Ja Morant’s long road back to basketball took 236 days. 

That’s the distance from the Memphis Grizzlies’ 40-point playoff elimination in Los Angeles last April to Morant’s spectacular, game-winning return at New Orleans in December, a journey that took Morant through a summer of something like exile from the NBA and a 25-game suspension to begin this season. 

His return lasted nine games. 

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This time, it isn’t his own decision-making, or the NBA’s, that has sidelined Morant. 

Rather, the utter cruelty of chance has intervened.

Morant was listed as questionable with shoulder soreness for the Grizzlies’ game Sunday in Phoenix, two days after he’d helped his team perform a kind of basketball exorcism back in Los Angeles, with a come-from-behind win over the Lakers.

This mild injury designation quickly grew more portentous, first with the sight of Morant on the sideline, his right arm in a sling. Next came head coach Taylor Jenkins’ uncertain postgame comments, which implied further testing was needed to determine Morant’s injury.

Then, on Monday night, the confirmation of worst fears: That Morant had suffered a shoulder subluxation (essentially a partial dislocation) in a between-games training session on Saturday, tests revealing an underlying labral tear, surgery required.

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Morant is now out for the rest of this season, and while he’s expected to be ready to go for the start of the next one, that means the gap between Morant’s last game, in Los Angeles on Friday, and his next one, on opening night in October, will likely be 292 days. 

Put both absences together, and that’s nine games in 528 days for one of the top players in basketball. 

And whatever this means for the Grizzlies, this season and beyond, and we’ll get to that soon, let’s start there: This is a crushing blow for Morant, a radiant young star who’d essentially sidelined himself and who seemed to miss the game even more than it missed him. 

And that’s saying something, because Morant packed a lot into those nine games: 

• An epic comeback and succession of potential game-winners, until one stuck at the final horn, in New Orleans. 
• A series of battles with San Antonio’s 7-foot-4 rookie phenom Victor Wembanyama, finally scaling Mt. Wemby with an attacking dunk in the fourth quarter.
• Alley-oops given and received. Blocks at the rim, no-look assists and double-clutching layups. 
• His pre-school-aged daughter again gracing the FedExForum court before and after games. Morant’s joy at being back reflected and amplified by the delight of his teammates. 
• Twenty-five points, six rebounds and eight assists a night. A 6-3 record with him after a 6-19 record without him. 

It’s hard to say that misfortune has piled up on Morant when he brought about the earlier extended absence on his own. But a rough year for the Grizzlies’ franchise player is now morphing into two.

For the sake of Morant, the Grizzlies and the NBA, let’s hope Morant makes it through this longer absence to return as fully, as forcefully and as instantly come fall as he did in December. 

And for the next return to last much longer.

But what of the left behind? 

After starting 6-19 without Morant, the Grizzlies were already creeping into “looking to next season” territory. But Morant’s return started to change that. Instantly, he brought excitement, and he brought wins. The Grizzlies were 7-4 since Morant’s return (splitting two games he missed) and entered the week 4.5 games out of postseason qualification with 46 games to go, ample time to claw their way back into contention.

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Now?

The Grizzlies notched one of their best wins of the season without Morant on Sunday, before the team knew of his fate. Perhaps that will help them carry confidence into a “rest of the season” they now know will continue without their best player.

As much as the Grizzlies struggled without Morant to begin this season, that was also while missing significant time from Marcus Smart and Luke Kennard, and with growing fixture Vince Williams Jr. taking a month to climb his way into the team’s nightly rotation. 

Considering they were already without center Steven Adams for the season, expecting the Grizzlies to win enough without Morant to still crash the postseason race is likely expecting too much. 

Expecting them to be better than before, perhaps much better, is not.

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But what’s the point in a better that likely won’t be good enough?

Ordinarily, in a moment like this, a team would be thinking about tanking, about diminishing its product in pursuit of a higher draft pick, if not exactly talking about it. 

The Grizzlies aren’t there yet. And even with this blow, don’t expect them to give up the fight anytime soon. 

It’s still too early in the season. A lower barrier to postseason entry and a flatter draft lottery system has reduced the tanking incentives that existed the last time the Grizzlies faced something similar when Mike Conley was lost for the season and the team lost (repeatedly) its way to drafting Jaren Jackson Jr. 

More so, the upcoming rookie draft seems to lack the kind of major prizes that would typically nudge organizational action. 

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But more than anything, there’s this: Remaining stars Jackson and Desmond Bane are simply too good, too respected and have too much to gain from trying to grow their games and win along the way. And even beyond those now co-stars, this team has too much to figure out about itself. 

Even if this season drifts away, and it’s now in grave danger of doing so, the Grizzlies have to be and will be focused on being right back in the mix, with a returning Morant back, next fall.

What they do now will be about preparing that path. Developing, evaluating, and building chemistry, or trying.

Coherent, competitive basketball has value when much of the core of the remaining rotation is likely to be back next season, and will be expected to win. 

Might the team’s approach change in the season’s final weeks, if and when postseason elimination becomes official? That, at least, seems likely. 

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The truth is, even before Morant’s injury, the Grizzlies organization was probably a little more focused on the near future, on letting the rest of this season prepare and guide the way into a more fruitful next one. 

Morant’s injury won’t change the approach as much as further tilt it in the same direction. 

But it should also underscore this: A focus on next season needs to be about next season, about being ready to win as big as possible the second Morant returns, not waiting for something better further out. 

It has long been wondered whether Morant’s high-impact style would shorten his prime. That can’t be known, but this can: The future is not guaranteed.

The Grizzlies now know, bitterly: Neither is the present.