JaMarcus Hustle

In early January 2012, we wrote a post about an electric moment authored by a precocious young basketball player. In that post, we said "Thornton's missed dunk was notable not for the result, but for its sheer audacity."

I was reminded of that dunk, and those words, earlier this week when I saw what Ja Morant tried to do against the Rockets earlier this week:

Ja Morant almost killed himself. pic.twitter.com/wM7ZX0f1SH

— Justin Russo (@FlyByKnite) November 5, 2019

Morant had his doubters when he entered the NBA. An undeniably spectacular college player, the combination of his slight build and lower-tier competition led to skepticism. Eight games in (and this weekend's back to back game load management vacation), the doubters ain't chirping all that loud. Morant's playing faster than fast, scoring 18.9 points on 46.2% three-point shooting, and averaging 5.5 assists and 3.5 boards. He's also turning the ball over 4.5 times per game, perhaps an unavoidable consequence of a guy learning at top speed.

If his game grows at this level as much as Marcus Thornton's did in college, Morant's audacious miss portends something special.