Ja Morant Is Finally Free To Play Basketball Again Now That His 25 Game Suspension Is Over
Dylan Buell. Getty Images.Finally, Ja Morant's 25 game suspension has come to an end. Whether you think he deserved that 25 game suspension for his actions on social media is a different topic for a different blog, but at the end of the day Morant has paid the price for his stupidity and can finally get back to doing what makes him must watch stuff every second he's on the floor.
The last we saw of Ja, he was putting 25/6.8/7.0 on 42/41% for the Grizzlies in their 6 game series against the Lakers (where they lost 3 of 4 to lose the series), and since that was around 8 months ago there's a decent chance some out there may have forgotten just how good Ja Morant is. That's fine, I'd love to be the one to remind you
The unfortunate news is that Morant returns to a Grizzlies team that is a bit of a disaster, mostly through no fault of their own. Still without Brandon Clarke due to his achilles tear, the Grizzlies lost Steven Adams (a very important piece for them) for the season before things even started. Luke Kennard, one of their snipers, has played only 8 games this season. Marcus Smart has been hurt for multiple weeks now and has only played 13 games. Derrick Ro=se has played only 15. The injury luck with the Grizzlies has been as brutal as any team in the league, and that's not really anyone's fault.
As a result, they sit at just 8-19 and 7.5 games out of the 10th spot in the West. Having Ja back will certainly help, Smart is slated to be back within the next few days as well, and once that happens I imagine the Grizzlies will start to actually win games (currently lost 5 in a row). Whenever the star and franchise player gets hit with a 25 game suspension you already know that pretty much cooks the season, but when you add in all the major injuries to key guys on top of that suspension, it's no surprise that the team craters to the bottom of the league.
The issue for the Grizzlies moving forward now with these guys back is who the hell are they going to catch?
Which team above them is going to fall back enough to where MEM can maybe sneak into the Play In? Barring injury, maybe the Rockets? I dunno, they feel more like a team on the rise than one about to collapse. Eventually, the Suns will get their trio healthy, and even still they own a pretty sizable lead as of now. So while it's fun that the Grizzlies are getting Ja back because watching him play baskteball rules, it does feel like they've dug themselves too deep a whole for any of it to matter all that much. Maybe they can be a spoiler as we move throughout the season and the top 10 teams are all jockeying for position, but in terms of the Grizzlies themselves playing their way into the dance? I'm not sure I see it for this season.
Now that the Grizzlies have gone through it and seen the results and the Warriors are currently going through it with not so great results, it's pretty clear that massive suspensions to star players is pretty important when it comes to team success. Why these guys can't understand that and continue to put their franchises in tough spots is beyond me, but hopefully as someone who enjoys watching Ja Morant play basketball, he's going to stay off IG lives with his guns. It's clearly not worth it and you could make the case it played a massive role in burying the 2023-24 Grizzlies season. That's tough.