BONUS POD! Ja Morant Traded to the Blazers

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John Morant is on the move, so a special release here for the Ryan Russillo Show presented by DraftKings. Winner go home, that's it. The cup knockout round is now in DraftKings as you cover every single match. The DraftKings app is now available. Available in all 50 states. It includes all markets, bringing the game straight to your fingertips wherever you are. From Florida to Texas to California, you're in on the excitement at the speed of sports. Follow every knockout round thriller, every penalty shootout, every stoppage time moment that ends a nation's run. Sweat the matches that matter in real time with a seamless experience built for the world's biggest stage. No matter where you're watching, you're always connected and in the game with one app. New DraftKings customers sign up with the code Ryan. Spend five bucks to get 200 in rewards within 21 days. That's code Ryan, R-Y-E-N. In partnership with DraftKings, the crown is yours. Emergency pod, which means we're going to YouTube and it means I'm not putting on sleeves. So deal with it. We're doing this because of John Moran. Now we were trying to figure out like, where is that line where it's like, if that guy moves, I'm good. We don't need to do it, but we need to do it for John Moran because there's a bunch of lessons in here. There's a bunch of things that I want to talk about. And the number one lesson that we need to remind ourselves of all the time when it looks like someone has, zero value in this league is that there is no such thing as an untradeable player. Even though we were like, man, the league is loaded with point guards everywhere. You either have one that you love and you don't want to mess with it or you just drafted one. Think about this draft class and how many teams just brought in a guy. It's like, well, then why would you bring in Ja after the fact? So we knew the market was limited, but we should never suggest that a market is non-existent because Portland makes the move. They get rid of Jeremy Grant's money, which is still insane. This guy's going to put away like 300 million when it's all said and done. 34 million next year, player option in two years for 36 million. Probably going to pick that one up. And then Chris Murray, the other Murray, five and a half million. So that made the money work for Ja, who's 42 million this upcoming season. And then another 45 million dollars. Let's do the good news on Ja. He's 26. That's about all I got for you because the rest of it's bad. Career high games played in a season, 67 games, his rookie year. He played. In the last three seasons combined, he's played in 79 basketball games. You could argue, hey, they could have played him this year, but, you know, they were tanking. OK, fine. It's still 79 games over three years and he plays away. He has a style which he's talked about trying to correct that is so reckless and was so much fun early on. But you were watching it going like I expect his leg to pop out of his hip on some of these landings. And when you're in your early 20s, you pop right back up. He's not popping up anymore. And he's still only 26 years old since he shot 34 percent from three in his third season. Here are his three point percentages the next four years. 31 percent, 28 percent, 31 percent, 26 percent. All rounded up, by the way. That's the last four years. He could never shoot. He cannot. Now, I don't think he's a 26 percent shooter. Maybe if he had the ball a ton, which is another thing that we're going to have to talk about here with Portland in this roster construction. But, I mean, can he be a little bit better? What happens when Dame has the ball? And Ja, if he doesn't start cracking 31, I mean, even 31 percent is terrible. 33 is maybe livable. But you want to talk about like some of the things we look at in playoff series. Although I don't know that Portland has to start mapping that out right now. But specific matchups. Hey, what do we want to do? Leave that guy open when he doesn't have the basketball. He also has a trend here. The numbers. It looks bad on a chart. Maybe the numbers themselves aren't as bad. But his restricted makes, which is something that made him so special at his size with his athleticism and his finishing at the rim when it looked like most guys would be stuck. Ja would find a solution. His makes in the restricted area have gone down five straight seasons. His best advanced numbers were in 22 and 23. But that was also coinciding with the usage rate that was the fourth highest in the NBA in the fifth highest in the NBA. So, a lot of production. Some good stuff in there. MVP votes where I think he came seventh and twelfth in these seasons. But unless he gets the keys to the offense every time down, it's hard to figure out how you optimize him once he's healthy again. And on top of it, Damian Lillard is coming back to start the season. With Dame coming back, who you can say, hey, he's coming back for free. I think Dame going back to Portland, one of the things that just wasn't discussed enough. Is of all the options that you had. And then you had this like, look, they had a Western Conference Finals appearance against Golden State. They had no chance in that. It's a lot like the Atlanta one. I talk about this all the time. It's like you made a Conference Finals. But I don't really know that this is like the first step up the pyramid. It might just be a fluke. It was for that Portland team. Lillard gets a chance to go to Milwaukee, compete. There's a bunch of reasons why it didn't work out in Milwaukee. Dame is certainly not the main reason. But his defense was so bad, it changed a lot of who they were. And there was a piece. And ESPN with Jamal Collier and Ramona Shelburne talking about the Giannis exit and everything that went on through there. And there was a buck source that was like, we kind of underestimated what it meant to move away from jaw. Even though we were sacrificing defense for offense and getting rid of, excuse me, Drew and Drew Holiday. We're sacrificing that for the Dame trade. But there was a lot more to it. Oh, and by the way, Drew is in Portland as well. He's got some money owed to him. Thirty five million next year and then a thirty seven million dollar player option. At thirty seven years old for Drew Holiday. Probably going to pick that one up to go ahead and report that right now here on the Ryan Rusillo show. Drew can play anywhere and you can maybe assign him to what you're doing defensively against the primary ball handler. Maybe there's a wing that you want to have Drew beat up on. I thought Drew was terrific in that San Antonio series. I mean, hell, they put him on one Minyama, which isn't a lot of fun for him. But there were some really good Drew stuff, despite a player that, you know, is getting older here. So you have Dame, you have Drew. You bring in Ja. You got to get Scoot out of there. You got to you got to let my guy go. If you love Scoot, let him free. And I think they say set him free, but it hasn't been said to me ever. So the point is, is that you've got Scoot, you've got Sharp, who I feel like is kind of like Jalen Green, but worse and worse marketing. Maybe I'll be wrong about that. He hasn't exactly been healthy all the time. It's really fun when it works. Handle shooting. Athleticism, the lobs and all that stuff. But where are all these guys playing is my point. And I think this is kind of damning for Scoot. As much as I love Scoot out of the draft, he was a disaster the first year. It was fine. I did not give up. I thought he showed some really, really good stuff, especially to close that second year. But again, the close of some of these seasons when everybody's tanking can be a bit of fool's gold. Then he has this hamstring injury that lingers forever, but he gets to learn by watching. And I thought when he came back, he played really well. I thought it was the best he's looked. It's the best he should look three years. It was NBA career. And I thought he had some awesome moments in that San Antonio series, except for the part where maybe he got a little too hyped up to have that showdown against Dylan Harper. And Dylan Harper's like, bro, I've been in the league like five months, and I'm already way better than you are, despite your resume coming into the league. So I'm excited about what Scoot is, but that's basically salvaging what everybody else thought about Scoot in the beginning. What I would tell you is it feels kind of damning about Scoot to then do this with Lillard already in place. So there's that. And again, I don't know what they're going to do with Sharp. What about Denny Avdia? Remember him? That's what we're going to be saying this season. He had the keys this year. It worked for him. He was unbelievable. All NBA type of season. Most improved player stuff all year long. Ja takes between 18 and 20 shots a game. Dame in his prime has taken 20 shots a game. In his non-prime, he's taken 17. He's taken 17 shots a game because if Dame's out there and not taking a ton of shots, then why is he out there, right? Denny took 16 shots last season, but he took nine plus free throws a game, which, of course, impacts when you're getting fouled that much. It really means he's probably taking like, you know, I don't know, 21 shots a game. What's going to happen to him? Because a lot of that is him being on the ball. So you are now bringing Dame back, which I didn't entirely finish my thought there, but I thought it was kind of like a read into. where his head was at is that he gets this taste to maybe chase something in Milwaukee. It doesn't work out. know what was sick? When everyone worshiped me in Portland, I took 20 shots a game. I lit up the box score. I never had any pressure on me. We had that one year where we lost to the Warriors, but nobody even thought I was going to win. This is actually kind of awesome. Like I'm an awesome scorer and I don't deal with any of the shit the rest of these guys do because everybody knows I'm not necessarily at their level. I'd actually like to do that again now that I've made all of my money. So I don't know what you're going to do to Denny here by having Dame on the ball. You can say you're going to split them up with Ja, but you're probably going to open and close with these guys unless you're going to try some really funky stuff with Mike Inori, whose contract is the funkiest thing we've seen in coaching history in a very short amount of time. And I like Mike a lot. I don't know him. I've always been impressed with those Minnesota Timberwolves broadcast whiteboard things that he did. I always thought he was really good. And look, people rave about him. Our guy Finch loves him. So you may be with all of these moves here with Portland messing with the best player on your entire team. Because going into next year, Denny is still the best player on this team. And it's not even close. You're going to have the worst backcourt defense. Sure, Drew can be on one of those guys. But then what does that mean? Ja or Dame's on a small forward? You know, Klingon's going to be back there like a dad with like seven toddlers in the backyard, all running at him at the same time going like, I don't I don't know which direction to go to first. So that's what I have here. And it doesn't make a lot of sense. I would not do this if I were Portland. But I understand why Portland did. And I'll finish with that thought. But let's talk about the Grizzlies here because they died on May 11 2022. That was in the second round against the Golden State Warriors. They were down 3-1 in the series. They won at Memphis 134-95. Ja did not play. Whoop that trick. I've referenced it a million times. This rarely happens to me when I'm watching a basketball game. And I come back on the next air next day on the air, saying that that game meant something. And even though Memphis won by a million points, it actually to me was a sign of how stupid that team was. And I said at the time, I hope they get their asses kicked. Chris Vernon sent me a single tear text. After that rant, I was heated the next day. Because it was a team that hadn't done anything. We were excited about their future with Jaron Jackson and Bane. We're excited about that trio. But the way they acted. You may disagree. But I'm like, this is actually a bad sign about where this team is going. And I'm like, I'm not going to play. I'm not going to play. I'm not going to And Ja acted weird. You know, he was talking about how guys were coming after him. Remember all that stuff. And it was just like the first, the first time we had a chance to kind of look at the delusion of Ja Morant. Because, you know, you have to be confident to play this game. It's okay to be delusional, I guess. Delusion and youth are a really powerful combination. But you can also get older and look back at your delusion and regret it a little bit. And Ja right now, I think is the NBA ever since Ben Simmons handed him the belt. You can get into that you can get into the suspension. And I said at the time, I thought the suspension was kind of tough, but I didn't know all the details. I read everything that you read. I thought it was a bit excessive. So maybe it was a combination of all these different factors. But when he came back from some of the suspensions, his father's out there wearing a redemption hoodie, and he may be part of the problem with all of this. And I don't think I'm being unfair with that one. His interviews are always delusional. You're like, what is with this guy? And then that Lakers game this season that I watched, and if catching it on social media, because it's not like everybody was locked in, I think it might have been a Friday night game against the Lakers to watch the way Ja played in that game and go, oh, my God, what are you doing? And then, of course, acts indignant in the locker room after the fact and then gets suspended, I think, for just a game. And you're like, where where is the accountability? Where's the self-awareness with any of this stuff, with everything you've gone through? You were one of the most beloved players in this league. Your shoes are selling out. Kids loved you. And all of this was on you. And with everything getting tough. You were not even close to being the leader, while also not even being close to being the basketball player that everybody needed you to be at that time. He's kind of like the talented former quarterback, you know, the guy that was starting all the time. And then he's a free agent. And you're thinking like, my God, I'd love if my team got him. He'd be great as a backup to the guy that's already in place. Or if you're bringing him in, and he's not guaranteed to be the starter. That's why Chase Daniel last in the league, because they're like, that guy's going to be okay being a backup, that guy's going to have self-awareness, that guy's going to be humbled a little bit. And I'm not comparing Chase Daniel to John Moran saying that John needs to be more like Chase. But I've listened to some quarterbacks with some major, major profiles talk about how hard it was for them to become a backup because of their aura. And you're like, well, some teams don't want to sign up for aura and have it in the building when aura isn't allowed to be the main attraction. I just, would need to know that jaw looks at these last couple years and goes, I'm 26 with a ton of basketball in front of me. And if I can just stay healthy, I can contribute back to a basketball team. I actually hope that happens. We have just not had any indication for four years that that is going to happen. I wouldn't do it. I, you know, imagine Memphis being like, hey, down the road, you're going to end up trading the face of your franchise. You're going to trade John Moran for Jeremy Grant, who you don't even want on the books and Chris Murray. That's what you're going to do. An impossible scenario years ago, but a scenario that makes sense based on where these last few years have gone. But Portland did it. And again, a lesson that NBA GMs can never forget a special resume. We'll be right back.