Ja Morant's high-flying play thrilling to watch, but makes Grizzlies vulnerable

The most problematic thing about the collision Sunday that sent Ja Morant’s right hand bent backwards into the floor was how utterly predictable an injury of that general variety was for one of the NBA’s most electric players.

In Morant’s four seasons with the Memphis Grizzlies, we have seen a countless number of plays where the 6-foot-2, 174-pound point guard loads up the springs in his legs and launches into a high-flying move that skirts the boundary between thrilling and terrifying.

Most of the time, it’s fine. But the way Morant attacks when he’s near the rim — so quickly and violently and high off the ground with seemingly no regard for what might happen once he’s up there — you know that sometimes it’s not going to be fine.

Game 1 of the Western Conference playoffs against the Los Angeles Lakers was one of those occasions where his airborne vulnerability became costly. Though the extent of Morant’s injury after colliding with Anthony Davis in the fourth quarter has not been made public, his postgame comments suggested an appearance in Game 2 is unlikely and that the outlook for the rest of this series isn’t great.

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Perhaps Morant will be fine after a few days and the Grizzlies, down 1-0 in the series, will have an opportunity to recover and advance. But if the hand is in as bad a shape as it seemed Sunday, it’s increasingly likely this will be Memphis’ second straight playoff run that ends with Morant unavailable or severely compromised.

And that begs the question: Is the reckless abandon that delights fans and makes for great Sportscenter highlights an actual impediment to the Grizzlies eventually winning a championship?

There’s no way to answer with certainty.

Two years isn’t a long-term trend, and when Morant hurt his knee in Game 3 against the Golden State Warriors last season, it wasn’t after a high-powered takeoff but rather a normal basketball play that happened to result in a fluke injury.

Even with this situation, the narrative around the NBA centered mostly on whether the block-charge rules should be altered since the contact resulted from Davis sliding into Morant’s path right before he jumped toward the rim — similar to a play later Sunday that resulted in Giannis Antetokounmpo falling on his back and being unable to return to Game 1 of the Milwaukee Bucks’ series against the Miami Heat.

These are all interesting discussion points, and there is certainly merit to thinking about the risks involved in those plays and whether there are ways to make them safer.

But with Morant specifically, injury potential has been a topic since he arrived in the league. There are plenty of NBA players with similar, lithe body types. There aren’t many who do not factor their relative lack of physical sturdiness into the kinds of challenges they take on.

That specific quality, though, is a huge part of what makes Morant who he is.

You expect to see an Antetokounmpo throw his body around because he is a massive physical specimen and has avoided major injuries throughout his career.

Morant, however, missed a significant chunk of the 2021-22 regular season even before what happened in the playoffs and now faces the prospect of watching his team lose another series where he can’t contribute the way a star player is supposed to.

The weight of that was obvious in what reporters in Memphis described as a morose atmosphere around Morant after the game, where he acknowledged that he really couldn't do anything with his right hand because the pain was so bad.

“Feels like it's one thing after another,” he said, according to ESPN’s Tim McMahon.

This has been a difficult season for Morant in multiple ways, mostly centered around his off-court issues.

He was suspended eight games by the NBA after he posted a video on Instagram Live from a strip club in Denver waving a gun. He’s being sued after an incident during a pickup game at his home, where a teenager alleges that he was beaten up after getting into an argument with Morant, who filed a counter-suit last week. There have been multiple incidents of alleged threatening behavior by Morant and his friends, including by Indiana Pacers staffers after a game and shoe store employees at a local mall. And though Morant denied that he has an alcohol problem, his penchant for going out and partying was reportedly enough of an issue that the team had a meeting about it before his suspension.

Perhaps that was a wake-up call for Morant, and he will mature into a more dependable leader as he enters his prime years. But if Sunday was the last time we see him on the court this season, he may face another reckoning this summer about his style of play.

Smaller guards are always going to be more vulnerable in a league where they’re constantly making contact with players eight inches taller and 70 pounds heavier. Most of them understand that and adjust their game accordingly, but Morant is yet to find a challenge he isn’t eager to take on.

Eventually, though, the risk-reward equation tilts in the wrong direction. A point guard sitting on the bench isn’t much use to anyone. Even at age 23, that tipping point may have already arrived.

This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Ja Morant thrilling to watch, but injury costly to Grizzlies playoffs