BERLIN \u2014 With trade winds swirling around Ja Morant, coach Tuomas Iisalo said the calf bruise that has sidelined the Memphis Grizzlies\u2019 maligned star for five games is progressing to the point where Morant could play as early as Thursday.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Iisalo said Morant practiced Tuesday and that there \u201cis a chance\u201d Morant would play against the Orlando Magic either in Berlin on Thursday or in London on Sunday. He has been out with a right calf bruise since Jan. 4, but since then, numerous media outlets, including The Athletic, reported that the Grizzlies were, for the first time, listening to trade offers for Morant ahead of the NBA\u2019s Feb. 5 trade deadline.<\/p>\n
Those reports led to further speculation that Morant, upset that he was apparently available on the trade market, may have played his last game for the Grizzlies. He was listed as \u201cquestionable\u201d to play with his injury for the first handful of games that he missed, but since reports surfaced that he could be traded, Morant was listed as \u201cout.\u201d Morant has not spoken publicly since the news broke, but he is in Berlin and practicing.<\/p>\n
\u201cI mean, I was just with him,\u201d Grizzlies star and Morant\u2019s friend Jaren Jackson Jr. said after practice Tuesday at Max Schmeling Hall in Berlin. \u201cHe\u2019s not gone. We can talk all this stuff, but he\u2019s right over there.\u201d<\/p>\n
Both of the Grizzlies\u2019 games against Orlando are on Prime Video, which makes them national TV games in the U.S. Stars are required to play in those games unless they are clearly injured.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cWe are not in the business of commenting on random internet reports,\u201d Iisalo added. \u201cHe\u2019s progressing in the practices. He\u2019s already able to do a lot of the parts of practice, so looking good to progress (toward playing).\u201d<\/p>\n
Pressed specifically on the chances that Morant would play Thursday, Iisalo said, \u201cThere is a chance he will play in the global games.\u201d<\/p>\n
Morant is tentatively slated to address reporters Wednesday in Berlin.<\/p>\n
Meanwhile, Berlin native and German superstar Franz Wagner, a de facto host for the Berlin portion of the NBA\u2019s Global Games series, is trying to return Thursday after missing the last 16 games with a high ankle sprain.<\/p>\n
Wagner and his brother Moritz are not only from Berlin, but they also came up through the Alba Berlin youth development program and played for Alba\u2019s pro team before attending college at Michigan.<\/p>\n
\u201cI want to see how today and tomorrow go at practice,\u201d Franz said. \u201cObviously I really want to play, it\u2019s really important, but I don\u2019t want to make any promises.\u201d<\/p>\n
Franz Wagner suffered his injury on Dec. 7. His brother Moritz, meanwhile, played for the first time this season on Sunday for the Magic after undergoing knee surgery last year.<\/p>\n
With the Magic competing in the NBA\u2019s Eastern Conference and the Grizzlies playing in the West, the two teams only play each other twice a season. Both of those games this season will be in Europe. This is important because Thursday\u2019s game will also mark the first time that Desmond Bane, another Morant friend and now a former Grizzlies star, will play against Memphis.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The Grizzlies traded Bane to Orlando after last season as the organization furthered its pivot away from those teams with Morant, Jackson and Bane as the Grizzlies\u2019 core with Taylor Jenkins as coach. Jenkins was fired toward the end of last season and replaced by Iisalo. The Grizzlies then traded Bane as part of the Grizzlies\u2019 plan to retool and gain financial flexibility.<\/p>\n
Trading Morant, the No. 2 pick of the 2019 draft and the face of the franchise since that moment, would signify the end of an era in Memphis.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou wrap your arms around anybody that\u2019s got that type of spotlight or anything like that going on with him,\u201d Bane said. \u201cJa just wants to play basketball and be in a place where he feels valued. And, hopefully, if it doesn\u2019t happen in Memphis, he gets that, you wherever his next stop is.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cIt never gets easier,\u201d Jackson said. \u201cAnytime there\u2019s a move. It\u2019s not like you\u2019re \u2026 bracing yourself for anything, but anytime something happens just like when you\u2019re around your family and something happens you feel that. We\u2019re people, we\u2019re brothers, we understand that this is a business, but at the same time it sucks.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"BERLIN \u2014 With trade winds swirling around Ja Morant, coach Tuomas Iisalo said the calf bruise that has…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":404692,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[64],"tags":[7741,355,11950,99],"class_list":{"0":"post-404691","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-nba","8":"tag-memphis-grizzlies","9":"tag-nba","10":"tag-orlando-magic","11":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/404691","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=404691"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/404691\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/404692"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=404691"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=404691"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=404691"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}