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The NBA trade deadline came and went on Feb. 5, and Ja Morant is still on the Memphis Grizzlies‘ roster.
That happened despite the fact that the Grizzlies had publicly been considering offers for Morant for weeks and made a major deal to trade fellow star Jaren Jackson Jr. to the Jazz just a few days before the trade deadline.
“Ja continues to be on this team going forward,” Grizzlies general manager Zach Kleiman said Feb. 6. “We evaluated the opportunities. Trades take two teams. We evaluated the opportunities that were available to us at the deadline and as we always have we made the trades that we felt like were in the best interest of the organization going forward.”
Morant is currently sidelined with an elbow injury, and Kleiman said that it would be a “medical determination and a medical determination only” if and when Morant plays again this season. Especially after the Jackson trade — in which the Grizzlies received Walter Clayton, Taylor Hendricks, Kyle Anderson, Georges Niang and three first round picks for Jackson, Vince Williams Jr., John Konchar and Jock Landale — it’s unlikely Memphis will be competitive the rest of the season.
Niang has since been waived, while Landale was subsequently traded to the Hawks.
“Overall, the way that we approached this deadline, the decisions that we made at this deadline, this is all organizational direction,” Kleiman said.
But even as he repeatedly signaled that the Grizzlies are about to undergo a rebuild around their younger players, Kleiman did not say anything definitive about Morant’s future in Memphis.
He also downplayed the idea that there’s friction between Morant’s camp and the Grizzlies’ organization.
“I think we’ve been incredibly supportive of Ja,” Kleiman said. “Because Ja is Ja, there’s a lot of attention paid to Ja and everything around him. I honestly think a lot of it is overblown. I’ve had open, constructive, honest conversation with Ja and his camp and I’m going to continue to.”
Less than a year ago, Kleiman publicly refuted trade rumors about Morant with a statement: “We are not trading Ja.” Asked about what changed, he again cited “organizational direction.”
“We’ve been incredibly supportive of Ja for many years.,” Kleiman said. “This is about organization direction, though. This is not about Ja in particular. I understand that Ja is Ja and there’s more attention kind of paid to that. But all of this is grounded in organizational direction and building a team that we believe can achieve the highest level of success in this league.”
Reach sports writer Jonah Dylan at jonah.dylan@commercialappeal.com or on X @thejonahdylan.