Photo Credit: Raj Mehta-USA TODAY Sports

Ja Morant and the Memphis Grizzlies have an opportunity to return to the NBA Playoffs for the first time in five seasons if they can defeat the Golden State Warriors in Friday’s play-in tournament.

If the Grizzlies advance, the No. 1 seed Utah Jazz await them in the first round of the NBA Playoffs. So it’s likely that Memphis’s postseason won’t last all that long.

But if fans want to keep watching Morant, a new docuseries will provide a behind-the-scenes look at the young star’s rookie season — which the COVID-19 pandemic and the George Floyd murder turned into one of the most unusual first years an NBA player could have.

Check out the trailer for Promiseland, which debuts June 3 on Crackle:

Yes, Crackle! Maybe you didn’t think Crackle existed anymore after Sony Pictures aspired to make it an impactful platform in streaming. But with the exception of Jerry Seinfeld’s Comedians in Cars Getting Coffee — which moved over to Netflix as part of Seinfeld’s $100 million mega-deal with the streaming network — none of Crackle’s original programming registered with viewers and Sony sold the platform to Chicken Soup For the Soul Entertainment.

So while Crackle won’t be a competitor to Netflix, Disney+, and the new WarnerMedia-Discovery venture — if that was ever a realistic outcome — it still exists as a place for original scripted and unscripted entertainment such as this Ja Morant docuseries. And sports documentaries are a thriving industry right now in media.

Directed by Dexton Deboree (Unbanned: The Legend of AJ1), Promiseland is a six-part series following Morant’s burgeoning basketball career from his days learning the game while growing up in South Carolina (training on a backyard court built by his father) to Murray State, where he was a first-team All-American and led the Racers to the NCAA Tournament. (Murray State upset No. 5 seed Marquette in the tourney.)

Among those interviewed in the documentary are Carmelo Anthony, WNBA star A’ja Wilson, teammates Jaren Jackson and Brandon Clarke, Murray State coach Matt McMahon, and rapper Moneybagg Yo.

Morant won the NBA’s Rookie of the Year award in his first season, receiving 99 out of 100 first-place votes after averaging 17.8 points, 3.9 rebounds, and 7.3 assists per game. At the time, he said he’d like to speak with the lone writer who didn’t vote for him. Will that be shown in this documentary?

Part 1 of Promiseland debuts on Crackle June 3, with Part 2 premiering on June 17.

About Ian Casselberry

Ian is a writer, editor, and podcaster. You can find his work at Awful Announcing and The Comeback. He's written for Sports Illustrated, Yahoo Sports, MLive, Bleacher Report, and SB Nation.