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Ja Morant, who plays basketball as if he is on a trampoline, might bounce so high that his ceiling is becoming the greatest player on the planet.
Morant and the Memphis Grizzlies are on national TV five times in the next three weeks — twice apiece on TNT and NBATV, and once on ESPN.
Grizzlies-Celtics on Thursday night was actually flexed into TNT, in place of Nets-Heat, amid a torrid stretch of exciting play in which Morant has set NBA social media records. It’s highly conceivable that he could be the next face of the NBA.
“The ceiling for a guy like that would be as high as you can go — the best player in the league,” Stan Van Gundy, who is calling Thursday’s game for TNT, told The Post.
“He’s in the top tier of guys right now. Certainly the best player in the world would be his ceiling.”
Sometimes, not getting what you want can wind up for the best.
In the 2019 NBA Draft lottery, there was a viral video of staffers in the Pelicans sales and marketing department going bananas over winning the lottery for Zion Williamson.
On the other side of the coin, Grizzlies fans were inconsolable about losing out on what was thought to be a once-in-a-generation phenom.
Morant ended up being one heck of a consolation prize. In many cases, the best ability is availability and that’s one of the biggest areas where Morant and Williamson have diverged.
“Clearly, Ja has just played a lot more games and so he’s made a bigger impact and the team has taken off,” said Van Gundy, who coached Williamson and the Pelicans last season.
“Zion only played 24 games in his rookie season, 61 games last year and hasn’t played this season. There’s been no question on who’s made the bigger impact, and it’s basically been health. But, it’s very, very early on. Zion hasn’t exactly struggled when he’s played. He averaged over 27 points a game last year, shooting over 60 percent. It’s just been a health thing has been the difference between them, and Ja is now having an unbelievable year.”
Earlier this week, Fox Sports host Colin Cowherd generated a mini-controversy in NBA circles when he said he was “very skeptical” of “springy, athletic” guards like Morant, citing Derrick Rose, John Wall and Russell Westbrook as other explosive players who have not ultimately won a championship.
“The guys that knock your socks off, the little guys that drive to the basket because they’re not great shooters, do not last,” Cowherd said.
“[O]hhh colin,” Morant responded on Twitter.
Van Gundy disputed the notion that Morant is destined to have his career shortened by injuries.
“Look, I don’t think you can judge from [his explosiveness],” Van Gundy said. “Probably the best comparison for him in terms of playing style and athleticism is Derrick Rose and he ended up hurt a lot and that’s where people are going.
“But, Michael Jordan was one of the most explosive people ever to come in the league, and he played every game, every year, big minutes — and was fine. I don’t know that you can just say, ‘Well the explosive guys are more vulnerable to getting hurt.’ But there have been plenty of explosive guys who haven’t been injury prone and if I’m the Memphis Grizzlies, I’m not really worried about it right now.”
Morant, in his defiance of gravity, has become a social media sensation. Against the Spurs on Monday, he had an absurd posterization dunk followed by a first-half buzzer-beater with no comparable highlight that immediately comes to mind.
On Wednesday, the NBA announced that Morant’s buzzer-beater had driven 42.1 million views on Instagram, the most watched video on that platform in league history. Since then, it’s climbed to over 50 million views.
TV viewership is headed upward for Grizzlies games as well. According to Nielsen ratings, through seven games on ESPN, TNT and NBA TV, the Grizzlies are averaging 841K viewers, up 42 percent compared to the first seven Grizzlies games on ESPN, TNT and NBA TV last season. If you take NBA TV out of the equation, their games on ESPN and TNT are averaging 1.11 million viewers, up 12 percent from last year.
Local ratings in Memphis are up 13 percent versus last year, and 157 percent from two years ago in the team’s first 56 games.
The Grizzlies are 43-20, good for the third-best record in the Western Conference. They were at 60/1 odds to win the West earlier this season, and are now at 10/1 to reach the NBA Finals. Morant was 45/1 to win NBA MVP prior to the season, and now he is 10/1, trailing only Joel Embiid, Nikola Jokic and Giannis Antetokounmpo.
The Grizzlies have good chemistry, and seem to really enjoy playing with each other.
Second-year forward Desmond Bane is shooting over 43 percent from 3-point range. Jaren Jackson has blossomed into one of the best defenders in the league, and is second in the NBA to Rudy Gobert in blocks per game.
Tyus Jones has been one of the best backup point guards in the NBA, which helped considerably when Morant missed 14 games and the Grizzlies went 12-2. Steven Adams was a great acquisition; the Grizzlies parted with star rebounder Jonas Valanciunas to bring in Adams, who sets robust screens and has helped the team with his passing.
His popularity suggests that it doesn’t seem to matter that Morant plays in one of the NBA’s smallest markets.
It’s an interesting question of how much market size still matters in sports as far as the marketability for individual athletes. LeBron James had no issue driving massive engagement from Cleveland in either of his stops there. Aaron Rodgers and Patrick Mahomes do just fine in the attention department from Green Bay and Kansas City.
Is it an anachronism that a star player still needs to play in a major market like New York, Los Angeles or Chicago to drive maximum exposure?
“As far as marketability, I think you can come from anywhere now,” Van Gundy said. “Not just in the country but worldwide, everything is close. We’re in an age where it doesn’t matter where you are.”
Van Gundy noted that Memphis has a smaller fan base locally than, say, the Knicks or Lakers, but for national marketing purposes it’s not a huge inhibitor.
“Now, there may be times where other considerations come into play,” he said. “People made a lot of LeBron James having business interests in Los Angeles as one of the reasons that he wanted to get there. There’s certain cities that certain guys will find more desirable to live in. But as far as just marketing a player, I don’t think it matters where you are now.”
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