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While the Phoenix Suns trade rumors have hit just about every corner of the NBA by now, we’ve got a new entry featuring the Memphis Grizzlies superstar Ja Morant.
J. Kyle Mann of The Ringer floated a bold prediction in their Best of the NBA’s Next Generation Rankings article: “Isiah Thomas convinces Mat Ishbia to send Kevin Durant to Memphis for Morant to put a true playmaker between Devin Booker and Bradley Beal.”
On the surface, the idea sounds like a stretch, but it’s actually founded in a bit of truth. Going all the way back to July 2022, Zach Lowe of ESPN reported the Grizzlies made a significant pitch to acquire Durant. The fact they wouldn’t part with Morant, Desmond Bane or Jaren Jackson Jr. — along with the fact Durant requested the Suns — made the deal a pipedream at best.
What Would a Deal Look Like?
A Durant-for-Morant one-for-one swap wouldn’t work for a number of reasons, most notably that their salaries don’t match up. Morant is due $34 million, with Durant pulling in $47.6 million. Both the Grizzlies and the Suns are over the NBA’s luxury tax level.
The new CBA rules prevent second-apron teams from aggregating salaries. In layman’s terms, the Suns can’t package together salaries to match a single player’s contract. The Grizzlies are just a first-apron team, meaning they are not bound by the rule.
A trade that would make the numbers work would be Morant and Brandon Clarke for Durant, with some sweetener in the form of draft capital. Clarke is familiar with the Valley of the Suns, as even though he was born in Canada, he went to high school at Desert Vista in Phoenix, Arizona.
What Would the Suns Say?
What we know about the Suns is that the team isn’t deep enough and the trio of Durant, Beal and Booker struggled to share the workload in an equitable way. This trade addresses some depth, as Clarke is still just 27 years old and would thrive in the paint as the defensive attention wouldn’t focus on him, but he’s coming off of an Achilles injury that sidelined him for over a year.
As for Morant, The Ringer’s Mann noted that he’s a true playmaker, and he absolutely is, but there’s a caveat. He’s a ball-dominant playmaker. Having the ball in Morant’s hands in crucial situations is generally a good bet, with his ability to draw the defense, but having Beal and Booker plant their heels feels like keeping the Bugatti and Koenigsegg sitting on racks in the garage.
In his last full season (2022-23), Morant had a whopping 34.9% usage rate, which is higher than Booker or Beal’s has been in any season. Getting younger is great, getting an explosive talent is great, but there remains just one ball on the court and three stars who need it to produce. The Suns might say yes, but it wouldn’t be much of a revelation.
What Would the Grizzlies Say?
All the attention is going toward Anthony Edwards as the next face of the NBA, but it wasn’t very long ago that Morant was in that same spot. Morant was a young, brash kid who was scoring at will, posterizing anyone who got in his way and looked to be on a megastar trajectory. He won his first playoff series at age 22, against Edwards and the Minnesota Timberwolves, sending the then-20-year-old phenom packing.
A well-publicized suspension and a serious shoulder injury cost Morant and the Grizzlies all of the momentum they had built up. The only way a trade like this would make sense is if Memphis wanted to wash their hands of the situation and Morant wanted a fresh start elsewhere. As it stands, Memphis is still Morant’s city and a trade to get older, even if it’s for Durant, doesn’t make any sense.
Commercial Appeal columnist Mark Giannotto said it best: “As good as Jackson and Bane have become, there’s only one way the Grizzlies will reach their lofty goal of bringing a championship to Memphis – through Morant.”
In the world of NBA trade rumors, this is a rare one that might be rooted in a little truth but makes no sense for either team.
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