“Right now, I’m happy, and that’s my main focus,” Morant said Monday. “I feel like a happy Ja is a scary Ja for a lot of people. So long as I stay happy and healthy, it’ll be a great season.”
Morant’s descent to near irrelevance was much faster than his ascent from a No. 2 overall draft pick to a fresh young face of both the Grizzlies and the NBA. Now Morant is healthy after a suspension and a shoulder injury limited him to nine games last season.
He said at Grizzlies’ media day that he’s learned a lot with everything he’s gone through on and off the court. Simply being the high-flying, fearless point guard again on the court could be the redemption tour needed by Morant, the Grizzlies and, yes, the NBA.
“I want to remember the feeling I felt each time, no matter what situation it was,” Morant said. “I feel like it helped me a lot, helped me grow into a better Ja. Right now, you know I’m probably the happiest I feel like I’ve been in a while.”
Morant soared on the court to 2020 NBA Rookie of the Year. The 2022 Most Improved Player helped Memphis earn the No. 2 seed in the Western Conference in back-to-back seasons.
He’s a two-time All-Star who earned a spot on the 2021-22 All-NBA team. It’s why the Grizzlies gave Morant a five-year, supermax contract in 2022 worth potentially as much as $231 million.
Then issues off the court started overshadowing Morant’s high-flying dunks and seeing-eye assists. He was suspended for eight games in March 2023 for displaying a gun on social media from a strip club. A second incident in May 2023 cost him the first 25 games of last season.
He played all of nine games, averaging 25.1 points and helping Memphis go 6-3. Then the Grizzlies announced Jan. 8 that Morant would miss the rest of the season needing surgery to repair a tear in his right shoulder after getting hurt in practice two days earlier.
Without Morant and an injury-riddled roster, Memphis finished 27-55 and drafted two-time AP Player of the Year Zach Edey out of Purdue at ninth overall.
Morant returned to practice during the summer and started working immediately with his newest teammate. Nike, among the sponsors who stuck by Morant, dropped his Ja 2 shoe last week along with a commercial on social media Sunday.
Morant’s Grizzlies’ teammates have seen it throughout the summer. Morant started working with Edey, especially on the court, once he was cleared in mid-July from his shoulder rehabilitation. Edey said Morant made him feel welcome to come work out with the team after he reached out to the guard.
Coach Taylor Jenkins said it’s been fun and impressive to watch Morant work with his teammates nonstop since being cleared to work again. Jenkins said he senses a renewed focus and joy for Morant after a tough year.
“Basketball was taken away from him, and that’s his joy. It’s his love,” Jenkins said. “He has so much to give to the game. He knows he has more to give to the game. He know he has more to give to this team, and that’s been his mentality. And I’ve loved seeing it blossom, and I’m going to hold him to it.”
Guard Desmond Bane said Morant is in great shape physically and with his game. He’s most excited at seeing Morant being a leader speaking up.
MINNEAPOLIS — When Karl-Anthony Towns was shipped to the New York Knicks late Friday for Julius Randle, Donte DiVincenzo and a future first-round pick, Anthony Edwards was on a plane.
When he landed, a surprised Edwards traded text messages with his former teammate, who sent a picture of himself standing in the team’s practice facility, perhaps for the last time, at 3 a.m.
“I think everybody knows [Towns] is my brother,” Edwards said Monday during the Minnesota Timberwolves’ media day. “So that definitely hurts, but you know, it’s a business, so I just have to roll with it.”
Over the past 72 hours, the Timberwolves have undergone massive changes just before training camp. And those changes are creating uncertainty about new lineups and the way the additions will bond with the current roster.
But the Timberwolves, whose top leaders declined to comment on Towns because the trade has not been officially announced, also had a different message: If it wasn’t already clear, this is indisputably Edwards’ team.
“We continue to challenge [Edwards] because we think he can be one of the best players ever and we don’t say that lightly,” team president Tim Connelly said. “And with that expectation comes tremendous responsibility.”
Edwards said a summer on the Olympics team with Steph Curry, LeBron James and Kevin Durant helped him understand the sacrifices necessary to achieve his goals. But Edwards said he knows he must stay committed to get there.
“Just working. I feel like that’s the only way, man. Everybody talks about it,” he said about Connelly’s comments. “I mean, the only way is to just work and go out on the court and just believe it. I think a lot of guys got a chance to be really great at this game, but I think they just don’t believe it. I think some guys put the work in, but don’t believe it. Some guys believe it and don’t put the work in. So I believe it and I put the work in. So if it don’t happen, it don’t. If it do, it do. Probably will.”
Connelly said that because of the new collective bargaining agreement he has studied teams across leagues, including the NFL, to see how they’ve built around stars. The NBA’s CBA includes the second apron provision that significantly impacts a squad’s ability to build a roster due to financial constraints.
The goal is to enhance a title contender in Minneapolis by focusing, Connelly said, on a young player who finished seventh in the MVP race last year as its nucleus.
The first years of Towns’ four-year, $224 million deal and Edwards’ five-year, $244 million contract start this season.
“I mean the new rules are … some of the consequences are unintended, quite frankly,” Connelly said. “I don’t know if anyone intended to make it this challenging to make moves, to make trades when you’re above certain aprons. But you gotta be smart, you gotta be lucky, you gotta hit on some of your draft picks and then I think you have to, as much as possible, build teams that can stay together for multiple years.
“Because I think there will be a lot of turnover just because of the finances becoming rapidly so big for some of these teams. I don’t know if it’ll be exactly like the NFL, but we’ve studied different leagues, we’ve studied the NFL extensively, how they’ve kind of done those things.”
Towns added a unique dynamic to the team as a 7-footer who has made 40% of his 3-point attempts during his career. He’ll be replaced by Randle, a former All-Star and a career 33% shooter from beyond the arc.
Rudy Gobert said he’ll miss Towns on both the professional and personal levels. He said “time reveals” the winner of the trade, but the changes are sure to alter the Timberwolves on the court.
“It’s going to be a process even for us as a team, adjusting to not having [Towns],” Gobert said. “It’s going to probably make us play a different brand of basketball.”
Yet Edwards remains the focal point, as he was last season when he led the franchise to the Western Conference finals for the first time in 20 years. Timberwolves coach Chris Finch said Edwards can still improve in multiple areas.
“We’re still a team based on movement, cutting, fluidity,” he said. “We need to reestablish that. Some of that burden also falls on Anthony to move and accommodate his teammates out there, too. We also saw last year in the playoffs that teams are committed to giving two defenders for sure and oftentimes three [to guard him].”
Edwards said the Olympics run helped him because he played the “best basketball of my life” in 5-on-5 matchups against future Hall of Famers. He also said he spent more time in the weight room this summer to prepare for the upcoming season.
While he said it was “too soon” to elaborate on the loss of Towns, he said he has no doubt about his ability to reach the legendary status those around him believe he can achieve.
“[I want to be] the guy that the team needs me to be,” he said, “whether it’s scoring, passing, defending, getting rebounds or just showing everybody that I’m coachable. Because [Finch], he coaches hard, man. So just being a leader by example, just letting him coach me and not saying anything back. You know, being a good player.”
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