“Ja Morant Has Got That Dawg In Him”: Gary Payton Praises Grizzlies Superstar as the Only Point Guard He Likes To Watch

Seattle SuperSonics legend and Hall of Famer Gary Payton had some truly high words of praise for Grizzlies All-Star Ja Morant.

Ja Morant has been one of the most watchable dudes in the league ever since he was drafted in 2019. The #2 overall pick sealed a Rookie of the Year campaign by leading the Grizzlies into the play-in.

Since then, he’s improved his scoring chops as well as his playmaking. He’s now one of the NBA’s foremost offensive creators, both as a scorer and as a facilitator.

Morant won the Most Improved Player Award for the 2021-22 NBA season last year. This was after he bumped his scoring up by a whopping 8.3 points per game in his 3rd year.

The Memphis Grizzlies also surprised a ton of NBA fans by finishing 2nd in the regular season standings last year. Though they would go on to lose in the playoffs to the eventual champions, they made a mark.

Also Read – Ja Morant, who has a 44-inch vertical has a “freak trampoline injury” to thank for his acrobatic finishes at the rim.

This year, Ja and his Grizzlies team are motoring along nicely at the top of the Western Conference. Currently on an 8-game winning streak, they look poised to cement another top-2 seed.

Gary Payton says Ja Morant is the one small guard he likes to watch

The Glove appeared on Kevin Garnett’s show called KG Certified on Showtime Basketball this past week. Garnett and Payton had an epic conversation, in which they went through a lot of anecdotes and experiences from the latter’s career and life.

Among the questions asked by Garnett was one about which current NBA guards Payton likes to watch. Now given his defensive reputation, Payton was expected to go with a noted defender himself. But he couldn’t stop himself from gushing about Ja Morant:

“There’s only one I like, who’s really, really tough. And that’s Ja. I like him a lot, I think he’s got a lot of dawg in him. I think he doesn’t back down from anybody. And he gets it – he gets the game.”

“I like what he was just saying just now, that he’s not scared of anybody in the West. And he’s gonna get a Golden State helmet on Christmas, you know what I’m saying? I like when he says stuff like that.”

Also Read – “Ja Morant is going to end up like Russell Westbrook, Derrick Rose and John Wall in the long run!”: NBA Analyst has surprising take on the Grizzlies MVP’s career trajectory.

Can Ja be a starter in this year’s All-Star Game?

The second voting returns for this year’s All-Star Game at Salt Lake City are out. As expected, Stephen Curry leads the Western Conference guards’ vote count with a phenomenal 3.9 million votes to his name.

Luka Doncic is in second place, not far behind Steph at nearly 3.65 million. This means that Ja is unlikely to climb into a starting berth as he trails the Slovenian by over 2 million votes.