The Memphis Grizzlies Have Never Been This Fun
We all hate to admit it, but we were all wrong about the Memphis Grizzlies.
It’s not like it’s our fault either, though. After making their mark for most of the past decade as the league’s defensive juggernaut and making the playoffs for seven straight years purely off of clamping down on their opponents’ offensive, the Memphis Grizzlies took a skid these past two seasons and were bound for a rebuild due to roster turnover and injuries to their stars. For a second there, the Grizzlies were in their descent towards NBA obscurity.
Much like the Grit and Grind Grizzlies, all of the chides and supposed mediocrity of the team is all in the past now. The Grizzlies are good. The Grizzlies are back. The Grizzlies are exciting. At 19–22 and placing 8th so far in a bloodbath of a Western Conference, the Grizzlies have definitely turned heads as this season’s basketball darlings.
We have wronged the Grizzlies, but then again, we should have seen this coming way back to the night of the 2019 NBA Draft. At the fulcrum of all of what’s good in Memphis: Ja Morant. The training stories between Ja and his dad and the latter being his “first hater” has probably been milked by a hundred other articles by now, but it says a lot about the positively reckless demeanor that Morant plays with.
Morant has been lighting the league up in his rookie campaign with averages of 18 points, 6.9 assists, 3.5 rebounds, and 1 steal. Every time the Grizzlies come to play, Bleacher Report employees are on high alert because of highlights on top of highlights that Morant tirelessly puts up, solidified recently when Ja posting 26 points (on 10–11 shooting!), 8 assists, 5 rebounds, and this against the Houston Rockets en route to the Grizzlies 6th consecutive win. Needless to say, I’m already writing about the ROY right now barring a miraculous 30-something game surge from the returning Zion Williamson.
Ja rules, but to his, well, Ja Rule, is his Fat Joe, Jaren Jackson Jr. In his second season with the Grizzlies, the former 4th overall pick has only gotten better in his role as the team’s prototypical stretch four. A young Kevin Garnett comes to mind when looking at his type of play, but the thing that jumps out for him is that he is shooting 41% for the season on 6.5 3-point attempts per game, and a whopping 50% from deep so far in the calendar year, making him look more like a 6'11" Klay Thompson with a weird release to make it all the more impressive.
We have gotten so accustomed to Memphis resembling a ‘90’s style of play that what makes it weirder for them is that it’s not only Jaren Jackson that has hit the 3-point bug, even the rest of them has followed suit, and it’s all thanks to the oftentimes overlooked piece of this cog, Head Coach Taylor Jenkins. A rookie in the head coaching world himself, Jenkins has instilled a much-needed culture change in Memphis, derived from the Mike Budenholzer coaching tree that also features the likes of Utah’s Quin Snyder and Brooklyn’s Kenny Atkinson, two coaches who have done likewise for their respective squads. Jenkins has carried over parts of the successful Hawks and Bucks teams handled by Budenholzer and brought a sense of 3-point freedom to Memphis, slowly but surely, as the Grizzlies currently rank 11th on 3-point percentage on a league-average 32.9 attempts per game. At 35 years of age, Jenkins is the 2nd youngest coach in the NBA and should instill a fresher outlook for the bright-future Grizzlies.
Speaking of youth, the Grizzlies are an even incredibly young team with no players aged at least 30, their oldest player not named Andre Iguodala being Jae Crowder at 29. The other players in the youth movement have also made significant contributions. Rookie Brandon Clarke has become a criminally unspoken rookie given the two-way presence he provides that complements perfectly and should continue doing so with Morant and Jackson. Dillon Brooks, virtually on his second year playing, has improved across the board and could blossom into a lethal tertiary scorer. Even De’Anthony Melton, who was acquired by the Grizzlies in an offseason trade with Suns, has proven to be a solid backup point guard.
In seeming overnight fashion, the Grizzlies have managed to lose their identity on the first end and found a new, equally dependable one on the other end. As soon as this season’s trade, which is bound for a couple of weeks, the Grizzlies can readily make more changes that could inspire even more hope for the Memphis faithful, starting of course with Andre Iguodala. If the Grizzlies could poach a solid role player or a couple more draft picks off of an Iguodala trade, there’s no telling what Memphis could have in store that will make us even wronger about them.
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