Wishes are brutal, unforgiving things.
They burn your tongue the moment they’re spoken and you can never take them back.
Just ask Ja Morant, who was overly eager in wishing for the Los Angeles Lakers to be their first round opponent so he and his teammates could take LeBron James out of the playoffs swiftly and resoundingly.
But they forgot about the Lakers’ second half of the season MVP – general manager Rob Pelinka – who, through a series of moves, brought in Rui Hachimura, Malik Beasley, and Jarred Vanderbilt. He also added Shaquille Harrison and Tristan Thompson before the playoffs, and brought back Dennis Schroder and D’Angelo Russell to the purple and gold.
And Pelinka brought over an undrafted white kid on a two-way contract from the University of Oklahoma who calls himself ‘Hillbilly Kobe’ on Twitter. His name? Austin Reaves, baby …
That may have been one of the best moves he made, since Reaves just reeled off 23 points – nine in the fourth quarter – in the Lakers’ win over the overeager (and overmatched) Memphis Grizzlies, 128-110, to take a 1-0 series lead on the road.
Hachimura, meantime, scored a game-high 29 points on .786 shooting, hitting five of six from downtown, for 83.3 percent.
And in all of this, lest we forget, the Lakers have a couple of guys named Anthony Davis (22 points, 12 rebounds) and LeBron James (21 points, 11 rebounds).
All Morant could do was sit and watch from the locker room.
Morant went down hard on his hand, landing after an offensive foul where he came down hard on the hardwood after hovering in the upper stratosphere of the FedEx Forum, somewhere north of Davis’ unibrow.
What he saw wasn’t any prettier than the injury he’d just sustained.
A year ago, Morant went out of the playoffs with an injury, and the Grizzlies came together in a galvanizing run that saw them play their best team basketball without their athletic and inspirational leader.
Today, they were completely deflated. So much so that they stood and watched the Lakers tear off 15 unanswered, powered by Reaves’ shooting and several unimpeded steals and dunks, making a close game a bona fide blow out.
The only person than Dillon Brooks can talk sh*t to today is the guy he sees in the mirror.
Hopefully that helps, as Morant’s already tender hand is evaluated before these teams meet again in Memphis on Wednesday – the day of the release of Morant’s signature shoe from Nike.
As they say, Memphis – be careful what you wish for.
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Tracy Graven is the Senior NBA Analyst for BackSportsPage.com.
He has written the NBA, done NBA Radio, and appeared as a guest for the last 21+ years for HoopsWorld, Swish Magazine, HoopsHype, the Coach Scott Fields Show, NBARadioShow.com, and is also tackling the NFL, NCAA, and will be pinch-hitting on some Major League Baseball coverage for BackSportsPage.
He’s spent 21 years in locker rooms in Orlando, Boise (CBA, G League), San Antonio, Phoenix, Denver, Oklahoma City, and Atlanta.
A corporate trainer by day, he currently resides in SEC Country near Knoxville, Tennessee.
Reach him on Twitter at @RealTMoneyMedia
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