A look into the rise of Ja Morant, a small-town basketball player who became an NBA sensation with his incredible jumping ability.
Basketball is a joyful game. Some of that joy derives from spontaneous collaboration—think of the extemporaneous ball passing of the recent Golden State Warriors dynasty, or of the San Antonio Spurs a decade ago, or the Lakers and Celtics a couple of decades before that. But there is also the joy of watching one man fly free. No one flies like Morant. Morant is twenty-four years old. A few years ago, he was an unheralded small-college recruit from a tiny town in South Carolina.
He was small and seemed smaller, with a left arm longer than his right. But he had springs for legs, and he became an N.C.A.A. sensation, then the second pick in the N.B.A. draft. Success only sped up from there: he was Rookie of the Year, then the face of the Grizzlies, then the new face of the N.B.A. By 2022, his third season in the league, he was starting in the All-Star game. In April, Nike released Ja Morant signature shoes. Other N.B.A. players look superhuman; Morant looks like a regular man until he jumps. Then it seems, during that long time in which he rises, as if he might not come dow
Basketball Ja Morant NBA Jumping Ability Sensation