We know Ja Morant can score. Maybe he doesn’t shoot as many jumpers as some people (me) would maybe want, but he can definitely score well enough with his fancy moves to the basket. Scoring is usually the first step a rookie takes on their way to being a good player, and Morant has already taken that step.
The second step varies from player to player. Every player needs to score, but after that, it’s a matter of what skills they personally want to invest their VC in. In Morant’s case, that’s going to be passing.
Now, obviously he can pass. He gets assists every game. But for the second step to be taken, he needs to regularly have games where he gets double digit assists. That might be a little tough on the Grizzlies, who don’t have the best offensive players, but he should be able to make it work. Lobs to Brandon Clarke are like free assists. So are passes on the perimeter to Bruno Caboclo for threes.
In this game, he boldly attempted to pad his assist stats by not scoring in the first half. He was passing, and passing, and not scoring. He picked up 8 assists without a point, and then in the second half, decided he also wanted his team to win the game so he went and scored 20. He did get the double-digit assists, though, so he only needs a few more games like this (preferably in quick succession) and we can confidently say that he has taken the next step.
The third step is choking out his coach while yelling that Caboclo needs to play way more minutes.