I’m rooting for Ja Morant, the man, as much as Ja Morant, the NBA superstar

And finally, after 235 days and a 25-game suspension, after criticism and questions and worry his career was wholly slipping away, there was Ja Morant walking onto an NBA floor, a second return from suspension marking this second second-chance.

He was back, for now, his skills on the floor and the worry of what he may do off of it equally powerful enough to make you hold your breath.

The steps to this place had been a case study in how to try to destroy a career on the rise and ruin a team otherwise calibrated to be a contender. What happens next with Morant is anyone’s guess, and those around the NBA asked about it could muster only answers like:

“Who the hell knows.”

“No idea.”

“Talented kid. Glad he’s not my problem.”

Much rides on Morant now, for him, his future, and that of his team. Memphis barely resembled a professional basketball team without him, but this new beginning in New Orleans was starkly, stunningly different. Morant shined, hitting a buzzer-beater as time expired to give the Grizzlies a 115-113 win against a good Pelicans team. 

Morant was back, all glory and greatness, to one of the two places that will decide his and his franchise’s future: The court.

There, he played 35 minutes, racked up 34 points, eight assists and six rebounds. There, he made Memphis look like the team they had been before his suspension.

The other place that will shape the things to come, of course, will be away from the game, where all this trouble started. 

It was away from the court where the litany of problems for Morant mounted. He allegedly threatened a security guard at a mall. He had an alleged physical altercation with a teeanger over a pick-up basketball game and then, the accusation went, a gun for good measure. There was the time Pacers officials reportedly felt under threat when a car Morant was in passed by, a laser pointed in their direction and the specter of yet more weapons adding to overall worry about the young man. After all this, he flashed a gun on Instagram Live last spring at a Denver nightclub and found himself suspended for eight games.

And then, getting us here, after all that, Morant did it again — last summer again showing a gun on Instagram Live, leading to the 25-game ban. 

It was a cry for help, or a middle finger to Adam Silver and the NBA, or a sign of things to come, or all of it, but whatever it was, it was bad.

In that self-inflicted mess of awfulness questions loomed, worries increased, pressure mounted on the the Grizzlies and the league. The partisan culture warriors saw what they wanted to see and took sides, too. In the mess he had created so much chaos filled the void, obscuring, at least for Morant, the most important of questions: Could the young man change?

And: What does the future hold for a player of striking skill seemingly hellbent on undermining it all?

And then there he was Tuesday night, playing again, hooping again, the answers, one way or another, inevitably on the way. In that first possession, the ball back in his hand after all this time and trouble, he dribbled up the court, attacked the rim, and then down he went — a trip, a foul, Morant hitting the ground. 

And just as he’ll have to do with his career and his life, he jumped right back up.

There are falls, yes. But it’s how you respond to them that matters most.

For Morant, there’s simply no way to know if his behavior will change. If brandishing guns on social media is a thing of the past or his own unique malady. If he’s learned his lesson, as they say, or is destined to be one for those down the line on how not to throw everything away.

Because Morant, like it or not, is now more than a basketball story. He’s a morality play doling out scenes night after night on the hardwood. He’s a tale of a turnaround or an inevitable relapse. There are stakes that will have to do with hoops, but there are also questions about how much people can change, the danger of wealth and power for the young, and how the rest of us respond to this night-by-night, will-he-or-won’t-he reality TV storyline playing out during, and between, basketball games.

There are questions in the NBA, and beyond it, about how those of us who serve as spectators, scribes or stakeholders should feel about stars like Morant who have dimmed themselves with varying degrees of off-the-court awfulness. 

What to make of Draymond Green?

What to make of Anthony Edwards?

What to make of Josh Giddey?

So should we root for them? Are the second — and third, and fourth, and fifth — chances we offer about rooting for the best in people, or does ceding that talent buys different standards and rules. What’s the line between hating people we don’t know, and hating the things they do enough to not want to know anymore about them, superstar or not.

For Morant, it should come down to this: Root for the man. Hope he can understand why the NBA had to suspend him, and will again if similar behavior repeats itself. Lean into the idea that we all fall and get back up, even if Morant’s past 18 months make it hard to hope that wanting him to be better will make it so.

A thought on Draymond Green

Speaking of suspended stars, there’s an interesting idea out there across the NBA about Green and his chances of changing his own behavior that compares interestingly, and unfavorably, with Morant’s situation.

It goes something like this: Morant’s issues take place off the court, and that means if he chooses to do so he can remove himself from them. But Green’s problems, the thinking goes, have to do with basketball, take place on the court, and are a part of his competitive nature. All of which makes him more likely once he returns to regress to the behavior that got him indefinitely suspended.

“Ja can take himself out of those situations that have led to this,” one executive said. “They’re off court. He can choose to remove himself. But Draymond can’t remove himself from games. That’s where his problems arise. Games. And he can’t remove himself from that.

“It’s always a basketball environment when this stuff happens, stressful ones, and those situations are increasing for his team and for him. The games are harder now for that team. The days of a charmed existence and easy games are over. And when it’s harder, you’ve seen more triggers for Draymond.”

That theory fits with a wider one many talked about after Green choked Rudy Gobert, but before he struck Jusuf Nurkic that was expressed by several NBA decision makers: That Green can sense the end of the Warriors run of greatness, and he’s lashing out as a result.

It also fits a worry, including among some who know and like Green, that simply trying to switch off whatever it is about him that has led to these moments of violent on-court episodes will be much easier said than done.

My MVP ballot (today)

Here’s something new this year: A recurring, live look at my evolving MVP vote. Here’s how the ballot stands about 25 games into the regular season.

Dropping off the list: Stephen Curry and Doncic.

Still in the mix: Doncic, Anthony Edwards, Kevin Durant, Tyrese Haliburton and De’Aaron Fox.