play1:03Zion out at least a week for PelicansPelicans lose Zion Williamson with a hamstring injury for seven to 10 days.
Tim BontempsCloseTim BontempsESPN Senior WriterTim Bontemps is a senior NBA writer for ESPN.com who covers the league and what’s impacting it on and off the court, including trade deadline intel, expansion and his MVP Straw Polls. You can find Tim alongside Brian Windhorst and Tim MacMahon on The Hoop Collective podcast.Follow on XBrian WindhorstCloseBrian WindhorstESPN Senior WriterESPN.com NBA writer since 2010 Covered Cleveland Cavs for seven years Author of two booksFollow on XNov 7, 2025, 07:00 AM ET
Are Ja Morant and the Grizzlies headed for a breakup? (1:06)Bobby Marks and Tim MacMahon discuss whether Ja Morant and the Grizzlies can move forward after his suspension. (1:06)
Zion out at least a week for PelicansPelicans lose Zion Williamson with a hamstring injury for seven to 10 days.
Even before Ja Morant’s postgame comments last week that led to a one-game suspension, followed by the star guard passing on the chance to defuse tension between himself and the Memphis Grizzlies coaching staff, plenty of eyes were watching how their season would play out.
Last spring, after a shocking late-season coaching upheaval and a first-round sweep by the eventual champion Oklahoma City Thunder, Grizzlies general manager Zach Kleiman was blunt in his assessment.
Then came this summer, when Memphis sent Desmond Bane — a pillar of the franchise alongside Morant and big man Jaren Jackson Jr. — to the Orlando Magic for a haul of draft picks, backing up Kleiman’s words with significant action. The Grizzlies handed Jackson a five-year, $240 million contract extension — and didn’t tack on any additional seasons to the three years and roughly $126 million owed to Morant.
Those moves left Morant and the Grizzlies in a version of NBA limbo entering this season, even before the team’s current situation. But Morant is just one of several franchise stars facing uncertain futures in the first few weeks of 2025-26.
Windhorst: Naturally sparking all kinds of trade speculation, Morant’s one-game suspension was the leading conversation piece when speaking with league executives. But any such talk is also low-hanging fruit. The Grizzlies are highly incentivized to make this situation work and that seems to be what they are still trying to accomplish amid a 3-6 start.
Iisalo, who is Finnish and spent his career playing and coaching overseas before last season, has a different viewpoint on game strategy than most of his NBA peers. One of the most obvious is his method of playing lineups in three- to four-minute shifts and then mass substituting to encourage continuous high-energy play.
Morant, whose shooting percentages are at career-worst levels, seems to still be in the skeptical camp. That is believed to be a core issue in the player and coach’s locker room back-and-forth that preceded Sunday’s suspension.
Bontemps: All the drama that’s played out over the past few years and the decline in Morant’s play from the showstopping heights of the first couple of seasons of his career, the easy thing to do is to say, “Well, just find the best trade you can make and move on.”
In talking with various sources around the league, Morant is still viewed as a borderline top-10 player at the position — and that’s before factoring in the previous off-court issues — but there aren’t many teams around the league in need of a starting point guard.
Morant also remains very popular in Memphis, a market players aren’t exactly flocking to, and one in which Morant has repeatedly said he wants to remain.
“He sells shoes, he sells tickets, and he wants to play in Memphis when no one wants to,” a Western Conference assistant coach said. “So it makes for a really, really difficult situation.”
Windhorst: This is not the first time a college or European coach has arrived with the belief they can disrupt the NBA game. And it’s not the first time the stars have been a hard sell.
“I’ve never seen drastic change like that work, going back to Paul Westhead trying to bring his Loyola Marymount system to Denver [in 1990],” a veteran executive said. “I don’t mean to oversimplify it, but the best teams play their best players the most minutes.”
“Basketball, just like every team sport, is evolving. The demands on intensity are higher and higher. We are looking to also adapt to the times,” Iisalo said this week. “The only goal of the sub pattern is to find a competitive advantage from it.”
He doesn’t have to sell other teams on it — he has to sell Morant on it. If he doesn’t, working together will likely remain tough.
Bontemps: The other question sources around the league are asking is whether the Grizzlies, at some point this season, would entertain moving on from Jackson, as well, if they choose to end their partnership with Morant.
That is the same formula that led the Cleveland Cavaliers to swing on Donovan Mitchell and the Minnesota Timberwolves to acquire Rudy Gobert. The two All-Stars had plenty of time left on their deals at the time of their respective trades from the Utah Jazz.
But the 6-foot-10 Jackson has averaged more than six rebounds just once in his career, making it difficult to play him full-time at center and blunting his value. He also has always been a foul-prone player, averaging 4.4 this season.
That said, as a legitimate 3-point shooter who has averaged just under 2 blocks for his career, Jackson has the skill set every team is hoping to find in a big.
We have seen several recent high-level players who fit a certain sweet spot as a complimentary star — Bane, Gobert and Mikal Bridges to the New York Knicks, for example — be traded for a haul of draft picks. And, if Memphis were able to make such a move, it would walk into a loaded 2026 NBA draft with what currently would be two lottery picks. (And potentially more, depending on the outcome of these trades).
Kleiman has already accumulated an interesting crop of young talent on this roster, including Cedric Coward, the No. 11 pick in this year’s draft; Zach Edey, the No. 9 selection last year; and Jaylen Wells, a second-rounder last year who finished third in Rookie of the Year voting.
Bontemps: Before the New Orleans Pelicans picked up wins on back-to-back nights against a pair of banged-up teams (Charlotte Hornets and Dallas Mavericks) earlier this week, there wasn’t a more depressing situation in the league in the early going.
Williamson, meanwhile, is again sidelined with a hamstring injury, further complicating the situation facing new president of basketball operations Joe Dumars.
“I’m glad he’s in shape,” a Western Conference scout said of Williamson, “but I think he needs to go. I think a change of scenery would make sense for everybody.”
Pelicans lose Zion Williamson with a hamstring injury for seven to 10 days.
Windhorst: The intel that exists on Williamson within the league, fairly or not, is not great. There have been numerous coaches, support staff and teammates that have cycled through New Orleans over the past seven years, which includes all the injuries and a one-game suspension in January for being late to a team flight.
Stated simply, even with his unusual non-guaranteed contract over the next two years that offers the franchise protection, Williamson’s trade value isn’t super high.
“To be honest, their move might be a win-now trade, not a Zion trade,” a rival executive said. “His trade value isn’t there and they are facing some pressure to win.”
It wasn’t the first October where this concept emanated from New Orleans, but Williamson backed it up by saying he felt the best physically since his jaw-dropping lone season at Duke in 2018-19. Now, less than three weeks into the season, he is missing time with the fifth significant hamstring injury of his career.
“Joe is smart, he knew the only rational move was to motivate Zion,” another executive said. “He’s still only 25. With a player like that, you have to exhaust all options to try to make it work.”
Bontemps: Williamson remains a talent. However, he’s also a ball-dominant player who doesn’t shoot from the perimeter and is a below average defender at best.
That’s not exactly a desirable trade asset, even factoring in all the injuries that have limited Williamson to playing just 219 out of a possible 480 games in his career. Williamson has played in only 45.6% of all of New Orleans’ games since the start of the 2019 season and has never played in a playoff game.
“There’s no reason for New Orleans to sell low on him,” an Eastern Conference scout said. “So, they might as well wait to see if they can get his value to go up.”
Windhorst: Young is on the final guaranteed year of his contract ($46 million) but has a player option next season for $49 million. He is the Hawks’ franchise player. They can sign him to an extension at any time, sources told ESPN that those talks haven’t progressed.
That is likely because it’s hard to determine a market value for Young. He’s a four-time All-Star and led the league in assists per game (11.6) last season. Over the past four years being built primarily around Young, the Hawks have averaged a modest 40 wins and haven’t been over .500 since 2021-22.
“The Hawks have been making smart decisions as a front office and they have done a nice job judging value on their players,” a Western Conference executive said. “Trae’s agent will spend the next few months working to figure out what his market is, and the Hawks will do their due diligence too, determining what the competition is. And in the end, we’ll see who has the best information.”
Young, unfortunately, is out for a month with a sprained knee suffered last week. This is bad news for the Hawks, though there was relief that he avoided a worse injury, but the rest of the league is watching. If the Hawks offense suffers badly without their longtime playmaking engine, it could create some leverage for Young and his potential next deal. If the younger Hawks keep their heads above water, it might inform decision-making in the other direction.