Grizzlies' Ja Morant soars into rare air with all-time greats as NBA all-star starter | Giannotto

The night before Ja Morant officially became an NBA All-Star game starter, the night he dedicated to his grandmother, scored 41 points and set a franchise-record for most points scored in a four-game span, he answered a question he had answered in some form on many nights before.

It was about Friday’s game against the Utah Jazz, a game that will be of great meaning to the NBA playoffs race the Memphis Grizzlies are part of thanks to Morant’s magical season. It was about Morant’s desire to dunk on Jazz center Rudy Gobert.

But given the circumstances, given what he would soon accomplish sitting alongside his grandmother in Augusta, Georgia, on Thursday, this time the answer got at the essence of what he does on a basketball court, of why he is now part of an exclusive club featuring the game’s most storied players.

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“I don’t care who’s down there, how tall you is. I’m not afraid to go up and finish against you,” Morant announced, and then he wouldn’t even refer to Gobert by name. “So regarding your question about the big for next game, no, it doesn’t give me any more fuel. I’m going to attack the game the same way I’ve been doing my whole career.”

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That is what greatness sounds like. This is what it looks and feels like. Even the final stragglers who aren’t yet ready to declare Morant a superstar until they see the Grizzlies make a deep postseason run should reconsider their stance. His trajectory takes on a whole new meaning because he will, at 22 years, five months and 11 days old, start in an NBA All-Star game on Feb. 20 in Cleveland, it was announced Thursday.

The 21 players to do that at a younger age since the NBA started holding an All-Star game in 1951 are stunning because the history of the league can’t be written without them. It suggests Memphis is witnessing an event that will be remembered as entirely different than when Marc Gasol was voted an all-star game starter in 2015.

Kobe Bryant is the youngest, the only 19-year-old to start an NBA All-Star Game, before he was even a starter for the Los Angeles Lakers in 1998. Magic Johnson (1980), Isiah Thomas (1982), Shaquille O’Neal (1993), LeBron James (2005), Luka Doncic (2020) and Zion Williamson (2021) accomplished it at 20 years old. Rick Barry (1966), Michael Jordan (1985), Kevin Garnett (1998), Tracy McGrady (2001), Kyrie Irving (2014) and Trae Young (2020) were All-Star game starters at 21 years old.

Oscar Robertson (1961), Kevin Durant (2011) and Giannis Antetokounmpo (2017) were among those months younger than Morant when they started an all-star game at 22.

Everyone on this list who’s retired, from Walt Bellamy (1962) and Grant Hill (1995) to Magic, Jordan and Kobe, is in the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame. Of the active players, James, Durant, Dwight Howard, and Antetokounmpo are destined to be hall of famers. Irving and Doncic seem to be progressing that way. It’s too early to declare that with Young and Williamson.

Only four of the retired players didn’t win an NBA championship. Only Rose, whose first all-star game start came in the midst of his MVP campaign in 2011, seems unlikely to one day be enshrined. But that's more because of the chronic knee issues that derailed his career at its peak than anything else.

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So, if we’re to judge Morant’s first all-star selection by history, the only obstacle standing between him and becoming the best player to wear a Grizzlies jersey is an injury. He’s on a path to being the most decorated athlete to ever play regularly in Memphis.

The fan voting totals, in which Morant pulled away from Doncic, demonstrated a popularity unseen in these parts since Penny Hardaway was a supernova with the Orlando Magic. Hardaway, however, didn’t become an all-star starter until he was 23. Gasol was 30 when he represented the Grizzlies as a starter at the all-star game.

But the way Morant plays, the combination of athleticism and vision that are unmatched at his size, the expectation that he’ll pull off a awe-inspiring dunk or a ridiculous layup or a sublime sequence of passing and ball-handling at any moment, the fact that his overwhelming numbers have morphed the Grizzlies into a contender far earlier than anybody anticipated, is why this particular honor symbolizes more than just a goal to check off Morant’s list.

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Morant is the Grizzlies’ best shot at bringing a championship to the city. He’s the catalyst and the cause for all of the franchise’s dreams, this season and beyond. There is no comparison, in terms of Memphis, to what Morant achieved Thursday because this appears to be just beginning.

This is more than Morant putting together the best season the franchise has ever seen. A season in which he ranks behind only Nikola Jokic and Joel Embiid in clutch scoring, leads the league in paint scoring as a 6-foot-3 guard, and can legitimately claim to be one of the NBA’s MVP candidates with less than three months to go.

This is Morant soaring over Gobert and into the NBA’s rarest of air.

Breathe it in, Memphis.

Youngest NBA All-Star game starters

Kobe Bryant; 19 years, 5 months, 17 days; 1998

LeBron James; 20 years, 1 month, 22 days; 2005

Magic Johnson; 20 years, 5 months, 21 days; 1980

Zion Williamson; 20 years, 8 months, 2 days; 2021

Isiah Thomas; 20 years, 9 months, 2 days; 1982

Shaquille O’Neal; 20 years, 11 months, 16 days; 1993

Luka Doncic; 20 years, 11 months, 20 days; 2020

Trae Young; 21 years, 4 months, 29 days; 2020

Tracy McGrady; 21 years, 8 months, 19 days; 2001

Kevin Garnett; 21 years, 8 months, 21 days; 1998

Rick Barry; 21 years, 9 months, 15 days; 1966

Kyrie Irving; 21 years, 10 months, 25 days; 2014

Michael Jordan; 21 years, 11 months, 25 days; 1985

Oscar Robertson; 22 years, 1 month, 25 days; 1961

Dwight Howard; 22 years, 2 months, 10 days; ​​​​​​​2008

Giannis Antetokounmpo; 22 years, 2 months, 14 days; ​​​​​​​2017

Grant Hill; 22 years, 4 months, 8 days; ​​​​​​​1995

Derrick Rose; 22 years, 4 months, 17 days; 2011

Kevin Durant; 22 years, 4 months, 23 days; ​​​​​​​2011

Yao Ming; 22 years, 4 months, 29 days; ​​​​​​​2003

Walt Bellamy; 22 years, 5 months, 24 days; 1962

Ja Morant; 22 years, 6 months, 11 days; 2022

You can reach Commercial Appeal columnist Mark Giannotto via email at mgiannotto@gannett.com and follow him on Twitter: @mgiannotto

This article originally appeared on Memphis Commercial Appeal: Memphis Grizzlies Ja Morant selected as NBA All-Star game starter 2022