{"id":769990,"date":"2026-06-30T13:50:10","date_gmt":"2026-06-30T13:50:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/769990\/"},"modified":"2026-06-30T13:50:10","modified_gmt":"2026-06-30T13:50:10","slug":"gravity-is-undefeated-ja-morants-spectacular-fall-back-to-earth-is-complete-memphis-grizzlies","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/769990\/","title":{"rendered":"Gravity is undefeated: Ja Morant\u2019s spectacular fall back to Earth is complete | Memphis Grizzlies"},"content":{"rendered":"

When Ja Morant jumps into the air, he levitates past the natural apex of his arc, as if gravity decided to give him an extra half-second of respite. Men a foot taller or with 50 lbs more muscle don\u2019t have as much spring as is packed in his 6ft 2in frame. He can end up almost fully horizontal when he dunks. He is hardly a one-dimensional player though: he sees the game in higher definition than his peers too, zipping passes to teammates a beat before his opponents process the situation. Morant is rarely the best player on the floor at a given moment, but he often seems to be having the most fun. His highlights invite smiles. What could be cooler than a little guy outperforming giants with craft? Imagine if, in the NBA finals, Jalen Brunson had dunked over Victor Wembanyama. Morant knows what that would feel like, because he\u2019s done it<\/a>.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

The Memphis Grizzlies<\/a> drafted Morant second overall in 2019. They watched him blossom into 2020 Rookie of the Year and a two-time All-Star as the franchise player on a semi-reliable playoff team. In 2022, he scored 47 points in a playoff win against the Golden State Warriors, the eventual champions that year. As a young star with such a particular style, Morant figured to reach even greater heights, on the Grizzlies and as one of the faces of the league.<\/p>\n

On Monday, the Grizzlies unloaded him to the Portland Trail Blazers<\/a> for Jerami Grant and Kris Murray (Grant\u2019s contract is clunky, Murray\u2019s shot is worse). \u201cFlagrantly available,\u201d ESPN\u2019s Brian Windhorst said of Morant a few days before the trade. \u201cCouldn\u2019t be more available.\u201d A few months prior, Windhorst said Morant had \u201cnegative value\u201d in the league, meaning teams demanded draft picks on top of the player himself. The Grizzlies desperately wanted to get rid of the face of their franchise. Nobody wanted him. What went so wrong?<\/p>\n

Morant has struggled with arm injuries; this past season he played in just 20 of 82 games thanks to a hurt elbow. (You imagine those tendons straining and popping as he torques to dunk before Earth can reclaim him.) But his fall from grace is also self-inflicted.<\/p>\n

Morant cannot get enough of guns. Waving them like flags on not one but two livestreams in 2023 earned him lengthy suspensions. Later, he took to firing imaginary guns after hitting shots \u2013 in fairness to him, he was never the best shooter, and perhaps felt the splashes deserved punctuation. But he kept at it after warnings and a $75,000 fine<\/a>. He experimented with miming a bazooka, then a grenade<\/a>. Off the court, Morant\u2019s resume of shame is long. While the antics didn\u2019t have a direct correlation with his play, the Grizzlies were clearly frustrated with his off-court behavior. It made for a frustrating blend with Morant\u2019s telegenic basketball style \u2013 outside the contained spectacle of a colossal two-handed block or the mother of all contested layups, he far too often made his own problems other people\u2019s inconvenience or harm.<\/p>\n

Morant now finds himself in a mid-career purgatory. At 26, he\u2019s too old to be called young, but has failed to show he has the maturity to lead a team. Portland may be an easier environment than Memphis, who had already shed Morant\u2019s co-stars, Jaren Jackson Jr and Desmond Bane.<\/p>\n

With foul-drawer extraordinaire Deni Avdija as the centerpiece of the Blazers\u2019 offense, Morant\u2019s passing ability and bursts towards the rim could prove complementary. But Portland were already flush with point guards before the trade, furthering the impression that the exchange happened primarily because the Grizzlies wanted to dump their fading star.<\/p>\n

On top of that, the sport is evolving away from players like Morant. The name of the game is shooting and physicality. Morant lacks the former, and despite his explosive talent, isn\u2019t durable or defensively strong enough to keep up with the attrition of the league. His size and passing skills make for a helpful Trae Young comparison. Though Young is a better shooter, much more reliant on drawing fouls, and much less springy, the onetime Atlanta Hawk was once effective but can\u2019t find an easy niche in the league these days. (Wish the Washington Wizards luck as they navigate Young\u2019s hopelessly bloated contract.) In Morant\u2019s case, once age makes him more susceptible to gravity, he won\u2019t have a midrange jumper or three-point shot to compensate for the decline.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s all made for one of the more spectacular nosedives in the NBA<\/a>. Each season sees a few notable players struggling with their stock \u2013 see Fox, De\u2019Aaron, and Duren, Jalen \u2013 but few have suffered as steady and prolonged a slide as Morant. So call it rock bottom for Morant, at least relative to his time in the league so far. Gravity gets everybody in the end. For Morant\u2019s career, it came sooner than anybody could have expected when his feet left the ground.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"When Ja Morant jumps into the air, he levitates past the natural apex of his arc, as if…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":769991,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[557],"tags":[64,63,590,85],"class_list":["post-769990","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nba","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-nba","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/769990","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=769990"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/769990\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/769991"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=769990"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=769990"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=769990"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}