Exits: Trust is reason enough
In just two seasons the explosive, erratic Grizzlies have grown solid.
The best thing about Ja Morant is we don’t know what it is yet.
Morant, who’s made Russell Westbrook, with his infrared intuition of the ball at all times, stop short and swivel his head full around like an owl to find it. Who sprinted from a way out wing to catch RJ Barrett, already lifting for the layup, and launched himself from the top of the key for a chasedown airborne block, the force of his entire body behind the swat. Who kept Jimmy Butler clinging to his side in a downhill doubles tango routine that started at half-court, just to ditch him in traffic under the basket. Who makes a case for more is more every night he’s on the floor, who turns three to seven distinct and opposing motions into one fluid, concurrent event.
The rarity in Morant, if you had to pick just one, is that his spatial awareness extends so far out that he felt the usher two sections up sneeze. He seems to revel in the collective burst of breath, in astonished shrieks and coarse cheers, he can draw from his team on the bench just by being himself, maybe it feels like a cool breeze at the back of his neck, revelry as respite. The way he slings and spirals his body, coiling around air as if there were something physical there to climb, Morant plays like physics are just a difficulty level to ratchet up.
Last season, the Grizzlies played as if on a dare — how fast, how high, for how long. They were an unconventional team that felt on the verge of something brand new. Then, the season took a halt, and of all the storylines we could lose in that strange and unsure space between whether things would start up again, Memphis felt the most unfairly abrupt. Like frost that locks the life from an early spring flower.
But they thrived in the Bubble. Winning just two of their nine games, the last being the play-in, the joy and verve of Memphis came back, proving that it was embedded down in the mysteries of team DNA. They seemed, more than anything, just happy to be all together again.
This season the dare was still there, but the Grizzlies turned it around. So many of their contests felt like gleeful games of pickup, their skill and communication honed to surreptitious code. Morant’s playmaking was the base language but the script was enriched by Dillion Brooks and Brandon Clarke, words given weight by Jonas Valanciunas, the whole team grown so loquacious that Xavier Tillman dropped in already fluent. What a thrill and completely singular experience it was to watch a team write its own story in realtime, entirely free from any larger narrative.
So much of this past season felt not just sapped of joy, but inverted for it. A game that didn’t need playing. And in the self seriousness of the league to continue, because revenue was on the line, every team was yoked to dragging that burden — before the injuries and the positive Covid cases started to rack up. It was difficult to watch basketball because it involved the continual need to buy-in in real time as the game clock ticked. To re-commit against all better reasoning as to why none of it was necessary.
Memphis still managed to stay on the outside of all that.
Not Covid or injuries — both were the requisite toll for all teams to play this season — but the burden that basketball became, because the Grizzlies remained the same inward team. Happiest when together. The Grizzlies’ sustained and stubborn existence in joy isn’t reason enough for this season to have happened but they still may become, through the force and will of their own performance and drive, the proof some backroom execs could hang it’s success on years down the line when the team claims its first title.
And why not talk this big, with this team? Why not force the timelines, or traditions, or even familiar roads to get there? Sure, there are some moves to make, mostly to assure longevity. The addition of a necessary pressure valve player who can take every burst of Morant’s combustive game and stretch it, trap it, funnel it, make it last. But twice now they’ve found the wherewithal to thrive in some of the NBA’s darkest conditions, to flourish without asking. Memphis might still be novel, but there is no novelty to them. Remember how we used to wince and worry for Morant every time he lifted, left the earth and went twining to the rim? Something that bright was bound to come down hard. But see how he trusts his footing, all the eyes trained on him and the hands ready to hoist him back up to do it again? This capricious, bolting team has grown solid.
It’s rare to have no reason to trust other than it feels right. In Memphis, with their stunning appetite, their easy, endless tenderness with each other, the bodily testament to how they’ve backed it all up, there is reason enough.
The image of Westbrook with an owl head is so spot on. Uncanny. One of my little joyous moments this season was watching Ja Morant take his time gathering his hair and carefully putting his braids into a half ponytail before each game.