avoid a more devastating setback. “Anybody else prob-
ably would’ve tore their MCL,” he says. (About a week
after the injury, Tee says Morant was already dunking.)
Wells traveled to Memphis and told Morant to treat
his time off as if it was another offseason training block
to get even stronger. If not for COVID-19, which he
contracted while out, Morant would’ve likely made his
return within a couple of weeks. But that stretch wound
up being a blessing in disguise. In addition to rehab-
bing his knee, Morant put himself through two-a-dayworkouts—some at midnight—that better prepared his
body for the rest of this season. He lifted, ran on an
underwater treadmill and addressed inf lammation in
his plantar fascia with additional exercise.
More time in the Dark did Morant good. Shortly after
coming back, there was The Block, where, in an instant,
he embodied a popping champagne cork to pin Lakers
guard Avery Bradley’s layup at the top of the box. “They
called a timeout and got his deodorant off the back-
board,” Tee says.
When the Grizzlies went 10–2 while Morant nursed
his knee, nobody on the roster felt confused about whose
team it was. “It’s not him trying to come back and fit in,”
Grizzlies guard Desmond Bane says about that stretch.
“He’s a superstar, and we’re the pieces that are fitting
in around him.”Before his knee injury, Morant averaged 14.1 points
per game in the paint. From his return up until the
All-Star break, that number increased to a whopping 18.0.
Morant leads the NBA in this category while scoring more
around the basket than any guard in a quarter century.
“I don’t fear nobody, dawg,” Morant says after scoring
26 points (all nine of his field goals came in the paint)
in a January win in Cleveland against the NBA’s most
intimidating interior defense. “I don’t care if you’re 7' 7"
or whatever. I’m coming straight at you.”
That statement (and others Morant has made this
year) evokes the type of authenticity that endears him to
fans and the organization he speaks for. He tiptoes up to
the line of arrogance and only occasionally crosses over
with a petty persona that’s underscored by undying self-
belief and a deep obsession with proving nonbelievers
wrong. After he dunked on Magic center Robin Lopez,
Morant commemorated the f lush on Instagram with a
coffin emoji and “graveyard” location tag.
“He’s literally telling you to your face, Welcome to the
Dark,” Brooks says. “There’s guys that are good in this
league that can showcase their talents but are really
reserved, and when people start getting into their s---
they kind of push back and be like, ‘O.K., I’ll get it the
next game.’ But him, he just hits the adversity and tries
to power through it, regardless of what it is.”A
NTHONY TOLLIVER, a 13-year NBA veteran who
played for the Grizzlies during Morant’s rookie sea-
son and still talks to him today, saw leadership traits in
Ja that reminded him of a young Steph Curry, a Warriors
teammate in 2009. “He’s confident, but he’s humble,”
Tolliver says about Morant. “And that’s a great combi-
nation to have.”
Winning is the priority. “That was one of the things
that I took away from Steph his rookie year,” Tolliver
continues. “If I hit two or three shots in a row and he has
the ball in his hands, he doesn’t say, ‘Anthony got his;
now it’s my turn.’ He would never have that mindset....I
saw that same thing in Ja when I was with the Grizzlies.”
Morant hasn’t changed. “I don’t hunt shots,” he
says. “My teammates actually yell at me if I’m not
being aggressive.” At the end of an overtime loss in
Philadelphia, he whipped a no-look pass to rookie wing
Ziaire Williams with the game on the line. When it
missed, Morant didn’t second-guess himself. Instead
he told reporters how much he believed in Williams, then
held himself accountable for the loss: “If it’s anybody you
want to be mad at,” Morant says, “it can be me.”
Those words mean something from someone who
doesn’t traffic in lip service. In December, Brooks had
Morant as his Secret Santa. He received two tennis
chains from Icebox, a gift that obliterated the team’s
price limit of $200. “When it comes time for Christmas,
everybody wants to have Ja as their Secret Santa,” he
says. “He’s such a generous person. He knows exactly
34 what you want, what you need.”
FR
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JA MORANT
FAMILY FIRST
Morant’s father, Tee ( left), and 2-year-old
daughter, Kaari, motivate Ja to be great
on and off the court every day.