Ja Morant Traded to the Trail Blazers for Jerami Grant and Kris Murray, and the Fit Is Weird
The Portland Trail Blazers made the wildest trade of the offseason Tuesday when they acquired Ja Morant from the Memphis Grizzlies for Jerami Grant, Kris Murray, and a million dollars in cash.
You read that right. A million dollars.
The 2020 Rookie of the Year and two-time All-Star is now a Blazer. The fit is confusing. The upside is enormous. And the Damian Lillard situation just got very interesting.
Let us start with what Memphis got. Jerami Grant is a legitimate rotation forward on a bloated contract with two years left at $35 million per. Kris Murray is a young wing on a rookie deal who has shown flashes. The Grizzlies cleared some salary, added youth, and washed their hands of the Morant era.
Given all the drama Morant brought over the last three years, including the gun-related suspensions and the constant injury issues, Memphis probably had to take this deal. Morant played just 79 games over the last three seasons. He was becoming impossible to build around.
Portland now has to figure out what its backcourt looks like. The team already had Damian Lillard, Scoot Henderson, and Jrue Holiday. Adding Morant creates a legitimate traffic jam at guard.
General manager Joe Cronin is essentially betting that some of those guards will move at some point. Scoot Henderson is the most obvious trade candidate. He has not developed the way Portland hoped, and adding Morant makes him fully expendable. There are already reports circulating that other teams are calling about him.
Jrue Holiday is 36 years old and expensive. He is a rental piece for a contender at this point in his career, and Portland is not a contender. Moving him for picks would make sense.
That leaves Lillard and Morant as the projected backcourt. Which is, on paper, a wildly fun idea. On the court, it is a defensive nightmare. Two undersized guards. Neither of whom guards. Both of whom demand touches.
Head coach Chauncey Billups has some serious math to do.
The trade also raises the immediate question of Morant contract status. He makes an average of $43 million over the next two years. That is a lot for a player with his health history. Portland is essentially betting that they can rehab his value enough to either compete for a playoff spot or flip him for a bigger star down the road.
Morant himself is presumably thrilled. He gets a fresh start. He gets away from the Memphis market where every off-court incident became a national story. He gets to play with Lillard, who is one of the friendliest superstars in the league.
The Blazers envision a starting lineup of Lillard, Morant, and Deni Avdija at small forward, with two big men rotating through. That is a small-ball, high-tempo, offense-first look. The West is loaded with better defenses than what Portland is bringing. Playoff seeding is going to be a slog.
But Portland was going nowhere the way it was. Now they have a name that puts butts in seats and a legitimate top-25 player when he is healthy. That is progress.
Ja Morant in Portland. Nobody had that on their offseason bingo card. But here we are.
A longtime sports reporter, Carlos Garcia has written about some of the biggest and most notable athletic events of the last 5 years. He has been credentialed to cover MLS, NBA and MLB games all over the United States. His work has been published on Fox Sports, Bleacher Report, AOL and the Washington Post.
