One of the underrated pleasures of NBA League Pass—the NBA’s subscription service that allows fans to stream out-of-market games—is the commercial breaks. When a local telecast cuts to commercial, more often than not League Pass subscribers are treated to the home team’s jumbotron feed, a feast of local color. There are kiss cams, dance contests, all manner of chintzy promotions. At Memphis Grizzlies games, these sequences are especially must-see TV. Befitting one of America’s greatest music cities, Grizzlies games have some of the best timeout music in the league, playlists that include Stax-era soul alongside more recent classics from Memphis trap legends like Yo Gotti and Three 6 Mafia. There are few more endearing sights than watching an arena full of people of all ages and walks of life gleefully singing and dancing to the (edited) strains of Al Kapone’s “Whoop that Trick.”
I have been watching a lot of Grizzlies games on League Pass recently, and one reason for this is what I just described. A much bigger one is that, lately, the Memphis Grizzlies almost never lose: Since beginning the season 9–10 they have gone a smoldering 22–5 in their past 27 games, roughly a third of an NBA season. That 22–5 run is no longer a “hot streak”; rather, it is the Grizzlies evolving from a middling team to one of the very best squads in the NBA during the season, a feat made all the more impressive by the fact that Memphis opened the year with the second-youngest roster in the league.
The biggest reason I watch the Grizzlies, and the biggest reason for their astonishing ascent this year, is their third-year point guard, Ja Morant. Morant might already be the league’s most electrifying attraction on a night-to-night basis, the perfect basketball player for yet another COVID winter that seems to only grow more monotonous. He gives me something to look forward to at the end of one day and the beginning of the next, when clips of his near-nightly feats are still swirling around NBA Twitter. Morant is a precociously intelligent and explosively athletic player who’s also one of the most charismatic stars in the league, an inveterate trash-talker beloved by his teammates who’s not above ice-grilling little kids who try to dap him up while wearing the opposing team’s jersey.
In an era when star guard play has largely become about expanding the horizontal possibilities of offense—with Steph Curry, Damian Lillard, and their protegés bringing the term “logo shot” to the modern basketball vernacular—Morant has brought verticality back to the position in breathtaking ways. This is reflected in the type of teeth-rattling, physics-defying dunks that have been a calling-card of Morant’s since college, but also in lofty, levitating game-winners and layups that seem like something out of a wuxia film.
This article was originally published at “slate.com”
