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Markieff Morris: LeBron James can play four more years if he wants to
But five years later, he’s still playing competitive basketball and is still very arguably among the ten best players in the sport. So that begs the question, how much longer could LeBron do this? And Markieff was very certain of James’ possible longevity on the Million Dollaz Worth of Game podcast: “What’s he right now 41, 42? He for sure can play until 46. That’s for a fact, that’s factual. He’s 42 and he’s still having the best years of his career, at 42. He could play until 46. I’d say another four years if he wanted to. He could play four more years if he wanted to. He’s playing now at such a high level and he’s the second-best player on the team, so he’s the focal point.”
Retired NBA forward Marcus Morris once again set the record straight about his alleged fraud, doubling down on his denial of writing a bad check, Morris went on a NSFW rant about his arrest. After he was freed from jail, the NBA podcast host joined his twin brother, Markieff Morris, to explain his side of the story. The Morris brothers explained how everything went down. A frustrated Morris admitted to some wrongdoing, but not one to the extent of writing bad checks or committing fraud, which was how his rant started as part of a short 20-minute episode, per Marcus and Markieff Morris’ YouTube channel. “Don’t ever put my name with nothing but fraud. This is not fraud activity,” Morris said. “I have never wrote a check to no casinos in exchange for money that I can put in my pocket. I wrote exchange for credit thinking that you know the source of the income and you know what I’ve done in the past years to pay it back plus put the money back that I chose to take from y’all to gamble with. So you know I want to just clear that up and then you could take it how you want.”
The ordeal for Morris is a valuable lesson he warned others about after having spent days inconserated. “You could think about think about me this way. But I know what my loved ones and the people that surround us and the people we surround ourselves with really feel about us,” Morris added. “But listen, jail, don’t f*** with it. Don’t f*** with it. That’s why we had to do this s*** outside cuz I couldn’t sit in no small ass room. I came home, I think I slept outside.”
Morris -- who was wearing handcuffs and a jail-issued jumpsuit -- did not speak during the proceedings. His brother, former NBA champion Markieff Morris, was in the courtroom offering support.
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Markieff Morris on Tracy McGrady: You're not Kobe Bryant
Shaquille O’Neal: Tracy McGrady made a statement the other day. He said, "If you switch him and Kobe out as far as playing with me, the outcome is the same." You agree or disagree? Markieff Morris: No, you're not just saying you're switching out with Kobe and you're going to be what Kobe was. I don't agree with that. Nothing away from nothing away from T-Mac. No, you're not Kobe. And that mentality, too. Shaquille O’Neal: I might have to disagree. Marcus Morris: The main difference Big Fella is the mentality. That killer mentality. Everybody didn't have that. Like you was a good he was a great player, don't get me wrong, but it was times that Michael Jordan and Kobe I felt like that Mike gave Kobe something that nobody else would be able to be able to even imitate and be able to like have that mentality. No other players had it really. Shaquille O’Neal: You don't think I could have won three with T-Mac? I think I could have.
Morris twins would fight Jokic brothers in boxing match
Adam Lefkoe: I'm terrified of Jokic's brother. That one dude looks so enormous. He's big with like the mohawk. Markieff Morris: What does it mean? The bigger they are, the harder they fall. We big too. I'm 6-10, 270. It ain't like I'm a small guy. I'm bigger than them. Adam Lefkoe: We can arrange this. Marcus Morris: Yeah, for sure! We can get as long as they don’t use their feet, we can get it on. Markieff Morris: Please, please! Marcus Morris: As long as you can't use your feet. No kicking. Shaquille O’Neal: Oh because one of them is an MMA fighter? Marcus Morris: They’d be grabbing feet and all that. We can't do that. We can get it on straight. Adam Lefkoe: So only boxing. Marcus Morris: Only boxing.
One Lakers player who knows Luka better than anyone is Markieff Morris after playing with him in Dallas and coming over in the trade. Morris appeared on ESPN’s First Take on Monday morning and defended Doncic while reacting to the photos that emerged on Sunday: “That’s my guy, Luka. Like Stephen A. said, that regiment in the season you would think we’re in better shape because of the season, but when you’re eating hotel food, you’re getting in at 3 o’clock in the morning in different cities, you have to eat at 4 o’clock in the morning with a back-to-back. All that stuff takes a toll on your body. The stress of being in a long season, the stress of being traded mid-season. It’s just the things he went through last year. He’s back in Madrid, I know how he likes Madrid, we were in Madrid last year with the team. He’s back in his environment, he’s having a great time, and right now I don’t even think he’s worried about anything. I just think he’s happy this season is over. I don’t think he’s happy how this season ended, but I think he’s happy it’s over. He’s going to regroup. Like Stephen A. said, when you’re in the summer, you’re eating that good food, you got that regiment, you got that chef, anything is possible when it comes to losing weight.”
Shams Charania: But then when I got more wind that something was going on, it was Hey, the Lakers and Mavs are going to have a TRADE. I thought it had been what I’d heard about the other day, but then I heard that Maxi Kleber and Markieff Morris were in the deal. Hey, Utah’s also in the deal. I heard little bits and pieces, but obviously when I got to source 3-4-5, and had more details. Obviously, if I got one call or text that Luka Dončić was traded for Anthony Davis, I’d probably feel right there in that moment that I’d been duped. But it was a build-up to it, and by the time I got all the details—the tweet I put out had everything, there wasn’t anything missing—my hands were definitely shaking. I knew this was not the tweet to have a typo, this was not the tweet to get anything even minor wrong. Forget minor, you don’t want to get this wrong—period. You don’t want to get anything wrong, but definitely not this. It was an out-of-body night. Even afterwards. My phone had 300 messages. Call on call on call. I took a few calls—a couple people around the league, Pat McAfee, Stephen A. Smith. SportsCenter producer Tom DeCorte called me a few times. I had to take his call because he was wondering what everyone else was wondering—did I get hacked? My phone was malfunctioning. It was overheating.
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Giddey took advantage of every minute of it last May after the Thunder’s season ended. “I’ll never forget going back on the plane to Australia,” Giddey said. “First, I was ready to get out of there because it was obviously a long year for a number of reasons, but you’re just sitting there with your thoughts for 15 hours, and the Wi-Fi was down so I couldn’t even pass time on my phone. I was just there thinking, and I remembered one of the Morris twins (Markieff) came up to me before I left and said, ‘You’re too good to let that happen to you.’ “From that point on my mind has been the next time I get to the postseason, what happened in that playoff series is never going to happen again.”
Morris is likely to remain in Los Angeles due to his leadership and strong relationships within the team, particularly with LeBron James and Luka Doncic. Meanwhile, Milton's contract, which has two non-guaranteed years remaining, could serve as a valuable trade asset in the summer. "I would say Markieff Morris is not going to be waived like 99.9%. Shake is maybe somewhere in the 90 to 95% range," Jovan Buha of The Athletic said on his latest podcast. "I'd be pretty surprised because of how valuable that contract is."
Markieff's brother Marcus revealed this info on an episode of Kevin O'Connor's podcast on March 18. He explained James' stance. “The part about it I don't think a lot of people see is that ‘Kieff and Luka have a really good relationship. Like, a really good relationship,” Marcus said at the 7:32 mark. “So I think that they probably noticed that and they wanted Luka to feel better going to a new place where you have somebody who has been a teammate. Also Dorian Finney-Smith has been [Doncic's teammate]. Maxi Kleber. So I think that really helped. Also ‘Kieff played there, so the Lakers really wanted him to come. ‘Bron asked for him to come.”
LeBron James on Markieff Morris: 'I missed him. We’ve been in the foxhole together'
Acquiring Doncic has helped bring showtime back to the Lakers, to fill the courtside seats with A-list celebrities while one of basketball’s top showmen revels on the golden stage. Adding Morris, one of the NBA’s true tough guy truth-tellers, has bolstered their locker room, a behind-the-scenes advantage that the Lakers have desperately lacked. “I missed him,” LeBron James told The Times. “…We’ve been in the foxhole together. We’ve been on the floor during big games together. And there’s someone whose opinion I value very much when I come off the floor. He’s watching it. He’s seeing it. I’m just happy to have him back. It’s great to see him.”
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