The Ja Morant Era In Memphis Is Officially Over

After seven seasons in the 901, the Ja Morant era has officially closed as of Monday afternoon.

ESPN's Shams Charania broke the news on Twitter.

I've got a lot of thoughts on the breakup between what should have been the best player in franchise history and the Grizzlies.

First, let's talk about the details of the trade that sent the two-time All-Star to the Portland Trail Blazers. Memphis sent Morant in exchange for Jerami Grant and Kris Murray.

Let's get this out of the way: Memphis will likely waive Murray and have a new starting small forward in Grant who i think fits in really well alongside Boozer and company.

Obviously the contract of Grant isn't very team-friendly by any means, but I think for a team in a rebuild, having a guy who has knocked down three-pointers at rates of nearly 40 percent the last four seasons on at least 5+ attempts in each of those four years, you take that every day of the week.

Getting respected veterans like Grant and Isaiah Stewart can only be a good thing to help a young team who can finally focus on themselves instead of being in a negative spotlight that Morant has brought with him over the past few seasons.

Before I really go in deep with the Morant saga, I first want to say that I was completely on board with the franchise supporting their star player over the last few seasons with the off the court mishaps. I appreciate his effort he put in while on the court for the Grizzlies and hope he can find his passion for basketball again in Portland.

HOWEVER... do Memphis/NBA fans really not remember this guy quitting on his team last year during an October game in 2025 against the Los Angeles Lakers? An action that resulted in yet ANOTHER suspension for Morant after he was pouting in the corner in the middle of the game and showing zero effort.

Instead of trying to embrace his first-year head coach Tuomas Iisalo, he decided to make his life miserable and throw a tantrum after a game in which he scored eight points on 3 of 14 shooting.

"According to [the coaching staff], probably don't play me, honestly," Morant said. "That's basically what the message was. It's cool."

No worries, Morant would only wind up playing 14 more games over the next two and a half months after suffering a UCL sprain in his elbow against the Atlanta Hawks on January 21 that would ultimately end his season and what would be his final career game as a Grizzly.

Over the past three seasons, he has played a total of 79 games and suspended multiple times throughout his seven year career in Memphis.

He was suspended twice in 2023 for incidents with guns with those two events costing him 33 games and about $8.3 million in salary.

He was also fined $75,000 last season for an aiming-a-gun gesture to celebrate making 3-pointers.

Even throughout it all, General Manager Zach Kleiman and Co. stuck next to 12 and wanted to make it work.

Ultimately, a person who runs a team has to make a hard choice of supporting a guy who can't stay on the court whether it be for health or personal issues or trying to do what is best for the future of their franchise.

Kleiman went with the latter after multiple seasons of trying to choose the former.

I know an average NBA fan will look at the trade and wonder how a guy who used to be a perennial must-watch player every single night couldn't warrant getting a draft pick in return, but to me, I think it shows just how truly ready Kleiman was to get Morant and his team out of the building and begin a new era that can hopefully result in more than one playoff series win over seven seasons.

It really is a shame that it had to end this way because Morant provided a spark to a fan base that needed it and was their first true superstar. Thanks for the memories, 12.