Report: Teams watching Ja Morant think he looks like ‘a guy who wants out’

Memphis Grizzlies guard Ja Morant has been miserably out of sorts from a scoring standpoint to begin the 2025-26 campaign. So far in his seventh NBA season, Morant is averaging 17.9 points per game (his fewest since his rookie campaign) all the while shooting career lows from the field (35.9 percent) and 3-point range (16.7 percent).

With Morant looking like a shell of his former self in one majorly important facet of the game, NBA reporter Zach Lowe claimed that teams watching the floor general believe he looks like he wants out of Memphis. The Grizzlies are the only team Morant has played for at the highest level since he was selected with the No. 2 overall pick in the 2019 NBA Draft.

“I will say with Ja, teams that are watching Ja — and I talked to one of them over the weekend — they are throwing his current level of play into the trash and just say, ‘This looks to us like a guy who wants out, and we’re going to judge him more by his long-term track record,'” Lowe said. “Whatever that is, given his games played issues over the last few years than this. But I mean, he’s averaging 18 a game, 36 percent shooting, 17 on 3s and just looks disengaged for half of every game on both ends of the floor.”

It’s safe to claim that Morant’s quality of play this season hasn’t been indicative of his talent level, as when he’s at the top of his game, he’s truly an elite offensive player with his knack for both scoring the ball and setting up his teammates for scores. After all, he holds career averages of 22.4 points and 7.4 assists per game in the NBA, and he’s averaged as many as 27.4 points per contest in a season at the highest level.

But with how subpar he’s looked up to this point (at least by his standards), it would probably be a smart move for interested teams around the league to try to make a move for him sooner rather than later. His trade value is perhaps at an all-time low, and if he starts to play better basketball with the Grizzlies, his value could be noticeably higher in a month or two from now.

However, if a team does trade for him very soon, it will maybe have to wait a bit before Morant is able to take the court. He’s dealing with a right calf strain and is expected to be sidelined for a little while with the injury.

Morant last saw the court against the Cleveland Cavaliers — who own the No. 2 seed in the Eastern Conference with a 10-5 record — on Friday, and he exited that game after logging just a few minutes.