{"id":543696,"date":"2026-01-17T23:31:23","date_gmt":"2026-01-17T23:31:23","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/543696\/"},"modified":"2026-01-17T23:31:23","modified_gmt":"2026-01-17T23:31:23","slug":"ja-morant-expected-to-return-to-action-on-sunday","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/543696\/","title":{"rendered":"Ja Morant Expected To Return To Action On Sunday"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Trade talks involving <a href=\"https:\/\/www.basketball-reference.com\/players\/m\/moranja01.html?utm_medium=linker&amp;utm_source=www.hoopsrumors.com&amp;utm_campaign=2026-01-17_bbr\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">Ja Morant<\/a> could get more serious once he gets back in action. That is expected to happen on Sunday, when the Grizzlies face the Magic in Berlin.<\/p>\n<p>Morant hasn\u2019t suited up since suffering a right calf injury on Jan. 2.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThere\u2019s a good chance he plays. He went through the full practice today and now we\u2019ve just got to see how his body responds in the morning,\u201d head coach Tuomas Iisalo said on Saturday, per <a target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/apnews.com\/article\/ja-morant-london-nba-grizzlies-dd7b2f2847a142ecab05f79d0a9bdbc9\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">The Associated Press<\/a>. \u201cThere\u2019s obviously no guarantees and he\u2019s got to feel comfortable with how the calf feels.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Morant has been limited to 18 games this season due to a variety of injuries and a <a target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/www.hoopsrumors.com\/2025\/11\/ja-morant-receives-one-game-suspension-from-grizzlies.html\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">one-game suspension<\/a> in early November for conduct detrimental to the team. He\u2019s averaging 19.0 points and 7.6 assists in 28.3 minutes per game while shooting a career-low 40.1% from the field and 20.8% on three-point attempts.<\/p>\n<p>Iisalo claims he and Morant are on the same page.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe have a very good working relationship and every day here we both look to get better,\u201d the Grizzlies\u2019 coach said.<\/p>\n<p>However, there has been daily speculation regarding Morant\u2019s future ever since <a target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/www.hoopsrumors.com\/2026\/01\/grizzlies-open-to-trading-ja-morant.html\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">reports surfaced<\/a> last week that Memphis was entertaining trade offers for their point guard.<\/p>\n<p>The Timberwolves, Kings, Heat, Bucks, Raptors, Nets and Mavericks have been mentioned as potential suitors for Morant. However, there have been no indications that any trade discussions have reached the serious level. Morant has two years remaining after this season on his five-year, $197.2MM contract and his value has dipped the past few seasons due to declining production, health problems, and off-the-court issues.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Trade talks involving Ja Morant could get more serious once he gets back in action. That is expected&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":528141,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3795],"tags":[7,294,178,293,177,4070,6,1139],"class_list":{"0":"post-543696","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-memphis-grizzlies","8":"tag-basketball","9":"tag-grizzlies","10":"tag-ja-morant","11":"tag-memphis","12":"tag-memphis-grizzlies","13":"tag-memphisgrizzlies","14":"tag-nba","15":"tag-tuomas-iisalo"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nba\/115913050225266640","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/543696","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=543696"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/543696\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/528141"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=543696"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=543696"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=543696"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}