Looking back at highs, lows of Ja Morant's 7-year Grizzlies career

Anthony Edwards had overcommitted and had become a spectator, just like the 17,794 people crowded into a raucous FedExForum to watch the Memphis Grizzlies take on the Minnesota Timberwolves. Morant sped toward the rim, his body almost blurring as he went airborne just inside the free-throw line.

Jarred Vanderbilt jumped to block him, but Morant contorted his body, almost defying physics as he slalomed away in the air and laid the ball in to break the tie with only a second remaining. Minnesota's last-second heave didn't come close to the basket, and the Grizzlies earned a key win to take a 3-2 lead over the Timberwolves in the first-round Western Conference playoff series.

Morant made a beeline for the camera near midcourt, holding his right hand up to his ear like it was a phone.

"We called 12," Jaren Jackson Jr. said after the game. "He got it done. Everybody knows who got it done."

That was April 26, 2022. The Grizzlies won the series a couple of nights later. It felt at the time like a jumping-off point, a step on the way up the pyramid.

That's the cruel thing about sports, though — you never know when you're actually already at the peak of something.

That moment turned out to be as close to the summit as Morant's time in Memphis had. The Grizzlies traded him to the Portland Trail Blazers on Monday in what was essentially an exchange of unwanted contracts. Morant's value had dropped so drastically the past four years, it was a win that the Grizzlies didn't have to give up draft picks just to get off his contract.

Ja Morant's roller coaster

Highs and lows were a constant during Morant's seven-year run in Memphis. Even the prologue seems far-fetched in the current era of college sports, where top prospects either spend a single season in college or transfer to multiple schools throughout their careers. Morant spent two years at Murray State before turning pro, when the Grizzlies made him the No. 2 overall pick in the 2019 draft.

He joined a core that included Jackson, and won NBA Rookie of the Year. Desmond Bane joined the next season, and the Grizzlies officially had their post-Grit 'n' Grind era. They surprised in the NBA bubble in 2020, upset the Golden State Warriors to make the playoffs in 2021 and ascended to the forefront of the NBA in 2022, when Morant was named second-team All-NBA and the Grizzlies earned the No. 2 seed in the Western Conference.

There were plenty of people around the league who believed Memphis had the best young core in the NBA.

But Morant got injured during the next series against the Warriors. Since the end of the series against the Timberwolves, the Grizzlies have won four playoff games. Minnesota has won five playoff series.

Videos, suspensions and injuries

In March 2023, Morant was seen on Instagram Live brandishing a gun in a Denver-area nightclub, which resulted in an eight-game suspension. Two months later, another video with another gun and another suspension, this one for 25 games.

On the court, there was the overwhelming number of injuries, from ankle to hip to knee to shoulder. The past three seasons, Morant played a total of 79 games.

But then there were all of the poster dunks, including the one over Malik Beasley earlier in that Game 5 win over the Timberwolves.

There was the wild buzzer-beater off a full-court pass from Steven Adams. The poster over Victor Wembanyama that didn't actually count. The buzzer-beater against the Pelicans in his first game back from his 25-game suspension to open the 2023-24 season. That shot went in at 9:01 p.m., a serendipitous moment in connection with Memphis' 901 area code, with Morant standing on the baseline reminding everyone what number they were supposed to call.

In 2020, the Memphis Zoo named a giraffe (Ja Raffe) after him. But like Morant, Ja Raffe was ultimately traded away (to a zoo in Utah), to clear — er, habitat space.

There was the physical high of Morant skying for a dunk while the Grizzlies were blowing out the Thunder in Game 3 of their 2025 playoff series, and the physical low when he was undercut by Lu Dort and crashed to the ground. That was the last time Morant played for the Grizzlies in a playoff game.

In early 2026, the Grizzlies started to publicly field offers for the player who had been their franchise centerpiece. Asked about it while the Grizzlies were in London for their two-game series against Bane's Orlando Magic, Morant referenced the tattoo he has of the Grizzlies logo on his back.

Back in Memphis a few days later, Morant got a rousing ovation when his name was announced against the Atlanta Hawks. The Grizzlies trailed by two with a few seconds left, and Morant got off a 3-pointer that would have won the game. He missed. He never played for the Grizzlies again.

Days later, the team announced he had injured his shoulder when he'd gone for an acrobatic block earlier in the game. In the locker room afterward, he'd acknowledged the injury but said he thought he'd be fine.

In that same media scrum, he was asked if he appreciated the response he'd gotten that night from the Grizzlies fans.

"I always do," he said.