Last week’s trade that brought Markieff Morris, left, to the Wizards, also brought him closer to his mother, Angel. (Michael Reynolds/EPA) (Michael Reynolds/EPA)

Angel Morris was at her hairdresser on the afternoon of Feb. 18 when the single mother of identical twin brothers Markieff and Marcus sent a text message to her sons’ agent, Dan Brinkley. She assumed that the Phoenix Suns were finally going to trade Markieff by the NBA’s 3 p.m. deadline and terminate the ruined relationship between the two parties. Suns officials told him they planned to trade him. They were just waiting for the right offer. But it was 2:30, and she hadn’t heard anything.

At 2:47, she received a reply from Brinkley.

“Pack your bags.”

“For what?”

“Washington.”

Wizards forward Markieff Morris, left, fights for position against his twin brother, Marcus, of the Detroit Pistons when the two teams met Feb. 19 in Washington. (Jonathan Newton/The Washington Post)

[Wizards sign free agent J.J. Hickson to bolster front court]

Moments later, Markieff Morris called his mother after finding out during practice in Phoenix. “ ‘Mom, you happy?’ ” Angel Morris recalled her son asking. “I’m like, ‘If you’re happy, I’m happy. I’m happy to get you out of there. And home is good.’ ”

Markieff and Marcus Morris were born and raised in Philadelphia, where Markieff’s Washington Wizards will take the floor at Wells Fargo Center on Friday against the 76ers. They starred at Prep Charter High School, where Brinkley was their coach, and proudly call Philadelphia home.

But the Washington area is where the majority of the Morris family resides. Angel Morris grew up in Washington until she moved to Philadelphia when she was 13. The family visited the District a few times a year during the twins’ childhoods, spending most of the time with relatives in Northeast, and Angel Morris bought a home in Clinton five years ago following a three-year stay in Lawrence, Kan., for her sons’ college careers.

“I would say 75 percent of my family is [in Washington],” Markieff Morris said after his first practice with the Wizards on Monday. “And I think it’ll be a great thing for me, being able to see my mom a lot. That’s my road dog. We do a lot together. She’s one of my best friends.”

[Bog: Meet Markieff Morris, a Cowboys fan from Philly]

Once the Suns traded Marcus to Detroit over the summer, the question was never whether Markieff was also going to get traded. The unknown was where he would land. Angel Morris said the 76ers, Pistons, Toronto Raptors, Chicago Bulls and Minnesota Timberwolves all expressed interest in her son before Washington shipped a protected first-round pick, Kris Humphries and DeJuan Blair to Phoenix .

A look at some of the best and ugliest uniforms in NBA All-Star Game history. (Thomas Johnson/The Washington Post)

The move would have been implausible a year ago, when the twins were playing their third season together with the Suns. Before the start of the campaign, the brothers, slated to become restricted free agents the following summer, began contract extension negotiations with the organization and the Suns presented an offer: They could split a combined $52 million over four years however they wanted, less than what they probably would attain in free agency but with the assurance they would play together.

“I was a little leery and I said, ‘I don’t think you should do that,’ ” Angel Morris said. “Because you never know what’s going to come up. But Keef was like, ‘No, Ma, I’ve been with Phoenix this long and I trust them and they’re my family. And we’re going to go along with this because they said they’re going to keep us together. If we take that small contract, they’re going to keep us together.’ ”

[Steinberg: 5 reasons I’m okay with the deal for Markieff Morris]

The twins agreed to the discount. Markieff took $32 million. Marcus received $20 million. The money didn’t matter, the brothers said, because they wanted to play together. They’d been on the same teams nearly their entire lives, only splitting for their first season and a half in the league after the Suns selected Markieff with the 13th pick and the Houston Rockets nabbed Marcus next in the 2011 draft. The Suns acquired Marcus in February 2013 and he moved in with his brother.

“Those two guys have a special bond,” said Rahim Washington, who coached the twins at Prep Charter. “They’re not like most twins.”

In July, before the extensions even kicked in, Marcus Morris got off a plane to news that he had been traded to the Pistons. The Morris family claims there was no warning. Angel Morris said Marcus had met with Suns brass two days earlier and didn’t receive any indication a trade was brewing. The Suns later explained Morris was dealt to create the salary cap space to pursue all-star LaMarcus Aldridge. The chase was a long shot and Aldridge signed with the San Antonio Spurs. Suns General Manager Ryan McDonough was not made available to comment.

“I regret signing that contract,” Markieff Morris said. “You’re damn right I regret it. Hell yeah.”

[Markieff Morris’s contract is very team-friendly]

A month after the trade, Morris told the Philadelphia Inquirer he wanted out of Phoenix. Then he tweeted “My future will not be in Phoenix” and the NBA fined him $10,000 for his public stance.

“Everybody thinks it was mainly just not playing with my brother,” said the 6-foot-10 Morris, 26. “I ain’t tripping about not playing with my brother. It was the whole contract part and the whole disloyalty part. Organizations can do what they want as far as making moves without telling players and all that [crap]. But as far as the loyalty, as far as how long I’ve been there, how much I’ve known them guys, I would think there would be a little more respect than what they went about it. And there was a lot of things that were said between me and the owner and the GM that I didn’t respect and that was the main part why I was so angry.”

The tension trickled into the season. He was benched in early December for poor performance and served a two-game suspension later in the month for tossing a towel at Coach Jeff Hornacek, who has since been fired. During a game earlier this month, he shoved Suns point guard Archie Goodwin during a timeout.

[Alan Anderson’s season debut went better than expected]

“I’m not the type of guy that takes stuff back he did,” Morris said. “The towel thing is not what everybody said it was. Nobody saw it. People are just going make it that way because of stuff that happened in the past. Me and Archie are brothers. Sometimes we can get in heated competition with your brothers and you move on like we did.”

Looming over the on-court strife is a pending legal case against the twins. The brothers pleaded not guilty to two counts of felony aggravated assault in May stemming from an incident at a Phoenix recreation center last January. They and three others are accused of attacking Erik Hood, 36, after Hood allegedly sent “inappropriate” text messages to Angel Morris.

“The charge is going to go away,” Angel Morris said. “Don’t even worry about it. It’s going to go away.”

Despite all the turbulence, people in the league who have been with Morris, including Hornacek, vouched for him when the Wizards inquired, and Suns teammates, including Goodwin, expressed disappointment when he was traded.

“The guys that really know me know how I am,” Morris said. “I leave Phoenix and everybody’s calling me disgruntled but then you see my teammates that were there speak highly of me. The coach that I supposedly threw a towel at was one of the first to call Washington and say, ‘Y’all should get this guy. He’s a great competitor, he’s a great kid.’ But that’s how it goes, man. You going to find something and then you’re going to do something else that’s going to keep pouring on. But for me I don’t care. I’m going to keep moving.”

Now Morris is in the middle of a playoff race with his mother and home-cooked meals a short drive from Verizon Center.

“I’m glad we came home,” Angel Morris said.