SPOKANE, Wash. — So there's no apocalypse bunker. Let's start there. But also, you can see why someone might say there is.
The room in question is in the basement of Adam Morrison's spacious home, which lies on a secluded hill about 10 miles north of downtown Spokane. There's a large gate in front of the house and a basketball hoop in the driveway. "For my daughters," Morrison says. His hair is tied up in a tight ponytail, and the peach-fuzz mustache that graced the covers of so many magazines has been shaved off. On the refrigerator in his kitchen are various pictures of his two daughters along with three “save the date” cards and a takeout pizza menu. A white rectangular sign with reminders to "Live with love," "Give generously" and "Count blessings" hangs on a wall behind him. Out back is a wooden porch with chipping brown paint and a gorgeous view of the green countryside and Mount Spokane.
Here everything looks tranquil and standard. Just a normal suburban home for a normal suburban guy. Downstairs, though, well, downstairs is a different story.
"It's a lot of ammo," Morrison says. "To someone not used to seeing guns, it's going to look like I'm a crazy person."
He's scared of coming off as one and isn't ready to show the room to some journalist from New York. In March, recently graduated Gonzaga star Kyle Wiltjer told Barstool Sports' Pardon My Take podcast that Morrison is "fully equipped if there was an apocalypse. He's got food stationed away. …He's got guns. A bunker. Everything."
The quotes went viral. The story jelled perfectly with the image so many have of Morrison, the floppy-haired, alt-rocker-looking, politically inclined former Gonzaga star whose NBA career didn't go nearly as well as many assumed and predicted it would.
Here everything looks tranquil and standard. Just a normal suburban home for a normal suburban guy. Downstairs, though, well, downstairs is a different story.
"It's a lot of ammo," Morrison says. "To someone not used to seeing guns, it's going to look like I'm a crazy person."
He's scared of coming off as one and isn't ready to show the room to some journalist from New York. In March, recently graduated Gonzaga star Kyle Wiltjer told Barstool Sports' Pardon My Take podcast that Morrison is "fully equipped if there was an apocalypse. He's got food stationed away. …He's got guns. A bunker. Everything."
The quotes went viral. The story jelled perfectly with the image so many have of Morrison, the floppy-haired, alt-rocker-looking, politically inclined former Gonzaga star whose NBA career didn't go nearly as well as many assumed and predicted it would.
"Suddenly all this stuff comes out portraying me like another David Koresh," Morrison says. "And once that stuff is out there, it sticks."
Morrison first heard about Wiltjer's comments one afternoon while golfing. A friend sent him a link to a New York Daily News article that declared in its headline, "Adam Morrison has an 'apocalypse bunker' equipped with guns and food."
Incensed, he immediately phoned a lawyer, and he met with two the next day. He agonized over how to handle the story. Should he leave it alone or attack it? He coaches one of his daughters' basketball teams and didn't want parents to worry about their kids being in his presence.
"I get it, people view me a certain way," he adds. "But I'm not a psychopath or anything like that."
He passed on filing a defamation lawsuit and says everything eventually got resolved. He says that he bears no ill will toward Wiltjer, a workout partner in the past. "I like Kyle," he says. "I was just confused."
Why had Wiltjer chosen to respond to a question about comparisons between him and Morrison by making Morrison look like a gun-obsessed crackpot? (Bleacher Report tried to reach Wiltjer to answer this question, without response.) Why, years after stepping away from the spotlight, had Morrison suddenly transformed back into an individual worth covering in the news? And most disconcerting to Morrison: Why would so many people, and so many media outlets, readily report Wiltjer's claims without at least attempting to verify with Morrison first?
"I wasn't getting arrested, hurting anyone or anything like that," Morrison says. "I haven't played in the league since 2010. Why does anyone even care about what I'm doing?"
The room in question is in the basement of Adam Morrison's spacious home, which lies on a secluded hill about 10 miles north of downtown Spokane. There's a large gate in front of the house and a basketball hoop in the driveway. "For my daughters," Morrison says. His hair is tied up in a tight ponytail, and the peach-fuzz mustache that graced the covers of so many magazines has been shaved off. On the refrigerator in his kitchen are various pictures of his two daughters along with three “save the date” cards and a takeout pizza menu. A white rectangular sign with reminders to "Live with love," "Give generously" and "Count blessings" hangs on a wall behind him. Out back is a wooden porch with chipping brown paint and a gorgeous view of the green countryside and Mount Spokane.
Here everything looks tranquil and standard. Just a normal suburban home for a normal suburban guy. Downstairs, though, well, downstairs is a different story.
"It's a lot of ammo," Morrison says. "To someone not used to seeing guns, it's going to look like I'm a crazy person."
He's scared of coming off as one and isn't ready to show the room to some journalist from New York. In March, recently graduated Gonzaga star Kyle Wiltjer told Barstool Sports' Pardon My Take podcast that Morrison is "fully equipped if there was an apocalypse. He's got food stationed away. …He's got guns. A bunker. Everything."
The quotes went viral. The story jelled perfectly with the image so many have of Morrison, the floppy-haired, alt-rocker-looking, politically inclined former Gonzaga star whose NBA career didn't go nearly as well as many assumed and predicted it would.
Here everything looks tranquil and standard. Just a normal suburban home for a normal suburban guy. Downstairs, though, well, downstairs is a different story.
"It's a lot of ammo," Morrison says. "To someone not used to seeing guns, it's going to look like I'm a crazy person."
He's scared of coming off as one and isn't ready to show the room to some journalist from New York. In March, recently graduated Gonzaga star Kyle Wiltjer told Barstool Sports' Pardon My Take podcast that Morrison is "fully equipped if there was an apocalypse. He's got food stationed away. …He's got guns. A bunker. Everything."
The quotes went viral. The story jelled perfectly with the image so many have of Morrison, the floppy-haired, alt-rocker-looking, politically inclined former Gonzaga star whose NBA career didn't go nearly as well as many assumed and predicted it would.
"Suddenly all this stuff comes out portraying me like another David Koresh," Morrison says. "And once that stuff is out there, it sticks."
Morrison first heard about Wiltjer's comments one afternoon while golfing. A friend sent him a link to a New York Daily News article that declared in its headline, "Adam Morrison has an 'apocalypse bunker' equipped with guns and food."
Incensed, he immediately phoned a lawyer, and he met with two the next day. He agonized over how to handle the story. Should he leave it alone or attack it? He coaches one of his daughters' basketball teams and didn't want parents to worry about their kids being in his presence.
"I get it, people view me a certain way," he adds. "But I'm not a psychopath or anything like that."
He passed on filing a defamation lawsuit and says everything eventually got resolved. He says that he bears no ill will toward Wiltjer, a workout partner in the past. "I like Kyle," he says. "I was just confused."
Why had Wiltjer chosen to respond to a question about comparisons between him and Morrison by making Morrison look like a gun-obsessed crackpot? (Bleacher Report tried to reach Wiltjer to answer this question, without response.) Why, years after stepping away from the spotlight, had Morrison suddenly transformed back into an individual worth covering in the news? And most disconcerting to Morrison: Why would so many people, and so many media outlets, readily report Wiltjer's claims without at least attempting to verify with Morrison first?
"I wasn't getting arrested, hurting anyone or anything like that," Morrison says. "I haven't played in the league since 2010. Why does anyone even care about what I'm doing?"