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Memphis Grizzlies All-NBA guard Ja Morant has agreed to a five-year rookie extension that is expected to be worth $231 million, his agent Jim Tanner of Tandem/YouFirst Sports told ESPN.
Morant, who made it to the All-NBA Second Team, is guaranteed $193 million and will trigger supermax escalators to take the deal to $231 million if he is again in one of the three All-NBA -Teams of the league lands.
The deal also includes a 15 percent trade kicker, Tanner said.
“Memphis is my home,” Morant wrote on Twitter.
Memphis is my home đź’™
— Ja Morant (@JaMorant) July 1, 2022
At 22, Morant has established himself as a true superstar, averaging 27.4 points, 5.7 rebounds and 6.7 assists over the past season.
“In the last three seasons, Ja has really emerged as an NBA superstar and has to be seen on TV,” Tanner told ESPN. “From Rookie of the Year to NBA All-Star Starter to All-NBA Second Team and Most Improved Player, we are incredibly proud of him for his dedication to improving his game and developing into a team leader. The Grizzlies are perfectly fit for Ja. The organization and the city accepted him.
“The sky’s the limit for Ja, both on and off the pitch, and we look forward to helping him continue to build his legacy in the league.”
The Grizzlies set a franchise record with 56 wins and reached the second round of the Western Conference Playoffs last season.
Morant won the NBA’s Most Improved Player award and was made part of the All-Star team for the first time. Along the way, he’s cemented himself as one of the league’s most electrifying players – and one of its brightest young talents – thanks to a string of highlights on the pitch and an equally commanding personality off it.
That combination has made Morant one of the young faces of the NBA and helped make the Grizzlies one of the league’s most exciting up-and-coming teams, with a host of young talent surrounding him — including big man Jaren Jackson Jr. and guard Desmond Bane . They locked up another player Thursday night and agreed to a two-year, $30 million deal with free-agent guard Tyus Jones.
Despite playing in one of the league’s smaller markets, Morant has blossomed into one of the league’s premier endorsers, including national commercial campaigns with Sony/Spiderman and Hulu and marketing deals with Nike, Beats by Dre and Panini, among others.
After finishing second in the Western Conference this season behind the Phoenix Suns, Memphis beat the Minnesota Timberwolves in six hard-fought games to a win in the first round of the playoff series — their first straight win since 2015 — before beating the Golden State Warriors lost in six games in the Western Conference Semifinals.
Morant, who totaled 115 points in the first three games of the Golden State series — including a playoff career-high 47 points in a Game 2 win — missed the last three games against the Warriors with a knee injury.
Morant, who was Murray State’s second overall pick in the 2019 NBA draft, was the 2020 NBA Rookie of the Year. He immediately made his mark on the franchise and quickly transitioned the Grizzlies from the grit ‘n’ grind era of Mike Conley and Marc Gasol to this new, fast-moving run-and-gun youth team under coach Taylor Jenkins.
That included Morant going toe-to-toe with Damian Lillard in the NBA bubble at Walt Disney World Resorts in Orlando, Fla. as a freshman in the league’s first play-in tournament game — and then turning around and knocking out the favorite Warriors in San Francisco 2021 in the play-in tournament to advance to the postseason for the first time in his career.
ESPN NBA reporter Tim Bontemps contributed to this report.
