Blazers acquire Ja Morant, reportedly no longer pursuing Jaylen Brown

The Memphis Grizzlies have salary dumped Ja Morant to the Portland Blazers. The Blazers used the expiring "bad" contract of Jerami Grant (and Kris Murray) to facilitate the trade. The Blazers plan to start Ja with Damian Lillard in their backcourt.

Portland is taking a chance on a 26 year old two-time all-star in Morant for the buy low price of essentially less than nothing (considring Grant and his contract's negative value). Shams Charania is reporting that this will end Portland's pursuit of Jaylen Brown.

Brown is considered highly unlikely to return to the Celtics as Stevens continues to try to find an interested trade partner willing to give up at least enough future draft capital to make the Celtics close the deal. Scary reality is that despite how much Jaylen Brown is loved and valued by Celtics fans and the media, NBA teams don't appear to value him significantly higher than Tyler Herro and not multiple good first round picks higher than Ja Morant.

This evaluation by the other 29 NBA teams might help one understand why Brad Stevens attempted to trade Brown for Giannis and why he is working hard to get a deal done this summer before Jaylen asks for his contract to be further extended for $70 million per year.


Share