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The Trail Blazers kicked off their first offseason under new ownership in astonishing fashion Monday afternoon, trading veteran forward Jerami Grant and former first-round pick Kris Murray to the Memphis Grizzlies for embattled point guard Ja Morant.
The Blazers’ acquisition of Morant, the latest in the Portland franchise’s shocks to the NBA system, appears to be the precursor to an even splashier deal sometime over the next 48 hours, given that the team now has far more guards than it can reasonably play. (The NBA’s free agency period begins Tuesday afternoon at 3 pm Pacific.)
Once thought of as a potential future face of the NBA, Morant has seen his reputation and value disintegrate over the course of the past three years due to a series of off-court controversies.
In March 2023, Morant, then 23 and at the height of his superstardom, was suspended by the NBA for eight games in the wake of an incident at a Denver strip club that saw him flash a handgun while streaming on Instagram Live. The incident took place just a few weeks after Morant’s second All-Star appearance; Morant had also found himself embroiled in controversy that January after an SUV driven by his friends was alleged to have pointed a laser (theorized to be connected to a gun) at the Indiana Pacers team bus, though Morant was not suspended or personally implicated. Once he returned from his suspension and the Grizzlies were eliminated from the playoffs, Morant inexplicably again brandished a handgun on Instagram Live, and was subsequently suspended for another 25 games.
The ensuing years have seen Morant either injured—he has played in just 79 games over the past three seasons as a result of shoulder, ankle and elbow injuries—or embroiled in further controversies, including being the target of a since-dismissed lawsuit that alleged he had attacked a 17-year-old who had thrown a basketball at his face in a game played in Morant’s backyard in Memphis.
The Grizzlies have spent much of the past year trying to trade Morant, ESPN’s Brian Windhorst having recently described Morant as being “flagrantly available.” The Grizzlies’ meager return in the form of the Blazers’ Grant and Murray reveals just how far his value has cratered.
When healthy, Morant, now 26, remains an undeniably talented player, a true point guard with elite vision who elevates his teammates and tries to dunk on people as if his life depends on embarrassing the man on the other end of his posterization. With his Memphis kingdom in ashes last season, Morant struggled, playing his worst season and shooting a career low from 3-point range. But he remains an uncanny playmaker, and his 89% free throw percentage would seem to indicate his shot will come back around. (It should also be noted that Morant remains one of the players whom Nike has continued to invest in, as he remains massively popular with Gen Z.)
Morant remains under contract for the next two seasons. He will make $42 million next season, making him the Blazers’ highest-paid player. Damian Lillard—who NBATV’s Chris Haynes reports will start alongside Morant in a two-point guard lineup—will make a mere $13 million after re-signing at a discount with the team last summer, in part because he is still being paid huge sums by Milwaukee after they decided to waive him and stretch his contract. Lillard will have a player option after this season.
Whether Morant will retain his distinction as the team’s largest salary is the most pressing question raised by the Blazers choosing to acquire him. As stated, it seems likely that his acquisition is a prelude to a bigger deal. The team has spent much of the past week attached to trade rumors around Boston Celtics superstar forward Jaylen Brown.
Initially, it seemed as though the Morant trade would end such speculation, as Grant had been assumed to be the player whose salary would make such a deal possible financially. However—unless the team defies consensus and reroutes Morant, a highly unlikely event—they have one more player whose salary could facilitate a Brown trade: Jrue Holiday, who will make $35 million next season. (Brown stands to make $57 million.)
Holiday, as a guard on a team that now has more good guards than it can play, may be one of the odd men out. In such a deal, he would be packaged with huge future draft capital and some of the team’s young players. The question would be which of them the team would be willing to include.
Portland has reportedly balked at including center Donovan Clingan and power forward Toumani Camara, both of whom are ace defenders who’d be needed to solidify a tiny Morant-Lillard backcourt. The team has also reportedly declared All-Star small forward Deni Avdija to be untouchable. Scoot Henderson and Shaedon Sharpe—both former lottery picks once thought to be the team’s backcourt of the future—have been tied to a deal for Brown.
If Boston wanted one or both of Henderson and Sharpe in a package including Holiday and picks, that deal probably already would have happened. The Celtics should want more star power, given how big of a star they would be moving on from. Something has to give. It seems inconceivable, but in order to land Brown the team may have to consider including Avdija.
Avdija, 25, was a revelation last season, averaging 24 points, seven assists and seven rebounds and solidifying himself as an All-Star caliber downhill force. But he’s also at the peak of his value—currently signed to an outrageously team-friendly contract that will pay him $25 million over his next two seasons. Avdija is also much less effective when he plays in an off-ball role, and with Lillard and Morant entering the fold next season, his role would shift.
If the goal is to build around Avdija, and you knew that Lillard was set to return to the lineup, Morant making $42 million a year would be the last sort of player you would think the team would be trying to surround him with. The move makes less and less sense the more you examine it.
This statement, however, could be true of many of the things that the Blazers have done over the past year. In any event, the team can’t possibly be done making moves. They are now—as they say in England—in for a penny, in for a pound.
Whether they choose to again shock the world and include a player of Avdija’s caliber, or even part with elite complementary pieces like Clingan and/or Camara in a potential trade built around some of their provisional guards and draft picks, the Blazers appear poised to continue to shake things up. If nothing else, it can never be said that the new regime lacks audacity.
