BERLIN — With trade winds swirling around Ja Morant, coach Tuomas Iisalo said the calf bruise that has sidelined the Memphis Grizzlies’ maligned star for five games is progressing to the point where Morant could play as early as Thursday. 

Iisalo said Morant practiced Tuesday and that there “is a chance” Morant would play against the Orlando Magic either in Berlin Thursday or in London Sunday. He has been out with a right calf bruise since Jan. 4, but since then, numerous media outlets, including The Athletic, reported that the Grizzlies were, for the first time, listening to trade offers for Morant ahead of the NBA’s Feb. 5 trade deadline.

Those reports led to further speculation that Morant, upset that he was apparently available on the trade market, may have played his last game for the Grizzlies. He was listed as “questionable” to play with his injury for the first handful of games that he missed, but since reports surfaced that he could be traded, Morant was listed as “out.” Morant has not spoken since the news broke, but is in Berlin and practicing.

“I mean, I was just with him,” Grizzlies star and Morant’s friend Jaren Jackson Jr. said after practice Tuesday at Max Schmeling Hall in Berlin. “He’s not gone. We can talk all this stuff, but he’s right over there.”

Both of the Grizzlies’ games against Orlando are on Prime Video, which makes them national TV games in the U.S. Stars are required to play in those games unless they are clearly injured. 

“We are not in the business of commenting on random Internet reports,” Iisalo added. “He’s progressing in the practices. He’s already able to do a lot of the parts of practice, so looking good to progress (toward playing).”

Pressed specifically on the chances that Morant would play Thursday, Iisalo said, “There is a chance he will play in the global games.”

Morant is tentatively slated to address reporters on Wednesday in Berlin.

Meanwhile, Berlin native and German superstar Franz Wagner, a de facto host for the Berlin portion of the NBA’s Global Games series, is trying to return Thursday after missing the last 16 games with a high ankle sprain.

Wagner and his brother Moritz are not only from Berlin, but they also came up through the Alba Berlin youth development program and played for Alba’s pro team before attending college at Michigan.

“I want to see how today and tomorrow go at practice,” Franz said. “Obviously I really want to play, it’s really important, but I don’t want to make any promises.”

Franz Wagner suffered his injury on Dec. 7. His brother Moritz, meanwhile, played for the first time this season on Sunday for the Magic after undergoing knee surgery last year.

With the Magic playing in the NBA’s Eastern Conference and the Grizzlies playing in the West, the two teams only play each other twice a season. Both of those games this season will be in Europe. This is important because Thursday’s game will also mark the first time Desmond Bane, another Morant friend and now a former Grizzlies star, plays against Memphis. 

The Grizzlies traded Bane to Orlando after last season as the organization furthered its pivot away from those teams with Morant, Jackson and Bane as the Grizzlies’ core with Taylor Jenkins as coach. Jenkins was fired toward the end of last season and replaced by Iisalo. The Grizzlies then traded Bane as part of the Grizzlies’ plan to retool and gain financial flexibility.

Trading Morant, the No. 2 pick of the 2019 draft and the face of the franchise since that moment, would signify the end of an era in Memphis.

“You wrap your arms around anybody that’s got that type of spotlight or anything like that going on with him,” Bane said. “Ja just wants to play basketball and be in a place where he feels valued. And, hopefully, if it doesn’t happen in Memphis, he gets that, you wherever his next stop is.”

“It never gets easier,” Jackson said. “Anytime there’s a move. It’s not like you’re … bracing yourself for anything, but anytime something happens just like when you’re around your family and something happens you feel that. We’re people, we’re brothers, we understand that this is a business, but at the same time it sucks.”