Let's Face It, There's Only 1 Team That Should Chase Ja Morant Trade
Not so long ago, news of Ja Morant's availability in a trade would have piqued the interest of every other NBA team. Now, the costs and benefits of onboarding Morant mean pursuing him only makes sense if the organization doing the chasing has nothing to lose.
Enter the LA Clippers.
Of all the teams that might go after Morant, they're the one that can line up all the potential risks and rewards, weigh the upsides and downsides, and conclude that the calculations work out.
This isn't a question of the actual cost of acquiring Morant in terms of tradable assets. That price is exceptionally low.
For some perspective, the Memphis Grizzlies saw the Atlanta Hawks secure an expiring contract as the principal asset in a Trae Young trade and basically decided, "Yep, that seems reasonable" before immediately publicizing their willingness to move their own rapidly depreciating point guard.
The Clippers can get a deal done by shipping out John Collins (expiring), Bogdan Bogdanović (team option in 2026-27) and another minimum-salaried player. If a draft-pick sweetener is necessary (far from a given), they can include a protected first-rounder in 2030 or seconds in 2031 and 2032.
Thanks, But No Thanks
Plenty of other teams can beat that package, but none of them should want to.
Take the Miami Heat, for example. They tend to enter the chat when a star-level distressed asset becomes available; Jimmy Butler arrived after a tumultuous time with the Minnesota Timberwolves and delivered Finals trips in 2020 and 2023.
Morant, though, is completely different.
Even if the price were right, and even if the Heat believe they can coax the best out of most players once they get them in house, it's impossible to imagine them trading for a someone whose current discontent was directly tied to the coaching and style of play they adopted just this season. Noah LaRoche engineered the screen-free, egalitarian attack that Morant hated in Memphis last year, and he's widely credited for implementing the same principles now that he's on Erik Spoelstra's staff. Morant has to be a nonstarter for Miami.
The Toronto Raptors can't accommodate a point guard who shoots close to 20.0 percent from long range if they intend to keep building around Scottie Barnes and Collin Murray-Boyles up front.
The Brooklyn Nets didn't pursue Young and won't chase Morant because they picked multiple guards in the first round of the 2025 draft and seem to value ball-movers over heliocentric shot-generators.
Scan the league, and there's always a clear reason to avoid Morant at almost any cost. Specifics aside, the general concerns surrounding his lack of availability, declining athleticism, poor shooting, suspension history and more recent episodes of quiet-quitting make the potential for a favorable outcome too remote.
Young rebuilders should want no part of Morant as a tone-setting leader. Contenders can't fit him into lineups that already have established stars, especially if they're short on shooting at any other position.
No Better Alternatives
This leaves the Clippers as the lone suitors in the barren wasteland that is the Morant marketplace.
That might seem like a strange conclusion given LA's recent play. Winners in 10 of their last 12, the Clips are performing better than they have at any point this season. James Harden is on track to put up another All-Star-worthy campaign, and Kawhi Leonard has been dominant when available.
Then again, LA is the oldest team in the league, has no prospects of note and is still highly unlikely to finish above the Play-In—a ceiling that won't be reachable if either Harden or Leonard misses significant time going forward. Beyond this season, LA's future is bleak. It doesn't control a first-rounder until 2030.
This is where the risk-averse will cite the Clippers' potential cap space as a source of hope. LA figures to have just $25 million this summer, unless James Harden opts out of his $42 million, but 2027 features almost totally clean books. If it were 2018 and rampant extensions hadn't destroyed free agency, and if anyone could be convinced that LA might attract a second star on the market without having the first already in place, the cap-space route might be a viable plan. But it's 2026, and superteam construction through free agency is an unrealistic throwback strategy.
Who Cares About Fit?
Morant lacks off-ball value and therefore wouldn't be a good fit next to Harden. Defensively, those two would be completely unplayable together. But where's the logic in making personnel decisions based on a 36-year-old—one leading a sub-.500 team while toting perhaps the least trustworthy postseason track record in modern NBA history?
The Harden-Leonard era is over. Morant might not be the leading figure in the next great epoch of Clippers basketball, but at least you can squint and imagine him reviving his career following a change of scenery. Maybe he and Ivica Zubac can anchor a playoff team. Maybe a rejuvenated Morant will be good enough to attract a second star.
As improbable as those outcomes may seem, they're still easier to imagine than Harden and Leonard staying healthy enough to make a run this year—let alone doing anything of consequence when they're 37 and 35 in 2026-27.
Morant is defined by the risks he represents, but LA is uniquely immune to them. The chances he'll regain his past form and rehab his reputation are slim and none.
They also might be the only ones the Clippers have.
Stats courtesy of NBA.com, Basketball Reference and Cleaning the Glass. Salary info via Spotrac.
Grant Hughes covers the NBA for Bleacher Report. Follow him on Bluesky and subscribe to the Hardwood Knocks podcast, where he appears with Bleacher Report's Dan Favale.
