It seems safe to say that Ja Morant has a moment.
The Memphis Grizzlies defender has a breakthrough season in his third year in the NBA. He is gaining strength in the race for MVP, not to mention the approval of Alan Iverson. And he ignites NBA’s social media channels with accent after accent.
Morant’s exploits reached a new peak on Monday when he broke a career-high 52 points in a victory over the San Antonio Spurs, including this absurd buzzer at the end of the first half.
Fans have obviously liked the video enough that it is now the most watched video in the history of the NBA’s Instagram account, the league revealed on Wednesday. The video reportedly garnered 42.1 million views, part of the more than 80 million views that Morant garnered for the entire game.
Morant’s 325 million views are reported to be the third highest number of views per player in the NBA. only at the back Stephen Curry and LeBron James. This is pretty good for a player who competes in the smallest market in the league.
Of course, you don’t need a social media engagement number to know that Morant seems to be becoming something special.
For the season, Morant currently has an average of 27.6 points, 6.6 assists and 5.9 rebounds per game, while shooting 49.8 percent of the field and 33.4 percent of 3 points. Beyond statistics, he has become one of the funniest players in the NBA, capable of making posters and deep 3 points.
This record holder may not even have been his best game of the night, as he did with poor Spurs center Jakob Pöltl:
As the pearl of the young core of the Grizzlies, Morant is third in the Western Conference with a record of 43-20. He won his first NBA All-Star Award this season and we’ll have to wait and see what other hardware he will take by the end of the season.
