Memphis Grizzlies: Grading Ja Morant’s 2020-21 season thus far

Ja Morant’s defense has taken a step back without Jaren Jackson Jr. around

Oftentimes, defensive efficiency can be a difficult thing to quantify in the NBA. You can look to advanced statistics, but this is hugely impacted by the rest of the team’s rotation that is out on the floor.

I’m making this excuse ahead of time because I am about to present a really ugly stat. That stat is Defensive Box Plus/Minus.

Morant was already looking rough in this stat at -1.2 in 2019-20. This season, that number got even worse without JJJ around. His DBPM dropped to -2.1 this season. Fortunately, I don’t believe that this is worrisome.

His steal and block numbers have remained the same, even with his usage rate increasing drastically on the offensive end. We’ve seen players have awful years on defense *cough James Harden cough* when their offensive output is too high, but Morant is not one of them.

If anything, this is a sign of a Grizzlies team that struggles without their best defender in Jaren Jackson Jr. We’ve seen inexplicably bad defense at times this season, and none of it is directly Morant’s fault.

He has a ton of room to improve defensively, as most young NBA players do. Luckily, he plays for the Grizzlies, a franchise that harps on defense every single year. It’s time to sit back and watch him develop as a defender.

Overall defensive grade: C