This is the eighth assists-points double-double of Ja Morant’s young career. He doesn’t actually have any games of double-digit reboundso I didn’t need to make the distinction between the different types of double-doubles, except for the fact that Zion Williamson will probably be getting the other kind of double-double on a near-constant basis for the rest of the season. Anyway, Morant is showing very advanced passing ability at a very young age, and any residual pain that the Grizzlies fanbase felt over losing Mike Conley should now be completely assuaged.
There are a bunch of teams out there that have been mired in lotterydom for years, hoping to draft somebody as good as Ja Morant or even half as good as Ja Morant. Most of them have failed, and when they have succeeded in drafting somebody good, they completely fail to put talent around them. The ‘Zlies, somehow, had a much quicker turnaround on their “rebuild” (if you can even call it that).
Morant’s presence helps, but the solid play coming from the other young players on the roster is like the Charlotte Hornets’ wet dream. They’ve never had anything as close to this fun. They just have to look at Nic Batum and Michael Kidd-Gilchrist taking up space on the books, and then look at the cast of undervalued stars-in-the-making on the Grizzlies, to see how badly they went wrong.