Ja Morant

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If the season was decided today, the Rookie of the Year race would be a match between the Nos. 1 and 2 picks from the 2019 draft. Ja Morant was leading the Grizzlies to a potential playoff run and Zion Williamson has lived up to the hype of No. 1 overall even in just 19 games.

In this edition of B/R Countdown, we look at Morant and Williamson's best plays of the season.

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Memphis Grizzlies star Ja Morant doesn't view Miami Heat guard Kendrick Nunn as the top contender for the NBA's Rookie of the Year award.

In an interview with the South Florida Sun Sentinel's Ira Winderman, Nunn argued he should be ROY, not Morant.

"I think people will say that [Morant] is Rookie of the Year, but I don't believe it," Nunn said. "The most value should be in the wins. And we're both starting guards on teams, and our team has been holding it down. We're a playoff team, so go ahead and give that Rookie of the Year to Kendrick Nunn."

Morant provided a cutting retort without saying a word:

Nunn has been a pleasant surprise for the Heat, averaging 15.6 points, 3.4 assists and 2.7 rebounds through 62 games. Miami is currently fourth in the Eastern Conference with a 41-24 record.

Still, putting him over Morant in the ROY discussion would be a stretch.

Morant is averaging 17.6 points and 6.9 assists while helping the Grizzlies contend for an unexpected playoff berth in the Western Conference. Although Memphis has nine fewer wins than Miami, it boasts a better record against the East (13-11) than the Heat do against the West (13-14).

Nunn also plays on a team with two All-Stars, Jimmy Butler and Bam Adebayo.

Nunn's ROY case might be stronger if Morant were putting up big numbers on a Grizzlies team in last place. But Memphis' performance only strengthens Morant's ROY resume.

Miami Heat guard Kendrick Nunn said he believes he's the right choice for the NBA's Rookie of the Year award this season, saying he feels he's a better choice than Memphis Grizzlies standout Ja Morant.   

"I think people will say that [Morant] is Rookie of the Year, but I don't believe it," he told Ira Winderman of the South Florida Sun Sentinel. "The most value should be in the wins. And we're both starting guards on teams, and our team has been holding it down. We're a playoff team, so go ahead and give that Rookie of the Year to Kendrick Nunn."

The issue with that argument is that, while the Heat (41-24) have a superior record, the Grizzlies (32-33) would be a playoff team if the season ended today. They currently hold the No. 8 seed in the Western Conference. And while the Heat were expected to be good, the young Grizzlies have exceeded expectations. 

Morant also wins the statistical comparison:

• Nunn: 15.6 PPG, 3.4 APG, 2.7 RPG, 44.8 percent from the field, 36.2 percent from three.
• Morant: 17.6 PPG, 6.9 APG, 3.5 RPG, 49.1 percent from the field, 36.7 percent from three.

But Nunn said he hasn't been paying too much attention to his fellow rookies like Morant and Zion Williamson.

"I really wasn't watching," he noted. "I really wasn't watching their numbers or anything like that. I'm just watching them in the game, and see how they're playing and just trying to scout 'em, getting ready to play 'em."

Morant later responded to Nunn's claims with a post on his Twitter account:

Nunn, 24, is the biggest surprise of the three. While Williamson and Morant were the top two picks in the 2019 draft, Nunn went undrafted in 2018 and was signed by the Heat with one game remaining last season. He has fit in seamlessly with a core of Jimmy Butler, Bam Adebayo, Goran Dragic, Duncan Robinson and Tyler Herro.

"It actually happened in preseason," Nunn said of his ascension to starting guard. "When we were getting all the rotations together and figuring out the pieces on the team, the impact that I had offensively was needed for a starting position. So my scoring ability was there, so it made sense for me to start from the start of the season."

Nunn has unquestionably been one of the best stories of the season. Whether he's Rookie of the Year is another story. But even if Morant wins the award, it doesn't diminish what Nunn has done for the Heat this year.

It has almost been one month since the NBA suspended its 2019-20 season in the wake of the coronavirus pandemic, but Memphis Grizzles rookie No. 2 overall pick Ja Morant produced enough across 59 games to impress former Dallas Cowboys wide receiver Dez Bryant:

Bryant is not the first to compare Morant to Hall of Fame point guard Allen Iverson:

"I tell him he be fallin' like Allen Iverson," Grizzlies teammate Jaren Jackson Jr. told ESPN's Tim MacMahon in January. "He has that kind of swag to his game just like A.I. But I don't think A.I. was jumping like that."

Morant already has countless dunks (and almost-dunks) on his NBA highlight reel:

The 20-year-old also expressed the impact Los Angeles Lakers legend Kobe Bryant had on him after the 41-year-old died in a helicopter crash on Jan. 26:

Morant is averaging 17.6 points on 49.1 percent shooting from the field (36.7 percent from three) and 6.9 assists this season.

Cody Zeller was wandering the aisles of a supermarket the other day. It was a rare trip outside the home for the Charlotte Hornets center.

In the wake of the current coronavirus pandemic, Zeller, like so many others across the country, had been practicing social distancing and living a mostly quarantined life. But he needed food. The frozen casseroles and enchiladas his mother had left in his freezer were running low. He was growing sick of the Chick-fil-A drive-thru.

He stopped in the frozen meats section. A package of scallops caught his eye. He had never cooked scallops before.

"But as NBA players, I think we all think we can just pick things up naturally," Zeller said.

He brought the scallops home. He cued up some Gordon Ramsay YouTube videos. The recipes all called for olive oil. Zeller didn't have any. The recipes called for pepper. He didn't have any of that, either. But this was no time to turn back.

A few days earlier, he had pledged to learn something new every day he was stuck at home. He tried the guitar. He spent more than an hour watching YouTube videos on how to build an outdoor deck. "Mine's a bit dated," he said. On this night, the thing he was set to learn was how to cook scallops. It didn't matter how many ingredients he was missing.

"I still tried to make them," Zeller said. "It's good I had some stuff from my mom still left in the fridge."

Zeller knows he and his NBA peers are fortunate. Their jobs aren't in jeopardy. Their paychecks are still coming in (for now, at least). He's thankful for that. But that's also forced him, and the rest of the NBA's player pool, to deal with a problem that's confronted privileged citizens everywhere: How do you pass the time when you aren't allowed to do your job?

For the majority, the answer appears to be by playing video games or choreographing TikToks. Some, however, have taken Zeller's approach. Thanks to a mix of isolation and boredom, they're using their newfound free time to take up some new pursuits. 

"Even during the offseason, you don't really have any moments to spend alone with yourself," Boston Celtics center Enes Kanter said. "I figured I'd to use it to educate myself."

Part of that is because he's never played video games.

"I don't even have an Xbox or PlayStation in my home," Kanter said. "I kind of regret that now."

Instead, he watched an episode of the Netflix show Dirty Money about how Donald Trump built his empire. He tore through a few Turkish tomes. He recently opened Leaders Eat Last: Why Some Teams Pull Together and Others Don't, a book by Simon Sinek that Celtics head coach Brad Stevens handed out to the team earlier this season. He was giddy the other day about an upcoming Zoom lecture the Celtics had set up with a Harvard professor.

"The only person I get to see is the Uber Eats delivery guys," Kanter said. "I always want to invite him into the apartment just to have a conversation."

Even avid video game players such as Milwaukee Bucks guard Donte DiVincenzo have found themselves searching for ways to fill their days.

"I cleaned my whole house, and it wasn't even dirty," he said.

He and his girlfriend swept and scrubbed and mopped. They also went through every item of clothing in every drawer and closet and stray suitcase. DiVincenzo discovered some gems he'd forgotten, like a T-shirt from his days at Villanova celebrating the team's moms. There were also items that he'd both never worn and knew he never would. Some still had their tags. He packed up about 40 pairs of sneakers and six bags of clothing and dropped them off at the local Salvation Army and Goodwill.

Initially, DiVincenzo found all the free time liberating. "I was staying up late playing video games and sleeping late," he said. But before long, he was craving a schedule.

He's tried going to sleep earlier. On the Bucks' recommendation, he's used a food delivery service to stay on top of his nutrition. He's set up a home gym in his townhouse's one-car garage—"It's cold in there, but it's kind of different and cool"—using an exercise bike, squat rack, bench and dumbbells delivered by the Bucks (via a strength coach's pickup truck). He speaks to Bucks officials every day and keeps up with his teammates via a group chat, who he can tell are just as bored as he is.

"We're basically just sending each other memes, TikToks and tweets," he said. 

Indiana Pacers center Myles Turner is also trying to find some sense of structure. He plays video games. He works out every day, beginning his mornings with a 2-3 mile run before getting in some strength work. He'll show up for a few Call of Duty battle royales. He'll cycle through Netflix, Hulu and Disney+.

That still leaves him hunting for ways to kill hours at a time. So he'll often retreat to the guest house of the Dallas home he recently built for his parents—where he's now staying—and spend a few hours working on a 2,000-piece Star Wars puzzle.

"It's something I've always wanted to do," he said.

Next, he has some multi-thousand-piece Star Wars Lego spaceships he'd like to build, which he plans on adding to his Lego collection that he has back in his Indianapolis home.

Despite his struggle to fill idle time, Turner recognizes his life could be a lot more complicated.

"We all miss basketball, but we also realize how lucky we are and how there are so many more concerns that are so much more important," he said.

Still, for Turner and his NBA brethren, there are hours, days, weeks and maybe months to fill until the league returns. So for now, he turns to completing that puzzle and thinking about what's next.

"My mom's into sewing," Turner said. "I'd like to see what that's about."

Yaron Weitzman covers the NBA for Bleacher Report and is the author of Tanking to the Top: The Philadelphia 76ers and the Most Audacious Process in the History of Professional Sports. Follow Yaron on Twitter, @YaronWeitzman.

Last year's No. 2 overall pick Ja Morant was voted the 2019 NBA Rookie of the Year by all 70 local, national and international NBA writers and reporters polled for an ESPN survey, per ESPN's Tim Bontemps. 

The budding Memphis Grizzlies star's perfect 350 points (five points given for a first-place vote) edged out New Orleans Pelicans rookie No. 1 overall pick Zion Williamson, who earned 51 second-place votes for a total of 164 points. 

Voters have seen much more of Morant than Williamson, as the latter's NBA regular-season debut was delayed until Jan. 22 due to arthroscopic knee surgery.

Morant is averaging 17.6 points, 6.9 assists and 3.5 rebounds in 30 minutes across 59 starts. Williamson's numbers are more than comparable but from a much smaller sample size: 23.6 points, 6.8 rebounds, 2.2 assists in 29.7 minutes across 19 starts.

Both young stars put on a show as teammates in the Rising Stars Game at All-Star Weekend in February:

Williamson's Pelicans defeated Morant's Grizzlies 139-111 on Jan. 31. Williamson led all scorers with 24 points, beginning a record-breaking 13-game streak with at least 20 points.

However, the Pelicans are looking up at the Grizzlies in the Western Conference standings. Memphis, thanks largely to Morant, have played above most expectations and sit at 32-33 in the West's eighth and final playoff spot. New Orleans is 28-36.

The NBA season was suspended on March 11 due to the coronavirus pandemic.

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Before this season's NBA rookies were making highlight reels in the pros, they were dominating the 2019 NCAA tournament. In this edition of B/R Countdown, we count down the top 10 March Madness performances from the current NBA rookies.

Bleacher Report is the go-to destination for basketball fans everywhere. B/R's NBA coverage delivers must-see on-court analysis and highlights on a daily basis. Connect to the NBA stories, teams, athletes and highlights that make the game more than a game.

Download the free Bleacher Report app to catch all the moments that matter in one place. Get the app to get the game.