Iowa State graduate Monte Morris has not appeared in an NBA game this season. He has accumulated eight years of NBA experience, and was a prized player until so recently. But with the 2025-26 NBA season underway, Morris finds himself out of work, injured – and in danger of his NBA career ending at the tender age of 30.
Morris was able to put together eight years in the bigs through his combination of efficiency, ball security and IQ. In theory, he still fits a role that many teams lack, and his résumé remains the type that usually earns guards second and third chances in the league. Yet the phone seems not to be ringing.
Admittedly, Morris has had a couple of down years since leaving the comfortable confines of the Denver Nuggets, where he had his best seasons. Injury has been a factor, as has the constant changing of teams. Nevertheless, the question perhaps is so not much whether Morris is capable of performing in an NBA rotation again – his track record strongly suggests that he is – but whether the right roster opening exists.
Morris’s NBA Days – So Far
Over his eight NBA seasons, Morris sits on averages of 9.5 points, 3.6 assists, and 0.7 turnovers in 23.4 minutes per game, while shooting 47.4 percent from the field and 38.9 percent from three-point range. His assist-to-turnover ratio of roughly 4:1 always ranked among the leagueâs best during his prime Denver years, and while playing with a magnet like Nikola Jokic will always help with that, staggering efficiency was always the Morris way, even before he arrived in Denver.
Morris’s best year came in the 2021-22 season with the Nuggets, where he started 74 games and averaged 12.6 points and 4.4 assists while shooting 39.5 percent from deep. The Nuggets leaned on him heavily when usual starting point guard Jamal Murray tore his ACL and missed the entire season, and Morris delivered, stabilizing the teamâs half-court sets and maintaining one of the lowest turnover rates among starting guards.
After being traded to the Washington Wizards in 2022 (purely as a necessary financial instrument for the Kentavious Caldwell-Pope trade, and not through anything he himself had done wrong), Morris started a further 61 games the next season, posting similar efficiency. He posted 10.3 points, 5.3 assists, and just 1.0 turnovers in 27 minutes per game, while his true shooting percentage of 59.3% stood firm on a mediocre Wizards team turgid that ranked in the bottom ten in the NBA in overall offense.
Another trade followed, this time to the Detroit Pistons as a salary dump. However, injuries began to limit him the following year. A quad strain and later back soreness sidelined him for most of 2023â24, and his brief stint with Detroit never really got started. He played in only six games for the Pistons before being traded once again in February 2024. By this point, Morris was merely a contract.
With an obvious hole at point guard in the absence of Tyrese Haliburton, the Indiana Pacers were said to be signing Morris back in September. However, the signing was cancelled when it emerged that Morris – battling a calf injury – was not ready to play. After injury to Andrew Nembhard in the first week of the season compounded the point guard situation, the Pacers cut the floundering James Wiseman to sign another guard – but instead went for Mac McClung. Morris, then, remains unsigned.
What He Might Offer When Healthy
Across 420 regular-season appearances with the Nuggets, Wizards, Pistons, Phoenix Suns and Minnesota Timberwolves, Morris has built a reputation as a steady secondary playmaker – the kind of point guard who could run offense without dominating the ball or making mistakes. Perhaps it comes at the risk of excessive caution. But step forth the brave head coach who will ever talk down the value of ball control.
Turning 30, coming off an injury, and being known more for steadiness than flash, can leave a player overlooked. But viewed through a team-building lens, Morris offers the kind of profile front offices tend to value when injuries hit or rotations need reliability.
Among guards with at least 300 games since 2018, Morris ranks in the top five in assist-to-turnover ratio and top 20 in effective field-goal percentage. His defensive metrics, while modest, have consistently graded around league average, and his positional awareness has allowed him to guard either backcourt spot in smaller lineups. Teams such as his former stomping grounds of Minnesota or Phoenix that all thin on secondary playmaking could benefit from a player who keeps possessions clean and can hit open shots; Morris’s last full season (2022â23) included recording a 61.5 percent true shooting mark on catch-and-shoot opportunities, one of the best among guards who attempted at least two per game. He is not just a ball-handler.
The market for veteran guards tends to fluctuate, but the profile Morris offers rarely goes out of style: low turnovers, high efficiency, and the ability to blend into different offensive structures. If he proves his return to health, potentially via the G League route, he will likely draw attention from NBA teams looking for midseason depth. For now, though, Monte Morris is just waiting for another opportunity.
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