Nobody seems to know who Ja Morant will play for next year. The one thing that feels increasingly certain is that it won't be for the Memphis Grizzlies.

It seemed like a new top suitor emerged every week. Perhaps that's just the nature of the NBA rumor cycle. The New Orleans Pelicans were the latest, floated by The Athletic's Sam Amick as a possible frontrunner. Then came the cold water. According to Marc Stein and Jake Fischer of The Stein Line, New Orleans has no plans to pursue Morant.

That's the right call.

Start with the money. Morant is guaranteed roughly $87 million over the next two seasons, so any deal would hinge on salary matching. The framework would begin with Dejounte Murray, who's on the books for $32.8 million next season, plus filler like Jordan Poole or Kevon Looney, and likely young pieces or draft capital on top.

That's a heavy price for a guard who has appeared in just 79 games since the start of 2023-24, with his scoring and efficiency sliding along the way.

Then there's the fit. The vision was to pair Morant with Zion Williamson, two former top-two picks and a tantalizing idea on paper. In practice, it's two ball-dominant stars who don't space the floor and who share a long history of missing time. Their spacing next to Derik Queen is questionable, and banking on two injury-prone engines to stay healthy together is a shaky foundation for a 26-56 team trying to climb.

The bigger reason, though, is the guard already on the roster. New Orleans drafted Jeremiah Fears with the No. 7 pick last year to be its point guard of the future, and per Stein and Fischer, that commitment is exactly why the Pelicans aren't plotting a run at Morant. Bringing in a ball-dominant veteran would narrow Fears' runway at the very position he's supposed to grow into.

Add Morant's off-court baggage, including a feud with coach Tuomas Iisalo last season and a history of suspensions, and the math gets harder, not easier.

So New Orleans got floated as a frontrunner, and the noise was loud for a few days. But the smartest move is the one the Pelicans are reportedly already making: staying out of it. For a team building around Fears, chasing Morant would have meant trading the plan for a gamble.

And with that, maybe we can finally stop talking about this.

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