The Toronto Raptors have been linked to former All-Star point guard Ja Morant on the trade market this season. While swinging for upside is the kind of move that has worked for the Raptors in the past, trading for Morant would be a disaster that would torpedo their present and their future.
When NBA trades take place, they almost always fit a basic paradigm: one team is making a move focused on winning games in the present, while the other team is sacrificing their ability to win games in the present in order to increase their chances of winning games in the future. Sometimes those are massive shifts, such as when a superstar is traded for a boatload of picks and prospects and their former team enters a rebuild; other times they are more subtle, a team retooling for the very next season by selling a veteran role player to a team contending this season.
What the Raptors have managed to do is find a number of trade targets who would torpedo their changes of winning big down the line, but in ways that won't necessarily help them win in the present. Anthony Davis will be a contract nightmare in a couple of years, but trading for him now means adding a non-shooting injury-prone big to a roster that needs a center who is both available and who can space the floor beside Scottie Barnes.
It gets even worse when you look at another name linked to the Raptors: Ja Morant. The Memphis Grizzlies point guard nominally fits the profile of what Toronto is after: a buy-low opportunity on a star-level talent who can lock down the point guard position and be a solid fit with Barnes.
To look at Morant and conclude he is a star talent who would fit well on the Raptors, however, is to look at him without your glasses on. It would be the blurry outline of the player he has become. Trading for Morant would mean adding a player who would be a downgrade on Immanuel Quickley and paying a premium to do it.
Trading for Ja Morant would be a disaster
Any trade for Ja Morant would involve Quickley's contract, which is $32.5 million this year and has another three seasons after this one. That is not seen as a value contract around the league, so Toronto would have to make up the value in the trade on top of the "cost" for Morant.
Morant, for his part, making $39.4 million, so the Raptors would have to add salary to the deal heading back to the Grizzlies. The reporting from the Grizzlies' camp has been that they are not merely looking for matching salary, either, but rather some level of picks or prospects coming back. Cost of Morant plus cost for moving Quickley becomes an expensive proposition.
Here is one way that trade could look:
The Grizzlies might pull the trigger on this deal, which would land them a recent lottery pick in Gradey Dick, a low-cost 3-and-D wing in Ochai Agbaji who is in the final year of his deal, and the Raptors' own first-round pick this season. It's not a gargantuan package, but it has enough value for Memphis to save face and make the move.
For Toronto, however, this would be an unmitigated disaster. Morant is one of the worst shooting guards in the NBA and he dominates the ball on offense. Taking the ball out of the hands of Barnes, RJ Barrett and Brandon Ingram can only happen if a true offensive superstar is joining the team; Morant is not that, and certainly not anymore. Quickley is a capable off-ball shooter; Morant is checked out off-ball and provides no spacing whatsoever.
Flip to defense, where Quickley at least competes, and Morant is a train wreck on that end. He can snag the occasional steal and push in transition, but most of the time he stands upright and lets his man drive into the paint, or back-cut him when he's away from the play. The Raptors would be introducing a huge weak link into their defense.
And at what cost? Two wings, valuable commodities in the modern NBA, plus a first-round pick in a talent-laden draft. The reason they would do that is for a shot at resurrecting Morant's career trajectory and buying low on a star. Nothing about Morant's play suggests he is going to suddenly regain his form -- and the best version of Morant is still a poor fit with Scottie Barnes due to the lack of shooting and defense.
But wait, there's more! All of the concerns about Morant's fit on the court are null and void because he is so often unavailable, usually because he has suffered a new injury -- he is currently sidelined through the trade deadline -- but occasionally because he does something dumb enough to be suspended. The Raptors couldn't rely on Morant in any way, on the court or off, to help their team win.
There is no trade to construct that makes it a good idea for the Raptors to trade for Ja Morant, and that's why their interest appears to have cooled in recent days. The reason why?
In every way, trading for Ja Morant would be a disaster.