For those who didn’t see Ja Morant’s superstar turn coming this quickly, don’t feel bad—neither did the defenders who are paid to stay in front of the springy point guard.
On Monday, the Memphis floor general notched 52 points in a win over the Spurs—marking the first 50-point game in Grizzlies franchise history—a showing that came one game after Morant had tallied a career-best 46 points on the road against a first-place Chicago Bulls club.
In the midst of his ascent, there’s one unstoppable play the first-time All-Star has made better use of than anyone else in the league. Specifically, when defenses try to step up and seal off his path to the basket with two men near the top of the arc, the slippery Morant detours on a dime by splitting the duo while racing toward the basket.
And as we saw on Monday night: when Morant takes off from anywhere inside the three-point line, no rim protector is safe.
The 6-foot-3 Morant’s compact nature and otherworldly quickness allow him to pull off the move, which he’s shot a blistering 60% on so far this season, according to data from Synergy Sports.
He’s certainly not the only ballhandler to make use of pick-and-roll splits. Utah’s Donovan Mitchell excels at it, as does Oklahoma City’s Shai Gilgeous-Alexander. But it’s a particularly smart, devastating play for Morant to use given that 1) big man and screener Steven Adams is one of the NBA’s absolute best at setting picks that take opposing guards out of the play and 2) opposing bigs are petrified to come up too far against Morant, knowing one burst from him will result in them seeing his locs from behind as he puts down a layup or a dunk.
That’s the Catch 22 Morant has created this year, by shooting a career-best percentage at both the rim and at the three-point line (where he shot 4-for-4 last night). If you go under his screen, he’ll raise up and knock down a triple. When you play him aggressively and have your big man come up high, Morant speedily slithers around him and finishes well at the rim. If you sit the rim protector at the rim in a more traditional fashion, perhaps you can bait Morant into settling for a midrange jumper, where he’s struggled a bit this season. But more likely than not, he’ll see the space as a launching pad and decide to jump over the top of your 7-footer instead, in the same way that two-time MVP Giannis Antetokounmpo has done for years.
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It explains how Morant shot 22-of-30 last night with 26 of those attempts coming from two-point range. And it highlights how the Grizzlies, who’ve stunned the NBA by logging the third-best record thus far, manage to feast even when Morant’s shots misfire. His misses—and Memphis’s putbacks—have generated more value than any other player’s in basketball since the third-year guard came into the league.
That’s the sign of a superstar, where the defense can’t rest for a single moment, even after managing to force a miss, because of how much he dictates the positioning on the floor. And yes: As the past few days have illustrated, it’s clear that Morant’s superstar turn has arrived.
