Pacific Notes: Morris, Griffin, Randle

The Suns will try to trade Markieff Morris before the deadline, but the team isn’t facing immediate pressure, at least in terms of Morris’ contract, to deal him away this season, observes Paul Coro of The Arizona Republic. Morris, who’s under contract for three seasons after this one, hinted at a willingness to stay in Phoenix for the rest of 2015/16 in his comments after Wednesday’s game about his shoving incident with Archie Goodwin, according to Coro. “That’s my little brother and we’re going to move forward,” Morris said of the incident. “There’s no hard feelings. It was a tough loss but we’re going to regroup and get back after this break and do some things.

Here’s more from the Pacific Division:

  • Virtually every team in the league has checked in with the Clippers regarding the availability of power forward Blake Griffin, but Los Angeles has rebuffed all of them and has no intention on softening its stance against dealing the star, Sean Deveney of The Sporting News notes.
  • Lakers coach Byron Scott is pleased with how power forward Julius Randle is maturing as a player and a person, Mark Medina of The Los Angeles Daily News writes. “He’s been fantastic,” Scott said of Randle. “He’s not going overboard as far as trying to go too fast. He’s picking his moments and he’s rebounded the hell out of the ball.
  • Luke Walton is more than likely going to remain a Warriors assistant for the remainder of the season despite the young coach being linked to virtually every available coaching post, Tim Kawakami of The Bay Area News Group writes. The scribe cites Walton’s loyalty, the team’s unwillingness to tamper with its winning formula and the low probability that Walton would jump to a team that presses him to make a move in the middle of the season as reasons why he believes the coach will finish 2015/16 in Golden State.
  • The Suns assigned shooting guard Jordan McRae to their D-League affiliate, Coro tweets. McRae, whom Phoenix inked to a second 10-day deal Monday, is with Bakersfield so he can participate in the D-League All-Star game this weekend, Coro adds.
View Comments (0)