NBA Rewind: Ja Morant’s trade market could be as slim as Trae Young’s was

Every Monday, we catch you up on the happenings in the NBA. This week, the big story is the point guard trade market. Trae Young has been moved. Ja Morant might be next. And it turns out that not every team is looking for an All-Star point guard, even when one is available. Also, the Oklahoma City Thunder have been surprisingly vulnerable in recent weeks. Does their upcoming schedule push the team toward snapping out of its funk and getting back to its dominant ways?

We also have the extended version of the NBA Stock Report, a Monday staple in The Bounce. That’s our free NBA newsletter that you can sign up for and receive every day in your inbox.

The Big Story: Is Ja following Trae?

Even when it’s explained to me by John Hollinger or people around the NBA, the Atlanta Hawks’ trade return for Young shocks me. I can cite the examples of Jrue Holiday going for multiple first-round picks and swaps on his way to the Milwaukee Bucks in 2020. We can mention that Donovan Mitchell went for multiple firsts and pick swaps and Lauri Markkanen when he was traded to the Cleveland Cavaliers in 2022. And maybe you can reason that those trades happened under a different collective bargaining agreement, and that’s why Young went to the Washington Wizards for just CJ McCollum, Corey Kispert and zero picks.

Except Desmond Bane went for four first-round picks and a pick swap last summer when the Memphis Grizzlies traded him to the Orlando Magic. Young not even going for a bunch of second-round picks like Gary Payton II did a couple of years ago is baffling. There was zero market for Young. His representation tried to take control of the trade market and seek out a suitor. Teams not named Washington said, “Thanks, but no thanks.” That is a startling outcome for a four-time All-Star, who is just 27 years old. Will Morant yield a similar return, as the Grizzlies are taking trade calls about the 26-year-old, two-time All-Star?

The point guard market is tricky. Half the teams in the league have lead guards locked in.

• Atlantic: Philadelphia 76ers (Tyrese Maxey), New York Knicks (Jalen Brunson)
• Central: Detroit Pistons (Cade Cunningham), Cleveland (Darius Garland, Mitchell), Indiana Pacers (Tyrese Haliburton)
• Southeast: Washington (Young), Charlotte Hornets (LaMelo Ball)
• Northwest: OKC (Shai Gilgeous-Alexander), Denver Nuggets (Jamal Murray)
• Pacific: Los Angeles Lakers (Luka Dončić), LA Clippers (James Harden), Golden State Warriors (Steph Curry)
• Southwest: San Antonio Spurs (De’Aaron Fox), Houston Rockets (Fred VanVleet)

We can likely eliminate the Boston Celtics, Minnesota Timberwolves, Milwaukee and Orlando from contention for Morant because they don’t have the trade assets or financial flexibility to get him. Maybe the Celtics could, but they already have two massive contracts with Jayson Tatum and Jaylen Brown. The Toronto Raptors would have to convince Memphis to take Immanuel Quickley and picks, but the Grizzlies aren’t going to want to take on long-term money for a lesser point guard with solid but limited upside. The Atlanta Hawks just traded Young for next to nothing and can probably be eliminated from this discussion. I’m not sure the Sacramento Kings have anything the Grizzlies want, and Sacramento probably wouldn’t pay the draft capital that Memphis would demand in return for Morant.

That leaves us with the Portland Trail Blazers, Utah Jazz, Brooklyn Nets, Chicago Bulls, Miami Heat, Phoenix Suns, Dallas Mavericks and New Orleans Pelicans as potential suitors. I would eliminate Phoenix and New Orleans from that list right away. The Suns learned their lesson about stacking big contracts and will probably continue building their roster more conservatively from here. The Pelicans have Jeremiah Fears as a potential answer at point guard, and they’re in a weird spot with their roster. They have problems to solve before they add talent.

I’m going to eliminate Utah as well. I do not believe Morant would want to go there and would make it known that this is not the spot for him. That doesn’t mean the Jazz wouldn’t still try to acquire him, but they have also seen huge strides from Keyonte George, and he’s a much cheaper option. Portland has several guard options, but they’re hurt or in and out of the lineup. I’m not sure it makes sense to pair Morant with Damian Lillard coming off an Achilles injury next season, with Holiday winding down his career and whatever Scoot Henderson can be when he returns from injury.

So now we’re down to Brooklyn, Chicago, Miami and Dallas.

The problem with Morant is availability. His first two seasons were shortened by the COVID-19 pandemic, when he played in 130 of 145 possible games. Since then, the Grizzlies have played 366 games. He’s played in 195 of them. Some of the missed time stemmed from suspensions for his social media activity, but that no longer appears to be an issue. He hurt his shoulder in January 2024 and had to miss the rest of that season after he briefly came back from those suspensions. Maybe that’s just a random one-off? Still, he has played in barely half of the Grizzlies’ games in four and a half seasons.

That puts us into the Anthony Davis zone of “we know this guy is talented, but we don’t know if he’ll suit up for us.” Chicago needs a star. Dallas needs a point guard if Kyrie Irving isn’t the long-term option after he returns from an ACL injury. The 33-year old Irving is under contract for one more year and then has a player option for 2027-28. That doesn’t exactly fit the timeline around Cooper Flagg, but Morant would possibly make more sense. Brooklyn needs everything, but does Morant want to be on a team full of rookies and guys not even close to making the playoffs in the East?

Morant might need to have a good finish to the season if he can get back on the court, suck it up and embrace the Grizzlies’ offensive system he dislikes so much, and then see what the trade market looks like this summer. The point guard market is saturated, so there isn’t going to be a fevered clamoring for Morant with his problems staying on the court. Although Hollinger offered up that this news might mean the Grizzlies have a “break glass in case of needing to trade your star player” deal to fall back on by the Feb. 5 deadline:

It will shock nobody if Memphis turns out to already have a Morant deal in its back pocket that the Grizzlies at least feel OK about, and now are trying to learn if they can do better. Either way, there’s a decent chance that Morant — currently out with a calf injury — has played his last game for Memphis.

Memphis can’t let a Morant trade become a salary dump like Atlanta wound up doing with Young. And the examples of Morant and Young could eventually inform the Hornets on how to handle Ball down the road, if Charlotte doesn’t make significant progress in the near future.

NBA Stock Report Extended

📈 Timberwolves (26-14). The Wolves seem to have figured out a lot of their issues. Minnesota has won six of its last eight and 16 of its last 22 as it has moved up to fourth place in the Western Conference standings. The Wolves’ offense over the last couple of weeks has been elite, with an effective field-goal percentage and a true shooting percentage both in the 60s. Doing one of those is extremely hard to do, let alone both. Only Boston’s offense has been better as of late, and the Wolves are up to sixth in offensive rating on the season. Minnesota also isn’t turning the ball over nearly as much.

More importantly, the Wolves are beating good teams. It’s important to remember their early-season success was strictly against losing teams. The Wolves started 0-7 against .500-or-better teams, making their success look a bit fraudulent — especially the way they were dropping close games to better teams. Since then? Minnesota is 9-3 against .500-or-better teams. The Wolves have also won eight of their last 11 clutch games. Minnesota is cooking, and it probably shouldn’t be a surprise if it ends up in the conference finals for the third straight year.

📉 Spurs’ offense. Over the last couple of weeks, San Antonio hasn’t looked like the squad that took down the Thunder three times in about two weeks. The Spurs are just 4-4 in their last eight. Two of those four losses have been to Memphis and Portland, teams they should be beating. Yes, San Antonio has worked Victor Wembanyama back into the rotation from a minor knee injury during that time, but we saw this team thrive without him in November and December. That’s not really the concern, though.

The Spurs can’t score right now. In fact, over their last eight games, they have the 27th-ranked offense. I’ll remind you that the Spurs are eighth in offensive rating on the season, so this is a major decline. Most of their offensive numbers across the board are the same. They’re still getting the same percentage of assisted baskets, they’re turning the ball over less and the offensive rebounding numbers aren’t much different. They just can’t make shots right now. Maybe another matchup with OKC on Tuesday will galvanize them, but the Spurs need to get their offensive groove back.

📈 Raptors (24-16). Toronto got off to a hot 14-5 start and was one of the best stories of the early season. Then the Raptors hit a bit of a lull. They lost nine of their next 13 and were starting to look like the team many NBA observers had criticized during the offseason. But head coach Darko Rajaković has turned this thing around. The Raptors have won six of their last eight, including victories over Golden State, Orlando, Atlanta (twice), a Charlotte team playing well and Philadelphia on Sunday.

Defense is what’s fueling them. You can still see former team president Masai Ujiri’s fingerprints all over this roster, and Rajaković has found a way to harness the defensive potential. The Raptors have the sixth-best defense on the season. Their offense has picked up quite a bit over the last two weeks, putting up a top-10 offensive rating during this stretch. They are 18th on offense for the season, and the biggest factor in their recent success has been taking care of the ball. This young-ish Raptors core has the lowest turnover rate in the NBA over the last two weeks, and Toronto is just 1.5 games behind New York for the No. 2 seed.

📉 Knicks (25-14). New York got a much-needed win in Portland on Sunday, but the Knicks aren’t looking like a team with NBA Finals expectations. They’ve won just twice in their last seven games, and in two of those losses, they were held to less than 100 points. I hate to sound extremely online, but the vibes on this team feel off, from the outside looking in. Shot making will come and go, and we’re certainly seeing the Knicks struggle to maintain their excellent offensive start. They’ve been a top-three offense for the season, but they’re out of the top 10 over the last couple of weeks.

That wouldn’t be so bad if their defense wasn’t in the bottom five during this stretch. They can’t stop anybody. You don’t need the Knicks to be great on defense. Just somewhere between 10 and 15 would be enough to keep them challenging for the No. 1 seed in the East. But their defense has only been better than that of Denver, Sacramento and Utah recently. They need to find a way to get back on track, because this level of play won’t lead to an NBA Finals berth.

📈 Trail Blazers (19-21). This trend only continues if Deni Avdija is healthy. At the end of Sunday’s loss to New York, the Blazers forward came down with a rebound and immediately walked toward the locker room. He appeared to hurt his lower back, and Portland can’t afford to lose him for long. Avdija is a deserving All-Star who has had the Blazers on fire of late.

Portland has won seven of its last nine, though nothing has been particularly great about the team’s performance. The offense and defense have been fine. But the Blazers have been excellent in the clutch. They’re tied for the second-most clutch wins (14) and the sixth-best offense in clutch situations. They have the second-best true shooting percentage in clutch time, which has masked how bad they’ve been at taking care of the ball (29th) in those situations. The Avdija news looms over this for now.

📉 Kings (9-30). The good news for Sacramento is that it beat Houston on Sunday. The bad new is, the previous seven games were losses, and the Kings aren’t inspiring much confidence with their play. They’re missing Keegan Murray and Domantas Sabonis to injuries. Dennis Schröder is serving a suspension this week. And even though another team in the league has been losing a lot and lost by more than 50 points last week, the Kings still have the lowest net rating over the last two weeks.

They’ve been outscored by 18.3 points per 100 possessions in the last two weeks. That’s apocalyptic — unless you’re trying to tank. They’re not trying to tank. At least, not yet. They can’t score, they can’t defend and they can’t rebound right now. Their next six games are at home, so that should help. Except that four of those games are against winning teams. Not everybody will be missing two key starters like Houston was on Sunday. Sacramento needs some kind of offense. Did Peja Stojaković ever file retirement papers?

📈 Cavaliers (22-18). I’m cautiously optimistic about the Cavs’ recent play. They split two games with the Wolves and have won seven of their last 11. That’s not exactly starting the season 15-0 like they did last season, but it’s a meaningful uptick. Cleveland is shooting better over the last couple of weeks, and that’s been the team’s biggest issue compared to last season. Good shooting can be infectious, so maybe this momentum will get the Cavs going. They’re right outside the top six in the East because of tiebreakers with Orlando.

📉 Jazz (13-25). I’m not even looking at what they’ve done over the last week or two. I’m strictly going off of what happened Saturday night. Utah lost by 55 points at home to the Hornets. Yes, 55 points. The 150-95 loss was the 26th time in NBA history that a team has lost by 55 or more points in a game. It’s only the fifth time in NBA history a team has lost by 55 or more points at home. By the way, Utah has also gone 1-6 in the last two weeks and has the worst defense in the league during that time.

The Week Ahead: Can OKC regain its status?

What is wrong with the Thunder? This question has been hounding Oklahoma City for a couple of weeks, after the Spurs brought them down to earth in December. The Thunder’s 24-1 start had all of us wondering just how historic this season could be. Since then, they’re 9-6 and have fallen out of the hunt for the single-season wins record (73). But they are still on track to break their own margin of victory record from last year (plus-12.87) with their overall dominance (plus-13.05) this season.

The Thunder need to figure out how to regain that air of invincibility. Alex Caruso talked about how they’re getting opposing teams’ best energy and effort now that they’re the champs and have a target on their backs. That’s likely true. But wouldn’t it have been true over their first 25 games as well? Maybe teams saw how San Antonio played the Thunder and shifted their approach? Game plans are ever-evolving, and maybe something is working now that didn’t work before. Also, maybe the Thunder are just missing open shots? Check out their stats:

• First 25 games: 39.0 percent on 12.6 open 3-pointers per game | 38.0 percent on 23.2 wide-open 3-pointers per game.
• Last 15 games: 28.4 percent on 11.1 open 3-pointers per game | 33.4 percent on 24.1 wide-open 3-pointers per game.

Can it be that simple? Jalen Williams has struggled in his return from offseason wrist surgery, at least compared to the standard he set in recent seasons. It’s not just him, though. OKC’s six leading scorers are all shooting under league average (36 percent) from 3-point range over the last 15 games. If these shots start falling, the Thunder’s league-leading defense will feel insurmountable again. But they have to generate those shots, and we’ve seen them struggle to set up teammates for assisted baskets.

The Thunder beat Miami on Sunday to begin an important stretch for Oklahoma City. The team faces San Antonio at home on Tuesday and then goes on the road to face Houston, Miami, Cleveland and Milwaukee. This could be the difference between OKC re-establishing itself as the overwhelming title favorite and it feeling like another victim of Adam Silver’s beloved parity.