Ja Morant's season is over, as the Memphis Grizzlies announced Monday night that their star guard will require surgery to repair a tear in his right shoulder.
Morant was injured during practice on Saturday, the Grizzlies said. The two-time All-Star was in trouble before the Grizzlies' game against Phoenix on Sunday, and a day later news broke about how serious the issue was for us.
“After persistent pain and instability, Morant underwent an MRI which revealed an underlying labral tear,” the Grizzlies said.
Morant missed the first 25 games of the season while serving an NBA suspension for displaying a weapon on social media — his second such suspension in less than a year, after missing eight games last season for a similar violation.
He returned from the 25-game suspension and averaged 25.1 points in nine games, with the Grizzlies winning 6–3 in those games.
The Grizzlies are 7-20 without Morant this season, are four and a half games out of the last play-in spot in the Western Conference and now have to go the rest of the way without their best player. A playoff push with Morant didn't seem entirely unreasonable. Without him, the long odds just got that much longer.
It appears the severity of the shoulder problem caught the Grizzlies off guard. On Sunday, Grizzlies coach Taylor Jenkins said Morant was dealing with soreness and even went so far as to say it would be an intragame decision against the Suns.
Morant is in the first season of a five-year, $197 million contract. He is making about $34 million this season, but lost about $7.6 million of that due to the 25-game suspension.
Morant's 25-match suspension without pay was announced in June. Commissioner Adam Silver imposed that penalty three months after issuing an eight-match ban after Morant held a gun at a suburban Denver nightclub while live-streaming himself on Instagram.
Another livestream in May, this time while sharing the front seat of a car with one of his friends, showed Morant again displaying a weapon — leading to a 25-match suspension.
