Michael Beasley: ‘I ain’t gonna lie, Ja Morant is going to be the best player in the league’

There is an impressive crop of young stars in the NBA right now, and Ja Morant, the uber-talented guard for the Memphis Grizzlies, may be the best of them.

In fact, former Miami Heat forward Michael Beasley feels that Morant will soon be the best in the business.

“The next person I think is going to win MVP for the next couple years is Ja Morant,” Beasley said. “He’s one of those back-to-back MVPs. He got the potential to be a world talent. The way he plays is brand new. You got to watch how he handles the ball, you got to watch the moves he makes. His rights, his lefts, his euros. I ain’t gonna lie, Ja Morant is going to be the best player in the league.”

Thanks to Morant, the Grizzlies are flying high with a 27-13 record. He is averaging 27.2 points and 8.0 assists per game, and his team is ranked first in defensive rating.

Morant is a high-flying guard who is very explosive in the open court, but he has improved his skills in the half court, and he is more than a handful to deal with for opposing teams.

Perhaps the key to the Grizzlies’ chances of going very far in the playoffs this year is how much help they give him. Wing Desmond Bane, who is now in his third season, is putting up 21.4 points a game while their third-leading scorer, Dillon Brooks, is at 17.0 points per contest.

Later this month, Memphis will have a tough five-game road trip against some good and talented teams that will test it and perhaps give it some more seasoning ahead of the postseason.

Beasley himself was once a prospect who was thought to have had lots of potential. He was the second overall pick in the 2008 NBA Draft after an outstanding season at Kansas State University, and in his third pro season, he averaged 19.2 points a game.

But for various reasons, he never panned out, and he hasn’t played in the NBA since four seasons ago when he was a member of the Los Angeles Lakers.

After showing some flashes of what he could’ve been in his first two seasons with the Heat, they traded him to the Minnesota Timberwolves, and he would bounce around the league after that.

Beasley did return to Miami for the 2013-14 season, which allowed him to experience the NBA Finals, albeit as a benchwarmer, but he would leave again after the following campaign.

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