A weekly dive into the NBA’s hottest topics.

1. Ja Morant is turning the game around

Presented below are two shot charts.

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The first one belongs to point guard Ja Morant, the spindly springboard who is going to run away with the NBA Rookie of the Year Award unless Zion Williamson emerges looking like prime LeBron James. The other one belongs to Morant’s teammate, big man Jaren Jackson Jr.

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Jackson Jr. scores all over the arc like a wing: coming off screens, nailing step-backs, spotting up, pick-n-rolling and pick-n-popping. But it’s Morant, eight inches shy of Jackson’s 6-foot-11 frame, who has the balance, post footwork and ball control to stay level when he’s swarmed inside the paint. The NBA’s lost post arts are making themselves new in the drives of smaller players like Morant.

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The Grizzlies, riding a six-game winning streak, took over the eighth seed in the West behind this duo that is just the latest example of the modern NBA’s positional role reversal. Jackson is taking over six threes per game, while Morant leads the Grizzlies in attempts at the restricted area.

Morant navigates the rim with a mix of burst, instinct and touch, like the helicopter in the Helicopter Game trying to avoid crashing against the walls. He also has the burst to go through obstacles when that doesn’t work, making him more dangerous down low than your modern big man.

The boldness with which Morant uses his athletic gifts to embarrass other defenders makes him a dribbling highlight reel — reminiscent of when Blake Griffin drew curmudgeonly ire for Mozgov-ing the entire NBA in his rookie year — but Morant’s dominance is tied less to his ability to spring up and more to do with what he does when he’s on the ground. Morant rarely picks up his dribble or jump-passes into the unknown, a habit most athletic guards don’t develop and internalize for years because, prior to the NBA, they never had to.

Morant is particular and rigorous about getting where he wants to go, and his ability to snake into the paint and stay there with a live dribble forces commitments, allowing him to leverage his calling: whipping passes all over the floor.

In the final moments of a win against the Minnesota Timberwolves on Tuesday, the Grizzlies were up three when Morant came off a pick, drove into the lane, turned his back to defender Jarrett Culver, spun toward the rim, assessed the situation, eyed Jackson, and decided he wanted more leverage. He spun again, this time away from the rim, faking a short fadeaway to attract the necessary attention to create an open three for Jackson, who was waiting for the Wolves to succumb to Morant’s proximity to the rim and bring a second defender toward him.

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