Ja Morant produced the first triple double of his young career today with 27 points, 10 rebounds, and 10 assists in a 106-99 win against the Washington Wizards. He did this while shooting 9 of 17 from the field (albeit 2 of 7 from beyond the arc). He also finished with the game’s best plus/minus rating of +16.
That performance kept the Memphis Grizzlies on top of the race for the final playoff spot in the Western Conference.
His teammates have been playing well, for sure, including fellow lottery pick Jaren Jackson Jr., who was the fourth pick in the 2018 NBA Draft. The two of them (who are currently both 20), are leading the Grizzlies in scoring with each scoring 17.4 points per game.
While Jackson is also showing great promise, it’s Morant’s electric play that has had Grizzlies fans buzzing all season. His combination of speed, explosiveness, and fearlessness makes him a must-watch player.
Morant got compared to De’Aaron Fox before the draft, and when comparing his rookie numbers to the Fox’s rookie numbers, Morant looks pretty good. The caveat though, is that Fox wasn’t fully given the keys to the offense until his second year. We’ll talk about that a bit more later.
As one of the important pieces of the Grizzlies’ offense, Morant’s production has been solid. He’s shooting more efficiently in his rookie year while also taking more shots: 49.6% on 13.3 shots compared to 41.2% on 10.9 shots for Fox. he’s also shooting a better clip from the three point line on an almost identical frequency (38.3% on 2.1 3PA vs 30.7% on 2.0 3PA). Additionally, he is also producing 7.0 assists per game compared to Fox’s rookie tally of 4.3.
Why are these numbers important? Because of the big step that Fox took into his second year, where he was finally unshackled by then-coach Dave Joerger.
Fox responded to the added responsibility with the following numbers: 17.3 PPG, 45.8 FG%, 37.1 3P%, 7.3 APG, and 1.6 SPG. He vaulted himself into the national spotlight by leading the Kings to a surprising ninth place in the Western Conference – before they decided to implode toward the end of last season and have continued the trend to this season.
Morant is matching or surpassing most of Fox’s second-year numbers already, which is a pretty good indicator for his own sophomore leap. He might slow down a bit toward the end of the season, as teams start to create better game plans to counter him. That could continue next year as well.
As of now, it’s safe to say that Ja Morant is the real goddamn deal, and he has the potential to help push the Memphis Grizzlies into the Western Conference elite as the rest of the league’s top teams get older.
Just in case you haven’t seen a lot of Grizzlies games this season, watch the video below to get a taste of Morant.
The Grizzlies have done a great job building from the draft, and look like they also got a great piece in Jonas Valanciunas from the Marc Gasol trade. Not a lot of teams can say that they sent a beloved star to get his title while getting a great piece in return.
With the playoffs still up for grabs, I’m willing to bet that Morant still has a couple of monster games left in him before the 2019-20 regular season is over.
