The Portland Trail Blazers wanted a star. They got one, they got him for almost nothing, and they still might have lost this trade.
Portland acquired Ja Morant from the Memphis Grizzlies in late June, sending forwards Jerami Grant and Kris Murray back to Memphis. The Grizzlies also included $1 million in cash considerations. That is the full return for a two-time All-Star and a former No. 2 overall pick: no first-round picks, no young building block, nothing that comes back to bite Portland in 2031.
Morant is 27 and has two years and roughly $87 million left on the max rookie extension he signed in Memphis. He averaged 19.5 points and 8.1 assists across 20 games last season before a left elbow UCL sprain ended his year. Over the past three seasons combined, he has appeared in 79 games.
Why Memphis finally pulled the trigger
The Grizzlies did not move on because Morant stopped being talented. They moved on because the cost of keeping him kept climbing. The NBA suspended him eight games in March 2023 after a video showed him holding a gun at a Colorado club, then hit him with a 25-game suspension two months later over a second gun video. Last season he publicly questioned how new head coach Tuomas Iisalo was using him, and Memphis shopped him at the February deadline.
Look at what is left of the 56-win team from 2021-22. Dillon Brooks has changed addresses twice since. Desmond Bane was sent to Orlando. Jaren Jackson Jr. went to Utah in February. Morant was the last man standing, and now he is gone too.
Memphis got real value back. Grant is 32, averaged 18.6 points over 57 games and carries a player option for 2027-28. Murray, the 23rd pick in 2023, put up 5.8 points a night and hits restricted free agency next summer. Neither is a star. Both are usable, and neither one is a $43 million annual bet on a guard who cannot stay on the floor.
Portland’s math does not work
Here is the problem with the big swing. The Blazers already had Jrue Holiday, Damian Lillard and Scoot Henderson on the roster. Morant is now the fourth point guard in the building, and he is the one who needs the ball most.
He does not space the floor. He does not thrive playing off the catch. His entire game runs on getting downhill with the ball in his hands, and Portland has three other players who want those same possessions. Micah Nori, hired in June after Chauncey Billups was placed on leave following his October 2025 arrest, inherits a rotation puzzle no first-year head coach should have to untangle.
New owner Tom Dundon clearly wanted a statement, and he got one. Statements do not sort out shot distribution, though, and Portland did not clear a single guard out of the way before finalizing this.
The verdict
Memphis won this. That is not a shot at the price Portland paid, which was reasonable and easy to defend. It is a shot at what Portland bought. The Blazers took on $87 million of redundancy and a three-year availability problem, while the Grizzlies converted a headache into two rotation pieces and a clean reset.
If Morant plays 70 games and looks like his 2022 Most Improved Player self, Portland looks brilliant and this column looks silly. He has not played 70 games in a season since 2021-22. Bet on the pattern, not the highlight reel.
A longtime sports reporter, Carlos Garcia has written about some of the biggest and most notable athletic events of the last 5 years. He has been credentialed to cover MLS, NBA and MLB games all over the United States. His work has been published on Fox Sports, Bleacher Report, AOL and the Washington Post.