A year after Ja Morant flashed gun on Instagram, nothing is the same for...

There’s a scene in the most recent episode of Ja Morant’s YouTube documentary, about his spectacular — but short — return from suspension, in which Tee Morant sits in the passenger seat of a car and attempts to take stock of not just what his son has gone through, but the people and entities that didn’t give up on him.

“I think patience is the best reward right now,” he says.

A year later — after Morant showed off his gun at a Denver strip club on Instagram and forever changed how his rise to NBA superstardom will be remembered — may we suggest changing one word.

What version of Morant and the Grizzlies results from all of this is still a mystery after it all came apart, as a mostly dreadful 2023-24 season limps to the finish line and the hope of a new season awaits.

Morant is still the biggest reason for that hope, even though he’s largely to blame for temporarily extinguishing it. Those are the uncertain waters left to navigate on this day nobody around Memphis will ever celebrate. But it’s a moment to reflect on how different it is today than that moment in time when Morant officially crossed the threshold from a budding star to a controversial one.

The happy ending could be on the horizon, when Morant and Desmond Bane and Jaren Jackson Jr. and Marcus Smart all take the court together again next season — a season in which these Grizzlies will face an urgency born from what amounts to two seasons that cratered under the weight of Morant’s mistakes and a string of unfortunate injuries.

But it’s obvious now that Bane and Jackson, as good as they may be, can’t take these Grizzlies to where they seemed headed without Morant. The 25 games he sat out due to suspension to start the season, in the wake of that second Instagram video featuring a gun in May, provided all the evidence necessary. The nine games he did play this season — as fleeting as they were before he bowed out with a shoulder injury that required surgery — confirmed there’s still magic when he takes the floor.

But while an entire city and fan base waits, it too pays a heavy price. Have you been at FedExForum lately, with its listless crowds and bizarre Grizzlies lineups?

We’ve seen so little of Morant publicly during all this time, which is maybe the worst of all. Before he got overwhelmed by his celebrity, before he succumbed to the dark side of fame — like so many before him who weren’t prepared to have so much thrown at them so quickly — the bond between Morant and Memphis was among the most endearing parts of this story. This was (and still is) such a good match of star and city.