{"id":417700,"date":"2026-01-18T16:58:07","date_gmt":"2026-01-18T16:58:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/417700\/"},"modified":"2026-01-18T16:58:07","modified_gmt":"2026-01-18T16:58:07","slug":"grizzlies-ja-morant-to-return-against-magic","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/417700\/","title":{"rendered":"Grizzlies&#8217; Ja Morant to return against Magic"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.sportsnet.ca\/basketball\/nba\/players\/ja-morant\/9983bed6-e53c-4c65-a90a-51546a0e3352\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Ja Morant<\/a> will return to the lineup against the Orlando Magic in London after a six-game absence because of a right calf injury. He will be on a minutes restriction in the contest.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;We&#8217;ve discussed this several times this season. When you miss a bunch of games, it&#8217;s not so easy to (go) right away into big minutes,&#8221; Grizzlies coach Tuomas Iisalo said. &#8220;We&#8217;ll try to maximize his minutes and try to do it in a smart way.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Morant is averaging 19 points, 7.6 assists and 3.2 rebounds through 18 games this season. <\/p>\n<p>The 26-year-old returns to the lineup while the Grizzlies are <a href=\"https:\/\/www.sportsnet.ca\/nba\/article\/report-grizzlies-entertaining-trade-offers-for-ja-morant\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">reportedly<\/a> &#8220;entertaining offers to potentially move the two-time all-star,&#8221; according to ESPN&#8217;s\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/x.com\/ShamsCharania\/status\/2009685627978371316?s=20\" rel=\"nofollow\">Shams Charania<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>Charania\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/x.com\/ShamsCharania\/status\/2009685931943711183?s=20\" rel=\"nofollow\">added<\/a>\u00a0the team would prioritize draft picks and young players in return. However, as the Grizzlies consider multiple paths forward, they still remain open to keeping Morant, per Charania.<\/p>\n<p>Memphis is 11th in the West at 17-23. <\/p>\n<p>&#8211;with files from The Associated Press<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Ja Morant will return to the lineup against the Orlando Magic in London after a six-game absence because&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":417701,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[434],"tags":[49,48,459,82],"class_list":["post-417700","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nba","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-nba","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/417700","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=417700"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/417700\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/417701"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=417700"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=417700"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=417700"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}