NBA Realities

Memphis Grizzlies guard Ja Morant was fined $75,000 by the league on April 4 for an inappropriate celebration in back-to-back games. Morant performed gun gestures with his hands after making a three-pointer in back-to-back games against the Golden State Warriors and Miami Heat.

The league believed the hand gesture could be interpreted negatively, leading to the fine. Ja Morant responded to the fine during an exchange with Damichael Cole of the Memphis Commercial Appeal on April 10. He hinted that the NBA has been trying to portray him as a villain for the past two years.

I asked Ja Morant about his reaction to the NBA’s fine.

Morant: “You really want to know?”

Me: “Yeah.”

Morant: “I wasn’t surprised. Just was showing people what’s been evident pretty much for the last two years.”

The Taylor Jenkins firing

After the fine, he decided to switch his celebration to a grenade hand gesture. Ja said he’ll keep doing this celebration until the league has an issue with it. On the surface, it appears that Morant has an affinity with weapons due to his celebrations, but something more profound is happening.

Ja Morant decided to increase the frequency of his inappropriate celebration after head coach Taylor Jenkins was fired on March 28. Before the firing, Ja would often run back down the court after making a jump shot. On March 7, Morant had the ball around mid-court with 31 seconds to go in the fourth quarter against the Dallas Mavericks. 

Ja Morant continued to dribble the ball until he reached the three-point line at the top of the key. Morant then shot and made a three-pointer over Brandon Williams. After he made the shot, he ran down the court and performed a guitar celebration.

The difference in celebration is most likely leading you to ask why he switched celebrations. Well, before the season, Memphis decided to shift away from his style of play.

Ja Morant’s style of play

Over the first five seasons of his career, Ja spent a significant amount of his offensive possessions as a pick-and-roll ball handler. The play type accounted for 47.2% of his offensive possessions, and he averaged 11 per game.

A substantial portion of his production came from the pick-and-roll. He averaged 9.9 points, shooting 45.3% on 8.2 attempts per game. Unfortunately, Memphis ranks last in the play type this season, averaging twelve possessions per game.

The Grizzlies have reduced their pick-and-roll possessions by 43.5% compared to the 2022-23 season, when they averaged  20.9 per game. Memphis replaced those pick-and-roll possessions with more movement. Before Jenkins was fired, Memphis ranked 5th in miles run during offensive possessions, averaging 10 per game, a 4.5% increase from the 2022-23 season.

Tuomas Iisalo

Current interim coach Tuomas Iisalo is reportedly the driving force behind the changes to Memphis’s offense. William Guillory of the Athletic stated on April 4 that he ran an offensive system in Europe relying on movement, spacing, and pace.

“With Paris, Iisalo installed an all-encompassing half-court offensive scheme predicated on spacing, movement and pace. Neither the ball nor the players should ever be stagnant. He wanted his players to hunt mismatches with ball screens

To help his players learn, Iisalo often leaned on principles from professional soccer. He used clips of central midfielders to highlight the importance of understanding the space around a player, whether the ball was in their possession or not. He also used soccer footage to teach transition defending, with the knowledge of angles and the necessity of keeping the opponent from getting behind you crucial in both sports.

Everything has a purpose, said Tyson Ward, a current Paris forward who played under Iisalo for three seasons, including the 2023-24 season in France. Staying connected, which means if the ball goes one way, everyone else is on a string. Constant pressure on and off the ball, making sure you crash the glass and force the defense to collapse in. We wouldn’t do anything outside of what we worked on. Everything we worked on (during practice) is what we did in the game.”

Morant’s unhappiness

Ja Morant reportedly did not like the offensive changes because the ball would be out of his hands more frequently. On March 28, Sam Amick, Fred Katz, and Joe Vardon of The Athletic, stated that Morant’s level of effort fluctuated throughout the season due to the offense.

But when he’s been on the court, according to a league source, Morant has complained about the new scheme, which takes the ball out of his hands and removes the screens he likes to use as a ball handler to make plays.

One league source who has seen Morant work out with the Grizzlies recently said, “Some days he looks like he’s ready to play, and some days he looks like he doesn’t want to be there … because he hates the offense.”

Statistics support his frustration with the offense. He is averaging a career-low in pick-and-roll possessions, spending 28.5% of his offensive possessions in this play type and averaging 6.9 per game.

Furthermore, the changes in Memphis led people within the league to say that the team could look to trade him after the season. Howard Beck of the Ringer on February 18 that a league executive told him to watch out for a Morant trade after the season.

“I’m constantly checking in with executives around trade deadline about like, okay, what we saw, what we didn’t see, what’s next, and in this league, you are always, always, always on the lookout for who’s the next wave of stars that are going to get dealt, right? … And somebody out of the blue said, keep an eye on Ja [Morant] this summer … I’m just saying it’s one of those things I’m just kind of keeping an eye on if they were to flame out early.”

Consequently, Ja Morant has realized that Memphis is unlikely to focus on his style of play for the foreseeable future. Therefore, he is using hand gestures to create an extra incentive for the team to trade him. If he keeps making inappropriate hand gestures, the league will have no choice but to suspend him again because of conduct detrimental to the league.

A suspension will lead to lower attendance for Memphis home games, as fewer fans attend games when he isn’t available to play. Ja Morant only played 9 games during the 2023-24 season, leading the team to be 28th in home attendance, accumulating 681,875 fans. The home attendance dropped by 3.8% from the previous season when they averaged 707,836 fans.

Decreasing revenue multiple times makes it easy for a player to make an owner angry enough to trade him. A trade would increase the likelihood that he finds a team willing to run his preferred offensive system.