana Pacers on Jan. 29.

Reports surfaced that acquaintances of Morant "aggressively approached" the Pacers traveling party after the game and trained a laser on them. An NBA investigation was opened but did not determine a red laser was trained on the Pacers. Pack was banned from home games at the FedEx Forum after the incident.

From Jeff Zillgitt: Forget basketball. Ja Morant's focus needs to be on his life, not his fame.

More trouble came following reports of an incident that had happened at Wolfchase Galleria in July 2022 involving Morant's mother, a security guard and a Finish Line employee. That report came out on March 1 and was followed three days later by Morant filming himself on Instagram Live with a gun in a Denver-area nightclub after a game.

Morant was given an eight-game suspension for conduct detrimental to the league following the Denver incident.

In May, an Instagram Live video surfaced of Morant flashing what appeared to be a gun on Pack's Instagram account. Morant was suspended by the Grizzlies and, after an NBA investigation, was given a 25-game suspension.

In Pack's May 23 deposition, he said the alleged firearm in the last video was a lighter. He did, however, say Morant owns a Glock 40.

Lucas Finton is a criminal justice reporter with The Commercial Appeal. He can be reached at Lucas.Finton@commercialappeal.com and followed on Twitter @LucasFinton.