Morant, Warriors bring fun
During the NBA’s winter of gloom, a little bit of sunshine has shined through in Memphis.
In that tiny sports market where the spectacle of an NBA event still has the feel of being the biggest high school game in town, the best player’s father is a staple at courtside, dapping up even guys on the other team. A woman with a FedEx Forum name tag will break from whatever she’s paid to do to dance along with a nearby fan as “Whoop That Trick” plays
during a timeout. And the star himself, his tricolored dreadlocks flopping up and down, dances the Griddy at center court after closing out one of the league’s best teams.
In Memphis, the cameras stayed on Ja Morant well after his Grizzlies defeated the Golden State Warriors on Tuesday night. The spotlight better follow the star because you never know what he’ll do next. Morant, in his third season, has become the League Pass darling, the antidote to omicron (in the basketball sense): the sprite by the Mississippi River in a deceptively slender and unimposing body who just might poke his head above the clouds at any point in a game.
He may lift off in the closing minutes, gracefully contorting his body and scissor-kicking in midair to finish a layup while getting hit, as he did against the Warriors. Or he just might forget all those ballerina moves and simply throw down a lob pass — as a 6-foot-3 point guard. Morant combines beauty and power, and by now even NBA fans who don’t pay attention until the playoffs have watched the clip in which he put it all on display.
On Sunday in Los Angeles, Morant chased down Lakers guard Avery Bradley, launched himself and, with two hands, nearly caught a layup attempt at the top of the square of the backboard. The video generated 13 million views on Instagram and helped give the NBA its mostviewed regular season day ever on the platform, with 103 million views. But it ranked third behind two videos relating to Klay Thompson’s long-awaited return because the Warriors remain the league’s brightest rays of sunshine.
The Warriors, still a traveling rock band in basketball shorts, have been one of the few other sources of fun during an otherwise drab first half of the season. While the Phoenix Suns reign atop the standings, how many people outside of the desert care enough to follow their regular season dominance? The Brooklyn Nets should be a superteam but have been more defined by Kyrie Irving’s vaccination stance and James Harden’s struggles with the rule changes that have affected his style of play. The AARP Lakers don’t show up. And young stars such as Luka Doncic and Trae Young and their teams haven’t quite grown up.
But the Warriors, fueled by Stephen Curry’s 3-point record chase and Thompson’s comeback, still give us a reason to sit up and watch. Six of Golden State’s games make up the 10 most-viewed nationally televised games so far this season, according to the NBA. And Thompson’s Sunday return, televised on local outlet NBC Sports Bay Area and NBA TV, became the most-watched regular season game on both networks since 2016.
Thompson initially went down with an ACL tear during the 2019 NBA Finals, and while we didn’t know it then, those playoffs would be the league’s last major showcase for years in which things seemed normal, when fans didn’t have to scream through masks — and the ones who show up without them don’t get side-eyed into oblivion. Even last season as the league dragged the weary bones of its injured stars to the finish line, the games felt more like a requirement, a constant serving of broccoli before any of us could enjoy a scoop of ice cream.
But there’s something about watching Morant and all his friends and the “Splash Brothers” reunion tour that feels like eating dessert. The upstart underdog and the greatestshooting backcourt of all time provide a sense of relief from the heaviness of the past two years that even sports could not escape.
While Morant, who didn’t play for a blueblood college program, is like the binge-worthy show you want to claim before everybody else gets hip to it, Curry and Thompson are the old, favorite song that still makes you feel good. They are entertainment, and when they came together in Memphis on Tuesday, the best things about the first half of the 2021-22 season created the kind of basketball paradise rarely seen in January.
Evidence of the winter’s misery showed; Grizzlies coach Taylor Jenkins was not on the sideline because he was in the coronavirus health and safety protocols. But for four quarters, anyone watching from home could enjoy seeing Morant learn how to harness his power, Thompson take more bold leaps in his comeback and Curry break loose from a slow start to finish with a triple-double.
Then as father Tee Morant was celebrating, the usher was dancing and the Grizzlies were wrapping up their franchise-best 10th win in a row, we could exult, too. There is still some fun to be had during this longest winter.