Ja Morant Deserves Some NBA MVP Love
I need to talk about the awesomeness Ja Morant.
Draymond Green said it first. Then I saw him play live. Then he went for 41 last night in a win over the Spurs. He is the second leading vote getter in the West for the all star game. He is the leader for the current 3rd seed in the West, and the team with the third best overall record in the NBA. I think it is high time that Ja Morant starts getting some love in the MVP chat.
I do not know what else he has to do to get higher in the race. I was looking at NBA.com's MVP ladder last night and Ja was in 10th place. He was behind guys like Rudy Gobert, Luka Doncic, Chris Paul and DeMar DeRozan. All of these guys are great players, but I do not think that they are currently better than Morant. I just saw Morant and DeRozan go head to head. DeRozan was great, probably the only Bull that showed up. He had 24 points and led that team from start to finish. But in the very same game Morant also had 24 points. He also had 3 assists, 4 rebounds, a 360 layup, an even better hand switch layup and a win. He led the Grizzlies to a very convincing win. Gobert is great defensively, but he is not the offensive threat he once was, and now he has COVID and missed a ton of previous games with an injury.
I know that every single analytic, nerd, white NBA writer wants to put Doncic on some kind of rooftop. They all want to give him the MVP so bad they will look past all of his screw ups. Morant has simply been a better player and teammate this year. Doncic came in out of shape, Morant looks as good as ever. Doncic has missed multiple games due to injury and COVID. Yes, Morant did miss time with an injury, but since he is in shape, he was back to full speed much faster than Doncic. I'd also much rather have Morant right now.
Chris Paul might be the best modern day guard, but he is nowhere near as athletic and fast as Ja. Sure the Suns have the best record in basketball, but CP3 has guys like Devin Booker, Mikail Bridges and Deandre Ayton, not to forget Jae Crowder and Cam Johnson at his disposal. Ja has good teammates, guys like Jaren Jackson Jr and Desmond Bane, but they are not on the level of CP3's teammates. Not yet at least. And I can see why Joel Embiid is ahead of Ja right now. Embiid is established and he is having one of the best seasons ever for a big man. I also get why Nikola Jokic, who I cannot stand by the way, and Giannis are ahead of him. They are putting up better stats right now. But Ja should only be behind those three right now. Hell, I might push him ahead of Jokic due to team record and only have Giannis and Embiid ahead of him.
Here are the facts, where we sit right now Ja is averaging nearly 26 points, 6 rebounds and 7 assists a game. He is shooting 49 percent from the field and 36 percent from three. He also gets 1 steal a game. His points per game average is good enough for 10th in the league. He's 14th in assists and 60th in rebounding(he is only 6'3 and weighs 175 lbs). He also has the 8th best PER in the league, which is basically a stat that shows how crucial you are being on the floor and your team winning. Ja Morant is making that leap from young star to future face of the league. Morant is more fun than Doncic, less whiny too. He is more athletic than DeRozan, and younger. He is probably the best teammate in all of the league. And he seems to love playing in Memphis, a small market team.
I already adore Ja Morant and I think he will be a future MVP. I just want the rest of the NBA audience to appreciate his greatness like I do. I'm glad he is on the Kia Ladder, he just needs to be much higher than 10th. Ja Morant is a stud, and he is more than backing that up with his play this year.
Ty
Ty is the Pop Culture editor for SeedSing, the other host of the X Millennial Man Podcast, and the greatest basketball writer on the internet.