{"id":454174,"date":"2025-12-05T01:17:15","date_gmt":"2025-12-05T01:17:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/454174\/"},"modified":"2025-12-05T01:17:15","modified_gmt":"2025-12-05T01:17:15","slug":"western-notes-morant-frank-k-george-markkanen-gillespie","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/454174\/","title":{"rendered":"Western Notes: Morant, Frank, K. George, Markkanen, Gillespie"},"content":{"rendered":"

Grizzlies point guard Ja Morant<\/a>, who has been out since November 15 due to a right calf strain<\/a>, has been participating in drills, though he isn\u2019t going full speed or taking contact yet, head coach Tuomas Iisalo said on Thursday, per Damichael Cole of The Memphis Commercial Appeal<\/a>.<\/p>\n

While there are still some hurdles Morant needs to clear before he\u2019s ready to return to the court for the Grizzlies, Iisalo feels good about the progress the 26-year-old has made, noting that Morant is considered day-to-day.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe\u2019s already moving and able to do some things with the team, so looking positive,\u201d Iisalo said.<\/p>\n

As Cole writes, even once Morant is available, the Grizzlies will still be short on point guard depth, with Scotty Pippen Jr.<\/a> (toe), Ty Jerome<\/a> (calf), and Javon Small<\/a> (toe) all still inactive.<\/p>\n

Here\u2019s more from around the Western Conference:<\/p>\n

While some sources who spoke to Joe Vardon of The Athletic<\/a> said that Clippers president of basketball operations Lawrence Frank and other members of his front office are on track to sign contract extensions, other team sources said that talk of extensions is \u201cpremature,\u201d according to Vardon. For what it\u2019s worth, all of those sources stressed that Clippers owner Steve Ballmer values continuity, so there\u2019s no indication that a front office or head coaching change is on the horizon despite the team\u2019s poor start this season, Vardon notes.
\nTony Jones of The Athletic<\/a> provides an interesting, in-depth look at how Keyonte George<\/a>\u2018s offseason trip to Lauri Markkanen<\/a>\u2018s home country of Finland strengthened the chemistry between the two Jazz teammates and helped set up what has been a breakout season for George so far. Within the story, Markkanen also speaks about his desire to see Utah\u2019s rebuild through. \u201cFor me, the journey of getting better and better as a team and then finally breaking through means a lot to me,\u201d the star forward said. \u201cI would love to be a part of the next great Jazz team.\u201d
\nSuns point guard Collin Gillespie<\/a> spoke to Mark Medina of RG.org<\/a> about his increased role, learning from Devin Booker<\/a>, and his goals for the rest of the season, among other topics. \u201cI just want to continue to play good basketball and shoot the ball well and be efficient,\u201d Gillespie said when asked about his individual goals. \u201cI want to prove that I can be a consistent role player in the NBA. That\u2019s really it. Everything that comes with winning and team success, everything else will come individually.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Grizzlies point guard Ja Morant, who has been out since November 15 due to a right calf strain,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":454175,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3795],"tags":[7,4216,294,178,955,976,4902,293,177,4070,6],"class_list":{"0":"post-454174","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-memphis-grizzlies","8":"tag-basketball","9":"tag-collin-gillespie","10":"tag-grizzlies","11":"tag-ja-morant","12":"tag-keyonte-george","13":"tag-lauri-markkanen","14":"tag-lawrence-frank","15":"tag-memphis","16":"tag-memphis-grizzlies","17":"tag-memphisgrizzlies","18":"tag-nba"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nba\/115664325524228682","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/454174","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=454174"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/454174\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/454175"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=454174"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=454174"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=454174"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}