SAN FRANCISCO \u2014 As the rest of the NBA wonders which player may eventually take over the large mantle that LeBron James and Stephen Curry have carried for years as faces of the league, one man is still mentioned as a possible torchbearer for the game in the future, with no desire for the role: Ja Morant.<\/p>\n
\u201cI never did for real,\u201d Morant told The Athletic in advance of Monday\u2019s game against the Golden State Warriors. \u201cHonestly.\u201d<\/p>\n
The Memphis Grizzlies\u2019 star guard has long been mentioned in a select group of young players who have the superstar ability and potential to take over the responsibility when James and Curry retire. However, the 26-year-old says that while he hears the conversations about the future faces of the league, it\u2019s not a role he wants to fulfill.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere\u2019s a lot that comes with that,\u201d Morant said. \u201cI play basketball for the love of the game, not to be the face of the NBA. Obviously, I hear that a lot. I don\u2019t put no pressure on it. I just go out and just play my game. Me pretty much just going out there and doing that had me in those conversations. Obviously, people have their own opinions, but I really don\u2019t care for it too much.\u201d<\/p>\n
Morant burst onto the NBA scene in 2019 after being selected No. 2 by the Grizzlies. He won Rookie of the Year and quickly earned the respect of his peers throughout the league with his play and athleticism, becoming an All-Star in 2022 and 2023. A combination of off-court incidents, suspensions and injuries, however, stalled the early trajectory of his career.<\/p>\n
The NBA suspended Morant for eight games in March 2023 for conduct detrimental to the league after flashing a handgun in a nightclub on an Instagram Live video. He was suspended 25 games to start the 2023-24 season, again for conduct detrimental to the league, after another video of him with a gun appeared on social media.<\/p>\n
Morant\u2019s image and popularity took a hit due to the suspensions, and the talk of him becoming that type of figure for the league subsided. Despite the incidents and injury setbacks, Morant\u2019s peers still view him as one of the bright stars in the game. Curry even mentioned Morant by name while noting that he doesn\u2019t pay much attention to the \u201cnext face\u201d of the league conversation because the NBA always figures out a way to find the next face on its own.<\/p>\n
\u201cThat stuff takes care of itself,\u201d Curry told The Athletic recently. \u201cI hope there\u2019s an energy towards being great ambassadors for the game, whoever the group of guys are, you can obviously name those between the Ja\u2019s, the Ant\u2019s, the Luka\u2019s, the Wemby\u2019s, the Shai\u2019s and all that, JT\u2019s (Jayson Tatum), but I don\u2019t get caught up in that, because when I was coming up, there was never a conversation. Until you got to the finals, other people started talking about it.\u201d<\/p>\n
For his part, Morant genuinely seems to appreciate the praise from peers like Curry and Houston Rockets star Kevin Durant, who, in the past, have said how much Morant\u2019s game means to the league.<\/p>\n
\u201cI feel like that means way more to me than somebody else pretty much doing it,\u201d Morant said. \u201cThose guys are all-time greats, definitely going to be Hall of Famers. That\u2019s just more respect from my peers, credit to the work I\u2019ve been putting in, but this ain\u2019t the end.\u201d<\/p>\n
Specific to Monday\u2019s matchup, Morant admitted that he always enjoys facing Curry and the Warriors because of the challenge Curry provides. He has respect for the 37-year-old guard and has played against him long enough to see firsthand just how much Curry\u2019s game has evolved.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou\u2019ve seen Steph\u2019s game transition into the player he is now,\u201d Morant said. \u201cCame into the league pretty much young, still was able to shoot the ball, but as he\u2019s had more years, more time, the game pretty much slowed down for him, and now it\u2019s become so easy to where you pretty much just try to make every shot tough and just pray he misses. I just admire our matchups the most because it\u2019s always fun against the Warriors. Obviously, they got the better end of the stick at this time, but I love those matchups.\u201d<\/p>\n
So if Morant doesn\u2019t want to be a future face of the league like Curry, what are his goals over the next few years?<\/p>\n
\u201cJust be the best Ja I can be,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
What does that look like for him on the floor?<\/p>\n
\u201cWe don\u2019t know yet,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
The one thing that is clear from his responses is that his confidence in his game doesn\u2019t seem to have wavered. He knows he can still be a great player, whether he carries the pressure of being at the top of the game or not.<\/p>\n
\u201cI ain\u2019t gonna be perfect on the court,\u201d Morant said. \u201cSo there\u2019s always something I can get better at.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"SAN FRANCISCO \u2014 As the rest of the NBA wonders which player may eventually take over the large…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":255346,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[64],"tags":[2243,7741,355,99],"class_list":["post-255345","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nba","tag-golden-state-warriors","tag-memphis-grizzlies","tag-nba","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/255345","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=255345"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/255345\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/255346"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=255345"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=255345"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=255345"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}