Full title of this video: “Ja Morant 26 Points/8 Assists/1 Former MVP Emasculated Full Highlights (1/14/2020)”.
In defiance of the full title of this video, the boxscore indicates that James Harden outscored Ja Morant this game. And it’s true: 41 is more than 26 if you follow all applicable laws of mathematics. But meaninglessly outscoring Morant is about all Harden did, though. To get to his 41 points, he had to chuck up 37 shots, 19 of them from three, and flop his way to 11 free throws (I was expecting 20 or 30, so such a low number is actually a nice surprise). Meanwhile, Morant scored 26 on a cool 10-for-11 shooting, respected the game by not flopping even a little bit, and was rewarded with the win.
Harden fans wonder why he can’t get any respect and can’t believe someone wouldn’t want him to be MVP. A performance like this might be why. At the same time, I’m wondering why we can’t just bypass ROTY of the Year for Morant and just give him the MVP award right now.
Okay, fine, maybe he shouldn’t win MVP (though if he did this literally every game he’d have a very strong case), but can you blame me for being hyped? Morant has had some ridiculous highlight-studded (as in real HIGHlights, the insane plays you might see on ESPN if you waited long enough, not just the regular kind you can get on YouTube) performances, and I don’t know if this the best one yet, but it is the most recent. And it’s sick. The purist in me balks at the number of replays shown, but the basketball fan in me sees all those replays and demands MORE. More angles. More slo-mos. More more more. More Morant.