Ja Morant

When discussing the best NBA players 25 years of age or younger, Memphis Grizzlies' Ja Morant vs. Dallas Mavericks' Luka Doncic has been a hot debate this ...

Doncic is the only active player under 25 to earn multiple All-NBA First-Team nominations, and therefore, he appears to be the correct choice every time for now. "I'm going to go with Luka, only for the fact that athletic guys scare me," Barnes said. Former NBA player Matt Barnes chose Doncic over Ja Morant and the rest and gave detailed reasoning for it.

After Memphis Grizzlies star Ja Morant scored a career-high 52 points Monday night, NBA legend Allen Iverson jumped on the 22-year-old guard's MVP ...

He was named to his first NBA All-Star Game as a starter in January. Morant's performance was the first 50-point game in Grizzlies franchise history. Iverson, who won NBA MVP in 2001 while leading the Philadelphia 76ers to the NBA Finals, posted a picture of Morant's Grizzlies jersey hanging on the trophy.

Forty-eight hours after setting a Grizzlies' franchise record with 46 points, Morant bested himself with 52 points and a personal highlight reel in Memphis' 118 ...

Such down-to-earth decisions have made Morant the rare viral megastar that refuses to outgrow himself or the city for which he plays. Despite their youth, the Grizzlies would hardly be welcome opponents to contenders of more established pedigree. Land the No. 1 pick, and the Grizzlies land LeBron. Instead it showed up No. 2, and their pick went to the Detroit Pistons, leaving Memphis empty-handed altogether. It is a supercharged turnaround, with Morant serving as the nightly jolt of electricity that has become must-see TV. Yet for all the mind-boggling career highs, league honors and Kia MVP talk, Morant still managed to make his latest viral night about everyone. “Only right to make history on a night she’s here to watch me.” A leap is supposed to be short-lived defiance of gravity, but nothing feels remotely temporary about the jumps Ja Morant is making. More is coming. The Grizzlies gladly scooped up Morant, though even they could not have foreseen the supernova he has become. Steven Adams’ full-court inbound pass for a token end-quarter shot attempt found Morant. The newly minted All-Star didn’t want for gravity to bring the ball to him. Heading into the 2019 Draft, he was widely considered the consolation prize to Zion Williamson, who has played 85 games since New Orleans drafted him No. 1 overall. Morant’s aerial exploits on Monday were borderline Kryptonian, as both big men and buzzers were vanquished in single bounds.

Ja Morant notched franchise records with 52 points and 22 field goals to lift the host Memphis Grizzlies (43-20) to a 118-105 (42-34, 26-24, 28-27, 22-20) .

San Antonio exploited the interior before Murray's pullup jumper cut the deficit to five points with 5:59 left in the fourth quarter. He sank three 3-pointers and three additional baskets prior to halftime. Ja Morant notched franchise records with 52 points and 22 field goals to lift the host Memphis Grizzlies (43-20) to a 118-105 (42-34, 26-24, 28-27, 22-20) victory over the San Antonio Spurs (24-38) on Monday.

Ja Morant threw down a massive dunk over seven-footer Jakob Poeltl and scored a career-high 52 points as the Grizzlies beat the Spurs.

“It’s got to be the 50 [points],” Morant said when asked what was most memorable, adding: “I’m thankful for my teammates, my coaches. So, you combine that cerebral part of his game with his athleticism and you’ve got a special kid.” “He’s a beautiful player,” Popovich said of Morant. “What else can you say about him? Jump ball.” The arena was still buzzing from Morant’s fast-break slam late in the second quarter when Steven Adams delivered a length-of-the-court pass to Morant, who caught it mid-air and flipped in a buzzer-beater from the left baseline for a 68-58 halftime lead. Everybody says, ‘He’s athletic.’ Somebody says, ‘He’s a freak of nature,’ because he’s so fast.

The Memphis star's latest masterpiece is one we won't soon forget, featuring an all-time posterization, one of the greatest buzzer-beaters in NBA history, ...

No other player in the league matches Morant’s combination of relentlessness, fluidity, finishing skill, leaping ability, and unabashed showmanship—the willingness to say fuck it and scale a mountain, and the capacity to not only reach the summit but break the whole thing down to gravel once you get there. Since Christmas, he’s averaging more than 30 points, six rebounds, and six assists per game while making more than half of his shots, which is something that only Michael Jordan has ever done for a full season. He’d tack on a couple of free throws in the closing minutes of Memphis’s 118-105 win, finishing with 52 points in just 34 minutes of work. Ja scored 34 points in the paint on Monday—the fifth-highest number any NBA player has produced in the past quarter-century, and more than double his already-league-leading season average. And, just when you think he’s reached his grand finale, he reaches into that impossibly deep bag of tricks and unveils an even more astonishing encore. (That’s right: A 6-foot-3 point guard averages more points in the paint than Giannis Antetokounmpo and Nikola Jokic.) He also made just four free throws; only nine other 50-balls since the NBA-ABA merger in 1976 have featured fewer freebies. That forced the Grizz to play a tight game … which forced Morant, who’d already put up 29 and a pair of highlights that’d lead off most players’ career mixtapes, to keep his foot on the gas. His teammates just kept feeding him, and the Spurs just kept obliging him, and before you knew it—thanks in part to Adams diving out of bounds to save a loose ball and Jaren Jackson Jr. hustling to snare a steal and hunt for his running buddy on the perimeter—Ja Morant had not only his first career 50-point game, but the first in the 26-year history of the Grizzlies franchise. As if he hadn’t terrorized Poeltl enough, Morant just kept pounding the Spurs’ drop pick-and-roll coverage, drawing the San Antonio center out to the perimeter before exploding past him into the lane again, and again, and again. It struck me on Monday night, as I watched Ja Morant dunk Jakob Poeltl into the ninth circle of hell, that the Grizzlies superstar occupies a kindred but inverse space. Except that, with Morant, you might only have to wait a couple of minutes for another serving. (This take has always undersold the quieter but no less remarkable aspects of athleticism—the dexterity, balance, hand-eye coordination, and agility—that have made Curry a two-time MVP, but still: you get it.)