Everybody talks about how Jayson Tatum was one of the main beneficiaries of Gordon Hayward’s season-ending injury. But few people mention that Marcus Morris also gained much in the way of minutes thanks to Hayward’s untimely leg explosion. Morris was looking at an entire season playing out of position at power forward in limited minutes off the bench. Now, he’s still coming off the bench, and he’s still playing PF more than he probably wants to, but he’s still getting decent minutes (25 MPG).
Minutes for Marcus Morris aren’t as important as minutes for Tatum. One is done developing, the other has only started developing. You could reduce Morris to a “ten minutes off the bench” and I certainly wouldn’t lose a lot of sleep over it. However, in terms of keeping Morris contented, these minutes are very important. Who knows what kind of locker room drama he would cause if he felt like other players were stealing his minutes?
Now that I think about it harder, I don’t even know why I assume that Morris would be the one to start locker room drama. Maybe it’s because he punched that dude that one time. I dunno.