Ja Morant’s first game back after the Memphis Grizzlies suspended him for conduct detrimental to the team didn’t exactly go as planned. Morant scored 20 points and dished out 10 assists, but shot just 5 of 16 from the floor and turned the ball over five times in a 114-106 home loss to the Detroit Pistons. That dropped Memphis to 3-5, the last three losses having come in a row as part of the ongoing drama surrounding Morant, who called out his coaching staff following Friday’s loss to the Los Angeles Lakers.
With an absolutely brutal schedule stretch coming and several key players still injured, the Grizzlies really need to unite if they’re going to seize control of their season. While Morant didn’t explicitly fan the flames in his first public comments since the suspension, he did little to calm the situation down, either.
When a reporter asked him if everything had been resolved, Morant responded with a question. “Y’all asked that question to them, huh?” he said, before adding that the reporters should know the answer because they had already asked coach Tuomas Iisalo, who, before Monday’s game, said that they “had a discussion and we’re all looking to move forward and beat the Pistons tonight.” When the reporter persisted, Morant responded “yea, they told y’all that, right? There you go. Obviously they can’t go and tell y’all something I didn’t say.”
When another reporter asked if he has the same joy that we’re used to seeing from him, Morant said “no.” When asked why, he shrugged, and when asked what would need to happen for him to get it back, he responded, “we’ll see.” When asked if he thinks he has a good relationship with the franchise, he said “yea, they told y’all that, right? If I didn’t have a good relationship with them I wouldn’t talk to them at all.” And finally, when a reporter asked if he had any regrets about the way he played on Friday, he asked in response if “that’s your home run question? It sounds like a bait question.”
One of the issues reportedly at the center of Morant’s tension with the coaching staff were their rotations. Morant had not played more than 32 minutes in any game thus far this season coming into Monday’s bout with the Pistons, and Iisalo had been removing him from the game for a stretch of each quarter rather than giving him a single, extended break in each half as most stars receive. While Morant played a season-high 35 minutes against the Pistons, he did sit for short stretches in each quarter, likely to accommodate Memphis’ pace, which currently ranks No. 7 in the NBA.
Whether Morant and Iisalo will be able to find common ground over time remains to be seen. Morant’s minutes on Monday represent a slight compromise, but Iisalo maintained his basic substitution pattern, and while Morant didn’t criticize him directly, the acknowledgment that he lacks his usual joy coupled with the somewhat abrasive tone of some of his answers suggests that there is more work to be done here in getting everyone on the same page.
With so many key players injured, the Grizzlies need Morant at his best moving forward if they are going to avoid a huge hole early in the season. They are already 3-5, and their next three games are at home against the Rockets, Mavericks and Thunder. After that, they depart for one of the hardest road trips on their schedule: at the Knicks, Celtics, Cavaliers and Spurs. If Memphis isn’t careful, they could easily return from that trip several games below .500 in one of the deepest Western Conferences we’ve seen in years. The time to mend fences is now, and only time will tell if Morant and the Grizzlies will be able to do so.
