https://youtu.be/E_lBZQeoH34
At some point, while no one was paying attention, Monte Morris became the best Morris in the NBA. He doesn’t have much competition, since the only other Morrises are Marcus and Markieff, but those dudes were definitely way better than Monte for a long time. So what happened?
The answer is simple: Monte Morris is SOLID as HECK, and eventually his SOLIDNESS became too much to ignore, which was some time last season. The twin Morrises are good, and they can score the rock nicely when given the chance, but solid? Heck no. Solidity is, perhaps, a tenuously-defined concept when it comes to the NBA, but you can just tell when a player does or doesn’t have it. And Monte straight up has it. SOLID. ROCK SOLID.
I’ve been on the Morris hype train for a long time now, basically since he got into the NBA. I was there for his second ever game, 55 games into the 2018-19 season, where he dropped 10 and 6. I was there, I was hyped, I made a highlight video, and I gave him the nickname “Monte Carlo Simulation” which never got used again by anyone. Ever.
Sorry for giving him such a crappy nickname. I can’t retract it, but I can apologize for it.
I’m the one who’s been constantly hyping up his assist-to-turnover ratio (which is still sick, by the way). While everyone else gets dazzled by crossovers and fadeaways and pull-ups from midcourt, I’m trying to extoll the virtues of a PG who is careful with the ball, makes the right play, and helps his team win. All that extolling seems to have been in vain, though; as far as I can tell, no one gives even one-quarter of one crap about this dude.
Until now? Certainly, Morris’ best hope to achieve even a small amount of notoriety is to have a career-high playoff performance in an important game while being matched up against one of the league’s elite scorers and coming out on top. It’s not going to work, but I give him props for trying.
Problem is, I actually ran out of props recently because I gave them all to Robin Lopez for dominating Joel Embiid with hook shots so hard that Embiid had to tear his meniscus to escape them. But if I did have props to give, I would give them to Morris for coming up big in a playoff game and only missing one clutch-time free throw that left the door open for the Blazers.