Ja Morant trade details: Trail Blazers get former All-Star, ending Grizzlies recruitment

The Portland Trail Blazers are acquiring Ja Morant from the Memphis Grizzlies, according to ESPN. The deal would send Jerami Grant and Kris Murray to Memphis. The deal ends Morant’s successful yet controversial tenure in Memphis after seven seasons.

Morant, the No. 2 overall pick in the 2019 NBA Draft, won Rookie of the Year with the Grizzlies in 2020 and was the NBA’s Most Improved Player in 2022. At the beginning of that tenure in Memphis, he was one of the best scoring forces in the NBA and looked like he was in the NBA’s prime.

But injuries over the years sapped much of his ability as a driver. He never developed a reliable 3-point shot or became a consistently impactful defender. After a series of off-court incidents that led to multiple suspensions, Morant’s relationship with the Grizzlies soured again early last season, when he questioned how new Grizzlies coach Tuomas Iisalo was being used. Memphis tried to trade him at the February deadline, but is now moving on before free agency begins this season.

Morant, who turns 27 in August, played in just 20 games last season and was sidelined in January due to elbow strain.

Now he’ll try to resurrect his career in Portland, and he’ll do so on a team with some star guards. Damian Lillard and Jrue Holiday are in place, and Deni Avdija just made his first All-Star team as the head football manager in Portland. There are real questions about the fit in Portland, but if he can get back on track, this is a step down for a player with superstar talent. So how did both sides do on trade? We rate the deal below.

Portland Trail Blazers: D+

What they got: Ja Morant

Auto-judgment: A low-swing buyout of a star-level talent that makes little sense in the context of their program

The takeaway from this trade for the Blazers is that they successfully acquired the latest All-NBA-level talent. Kris Murray was a good defensive wing, but he was eligible for an extension and is unlikely to contribute to the team’s future given his shooting issues. Jerami Grant was a bad contract. While his shooting rebounded last season after he stopped making 2s in the 2024-25 campaign, he’s no longer a defender or a rebounder and turns the ball over more often to a role player.

The Blazers, in effect, turned the $76 million or so in salary owed to Grant and Murray over the next two years into the $87 million owed to Morant at the time, though Morant has a 15% trade kick that could increase that figure if he doesn’t waive it. There were no draft picks involved. Getting the All-Stars to come to Portland has never been easier. This is a level of talent the Blazers rarely reach. They took a swing. If it connects, this could be a great trade.

But man, the fit here is weird. Let’s start with the obvious. Why was Memphis so eager to dump Morant? Obviously off-the-court issues factored into that decision, but more than anything, Morant has been on the decline as a player for several years now. Morant’s entire proposition as an elite player was that his ability to get to the basket was so versatile on offense that his team couldn’t match his weaknesses in other areas. But when you actually look at his year-to-year numbers, his decline as a scorer has dragged down basically every other part of his game.

Morant has never been a reliable 3-point shooter. He needs the ball in his hands to succeed. If he doesn’t use the ball to attack the basket and score the basket consistently, the value he provides to his team is minimal. This is a problem because Portland still has a lot of players who need football.

The Blazers envision Morant starting next to Damian Lillard in their backcourt, according to Chris Haynes. Lillard is also a former All-NBA point guard. You will need a little bit of football too. Both are undersized point guards who weren’t really defensive even when healthy. They are now the worst frontcourt starting defense in the NBA. Having Toumani Camara up front and Donovan Clingan at center helps, but when the Blazers traded for Jrue Holiday last summer, it seemed like they were getting ready to go all out on defense and versatility. This is a sharp turn in the opposite direction.

We haven’t even spoken to Deni Avdija yet. By orders of magnitude, he is the best player on this team. He just made his first All-Star team mainly by running Portland’s offense. He was already one of the best rebounders in the NBA. Is it really Portland the need another, especially since Avdija doesn’t come with nearly as many questions? Remember: The Blazers had the third-lowest 3-point range in the NBA last season, and they just traded Grant, their best 3-point shooter last season, for Morant, who is shooting a career-high 31.1%. Who splits the floor here besides Lillard? The silver lining here is that Avdija’s defense took a big step back last year as his offensive role grew. Maybe with less usage his defense is back to where it was?

Another irony is that Avdija is on the best contract in the NBA. At just $13.1 million, his contract is essentially unaffordable under most circumstances. The only way Portland can do this next summer is if they create room to renegotiate his contract first. Acquiring Morant added money to their books, making it less likely that they would actually be able to pay Avdjia before he becomes a free agent in 2028. How will Avdija feel if this deal not only makes the Blazers worse, but also robs them of the flexibility to pay him early? There is a real world where this trade helps push Avdija out the door.

We haven’t even talked about Portland’s other two key guards, who are very young here. The Blazers signed Shaedon Sharpe to a four-year, $90 million extension last season. Scoot Henderson, the No. 3 pick in the 2023 NBA Draft, is eligible for a rookie extension, and while he hasn’t reached his draft position yet, he made real progress last season as a shooter, defender and processor. Are they just viewed as backups now? Is it a holiday? How do some of them feel about that? Are they people who will trade? ESPN reported after the trade that Portland isn’t chasing Jaylen Brown, so one potential solution to this guard glut is now off the table. However, there are not enough minutes here for all the guards in the area. Some kind of follow-up is needed to make this trade make sense, and until we see it, it’s hard not to doubt Portland’s plan here.

To Morant’s credit, he started to look a lot better in his last few games. He played eight games in December and January, scored 22 points at his best clip of the year, and got to the rim more often than ever in October and November. He will only be 27 years old on opening night. Maybe there is still a star here. That opportunity cannot be directly dismissed.

But if there isn’t a big star there, it’s unclear how Morant will function on this roster. He doesn’t have the skills of a player. He’s small, he doesn’t defend and he doesn’t shoot consistently. Either he’s the main ball manager here, where he lessens the impact of Lillard and Avdija, or he’s not, and he may end up being a very expensive backup. Neither result here is correct. This is one of the more confusing trades of the offseason.

Memphis Grizzlies: B-

What they got: Jerami Grant and Kris Murray

Judgment by default: Addition by subtraction as the Grizzlies turn the page on their next season

The Grizzlies were never going to get a significant amount of Morant’s possessions, but they didn’t really need to. They made a big comeback when they dealt with Desmond Bane and Jaren Jackson Jr. so much so that they could get a small package with Morant’s deal. Considering the report that they might have to attach some cash to move Morant, they’ve done well here.

Grant is overpaid, but he is a true NBA player whose shooting can help develop his younger players. Murray is another lottery ticket in the division. They saved 11 million dollars in two years. This package, in the end, was a good net for Memphis.

Above all, this includes subtraction. The Grizzlies wanted to give the team a full run on No. 3 pick Cameron Boozer. Keeping Morant in the building after everything that has happened in the last few years would be impossible. They needed to turn the page on that era of franchise history, and now they have.

The youth movement is in full swing. The Grizzlies are very flexible financially and loaded with future draft assets. Even if the package itself wasn’t particularly strong, the Grizzlies did what they needed to do with this deal in their massive rebuilding process. Morant’s season was a disappointment, but the next one has the potential to be even better.