Another top 2019 prospect will undergo a procedure before this month’s NBA draft, according to ESPN’s Adrian Wojnarowski, who reports (via Twitter) that Murray State point guard Ja Morant is having a minor scope performed on his right knee on Monday.
The procedure, which will remove a “loose body” from the knee, isn’t considered a serious one. Wojnarowski writes that Morant is expected to be fully recovered in three or four weeks, though I’d be surprised if we see him suit up for his new team during Summer League play next month.
A Friday report indicated that Duke forward Cam Reddish is set to undergo core muscle surgery, so two of this year’s lottery picks will be in recovery mode on draft night. As is the case with Reddish though, this procedure shouldn’t affect Morant’s stock, since he’s still expected to be fully healthy for training camp in the fall.
Despite the fact that the Grizzlies are reportedly sending some “mixed messages” and have tried to get R.J. Barrett in for a workout, Memphis appears very likely to make Morant the No. 2 pick in the 2019 draft. Still, the club will do as much research as it can on the point guard’s knee issue to confirm it’s not a serious concern.
Memphis: you have Conley. Pass on Morant. Conley at 27m….you will have to eat some salary and get nothing in return. Good player….stupid contract.
They will easily get value for Conley
Memphis: Let go of Conley. You’re getting Morant. Conley deserves more exposure.
They’ll get something for Conley. I haven’t heard anyone suggest they’ll have to eat his contract. Either way, Conley’s on a different timeline from the rest of their team. He’s going to be on the downswing just when they hope to be making waves. My understanding is that they came close to trading Conley at the trade deadline last season (many reports to that effect from reputable sources).
On the other hand, Morant has amazing NBA potential. You never know for sure which rookies will become stars, but Morant fits a profile that rarely disappoints. He led his team to exceed all expectations and had elite averages last year at 24-5-10-2 on 50-36-81 shooting. There aren’t any concerns about size (standard for an NBA PG at 6’3) or athleticism (excellent, with a reported 42-inch vertical). The most common weakness cited for Morant is his 3P shot, but even that has improved tremendously over the past year, He shot a respectable 38% on threes after the New Year last season + it’s important to remember his 3P% (and FG%) has a different context from spot-up shooters. As the best player (by far) and primary ballhandler on his NCAA team, he was forced to shoot late in the clock and off the dribble much more often than the average draft prospect.
The same factors that apply to Morant this year applied to Doncic last year. Morant and Doncic have a similar profile as prospects. They both embraced tons of responsibility on over-performing teams and put up excellent stats in their pre-draft year. Both were up against players with lesser production but more prototypical “NBA-prospect”-type profiles. Passing on Doncic for Ayton and Bagley will likely go down among the biggest mistakes in NBA history. It may also haunt SAC for the next decade (since, unlike PHO, they have a strong enough young core that Doncic likely would have made them into a perennial contender).
And that’s true even though Ayton and Bagley both had good seasons. and seem likely to have productive NBA careers. Barrett will be hard-pressed to match their level of play, much less Doncic’s. He’s a shooting guard who shot 64% on FTs and 33% on 3Ps last year. Those aren’t red flags, they’re giant, virtually deafening red sirens. To be fair, it’s important to also note that Barrett scored at a very impressive rate. Yet, he did so on middling efficiency, and that was even with Zion attracting defenders and opening plays up for him.
Could Barrett get his shot together and become an NBA star? Of course that’s a possibility. However, based on how high draft picks with similar college %s have developed, it seems like a longshot. Barrett looks far more likely to have an Andrew Wiggins career than a Paul Pierce career. And if he does manage to tap into his best-case scenario, his upside still isn’t close to Morant’s upside. Morant and Zion both have all-time-great potential. You can’t predict anyone will necessarily reach that sort of stratospheric level, but they seem to have a real chance.
I’m not a big fan of the comparisons between Morant and Westbrook, as it seems to have little thought put into it, aside from both players being elite point guards with strong all-around games.. Morant has much more of a controlled, fluid playing style, with top-tier court vision and a knack for knowing when to shoot or pass, whether to keep the ball moving or slow things down, where to be on the court at all times, etc. Westbrook is an exceptionally (historically, even) explosive, instinct-driven bulldozer of a lead guard with a tendency to make questionable decisions and to hold the ball too long. I’m not saying Morant will be better… Westbrook’s explosiveness and effective aggression go a long way as far as mitigating his weaknesses. What I am saying is that Morant CAN be better and IS a very different sort of player.
There may not be an obvious comparison for Morant (I’ve wracked my brain for one, without real success), but a young Penny Hardaway seems like the closest one to me. Despite Hardaway’s 6’7 height giving him a different physical profile, their fluid playing styles, Magic/Bird-level reflexes and elite court vision are close matches. Hardaway made 1st-team All-NBA and finished 3rd in MVP voting (behind Jordan and David Robinson) the year before injuries derailed him. Almost everyone seems to think he would have been an MVP if he had a healthy average-length career.
He’s also an apt comparison for Morant in another way. ORL already had an above-average veteran PG (Scott Skiles at age 30) who put up good numbers (15-4-9 on 47-34-89 shooting) the year they traded down from #1 to #3 in the draft to take Hardaway (and get future picks). They finished 41-41 that year and were VERY lucky in the draft lottery. Skiles had demonstrated good chemistry with ORL’s franchise player, Shaq, and his stats over his past three seasons with the Magic were at least as impressive as Conley’s recent stats.
Yet, it was still the obviously correct move to draft Penny. If you get a chance to draft a potentially MVP-caliber PG as part of a young core, it really doesn’t matter if you have an above-average veteran PG who’s already on the roster.
The Blazers passed on Jordan because they already had Drexler. The Celtics passed on Tim Hardaway because they were thin on backup forwards. And I’m just realizing how bad that actually sounds. At the time, Dennis Johnson was 34 and on his last legs, but as far as they were concerned, they still had Johnson, Reggie Lewis and a promising rookie combo guard in Brian Shaw in the backcourt. Bird had missed the previous seasons with an injury, which was why BOS had an unusually high pick that season. I don’t think it’s an exaggeration to say making the right pick that year could have propelled BOS back into title contention during the 3-season mini-era when Bird and Reggie Lewis starred for them (They won between 51 and 56 games each of these seasons, despite having arguably the worst starting PGs in the league over that stretch. Meanwhile Tim Hardaway average 23-4-10 and made 2nd-team all-NBA. BOS’s pick rarely got off the bench and was cut after two seasons). BOS only had Bird to begin with because 6 teams were so stupid that, even though Bird was the consensus best talent in the draft that year, they picked somebody else due to not wanting to wait a year before Bird came to the NBA and positional needs. Kansas City had Sam Lacey, Bill Robinzine AND Darnell Hillman in their frontcourt, so they picked a guard instead of Bird (duh). GSW picked 5th and still passed on Bird for Purvis Short. Bird was a center in college and they had some solid Cs and PFs, having not yet traded Parish to BOS for some beads. So Purvis Short it was.
Of course, the point of those examples is that you don’t pass up somebody like Morant because another player might be a better positional fit. Or because you have a solid veteran at the generational prospect’s position. Those are the sorts of mistakes that cost teams championships. After the debacle of passing on Bird was followed by the debacle of passing on Jordan, teams started getting this right most of the time. But it’s still a common debate. And it shouldn’t be… fit as a consideration makes sense if you have all-NBA-level players at the only spots where a draft pick can logically play AND that draft pick isn’t projected to potentially be MVP level. In most cases, it’s best to just forget about fit with high draft picks.
Conley is currently a borderline all-star (he hasn’t made an all-star team, but he probably should have a couple of times). He’s at an age when PGs usually start declining. Let him go to a team hoping to contend over the next couple of years that needs an upgrade at PG (Indy, Lakers, etc.). And get started building an exciting young Memphis team with a core (Morant, JJJ, possibly Valanciunas) that will only improve over the years to come.
Agree. I compare his spurtiness to Irving, although Irving is more willing & able to just stop a move and reassess a situation. Some call it toying with the opponent. But Morant can be impatient and has fewer bail-out options than Irving with poise or Hardaway with height. It may take him a few years to cut the turnovers down.
He is too coordinated for 3pt shooting to be a problem. It’s not a bad thing he will be on a bad team, being a priority.
Well someone is trying to hit their 1000 word quota