The patient and impatient new Memphis Grizzlies

Only three current Grizzlies were on the team in 2018. Yet nothing about the build-up for Memphis seems rushed.

Dec 28

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In the Conservatory, Edouard Manet, 1879

The recent history of the Memphis Grizzlies is sometimes misunderstood. Their rebuild is pegged to 2019, when the team finally freed Mike Conley. This is not the true end of the Grit ‘n Grind era, though. Conley was just the person to turn the lights out.

Tony Allen had left two years prior, in 2017. Zach Randolph left that same summer. Memphis traded Marc Gasol in February of 2019. What had truly happened was that the Grit ‘n Grind Grizzlies were getting long in the tooth while teams like the Warriors, Rockets, Clipper and Spurs were pushing them down into the bottom half of the West’s playoff picture, so the Memphis front office — led by Chris Wallace and John Hollinger — started unwinding the team without intentionally dipping into a full, committed rebuild. Father Time, or fate, or whatever — plus one crucial mistake — helped it along.

The Grizzlies’ last great season was 2014-15, where they won 55 games and pushed the first Warriors title team to six games in the second round. It all went downhill from there. In the last two real seasons of Grit ‘n Grind, Memphis finished No. 7 in the West both times and didn’t win a playoff series. In between those seasons, they signed Chandler Parsons to a max deal — there’s that one crucial mistake — in the infamous summer of 2016.

In the season after T.A. and Z-Bo left in free agency (2017-18), Memphis won 22 games as Conley missed most of the season and there was some level of revolt under Dave Fizdale. The draft prize for that nightmare was Jaren Jackson Jr. The team signed Kyle Anderson to help ballast the sinking ship, too. It didn’t really help.

The following season with Conley mostly healthy was only marginally better: the team won 33 games and swapped Gasol for Jonas Valanciunas, C.J. Miles and Delon Wright, getting somewhat younger but not really better. Trading Gasol was the admission that the era was over and a rebuild was on. The front office just didn’t find a midseason deal they liked for Conley.

Then the front office was replaced that summer. Wallace and Hollinger got re-assigned, Jason Wexler and Zach Kleiman took their roles. The new front office drafted Ja Morant, Brandon Clarke and John Konchar, traded for De’Anthony Melton and traded Conley for Grayson Allen, Jae Crowder and a pick. Allen and Crowder were flipped for not much; the pick will be Utah’s selection this season, likely in the 20s. The new front office also hired a first-time head coach in Taylor Jenkins, a really young product of the Popovich-Budenholzer tree.

Instantly, thanks to Morant, some improvement from holdover Dillon Brooks and great depth, the Grizzlies had their best team since prior to Tony Allen and Zach Randolph leaving in free agency. They crumbled in the bubble and just missed out on the playoffs.

Last season, having added Desmond Bane and Xavier Tillman, with more seasoning and flavor-melding for Morant, Brooks and Anderson, and despite JJJ missing nearly the whole season, Memphis got back over .500, slipping into the playoffs via a bold overtime play-in tournament win over the Warriors in San Francisco.

Everyone knew Ja was a star on the rise. This is the game where he let us know that the rise had happened and he was here.

And now we can finally get to my point (I swear there is one). The Grizzlies front office installed in 2019 has almost completely remade the team from what they had coming. There are three players on this roster who were with the team in 2018-19: JJJ (who was a rookie), Dillon Brooks and Kyle Anderson. The other 12 players on the roster all arrived within the past 2.5 seasons, since Wexler and Kleiman took over.

That’s a textbook definition of a rebuild: you get rid of most of the older players who were around when the team was bad, and you replace them with younger talent and draft capital. The Grizzlies have certainly done that since 2019. Anderson is the only veteran that was kept around, and he was all of 26 when the new front office took control. This was a rebuild.

It doesn’t feel like a rebuild because the Grizzlies immediately improved, damn near made the playoffs in Year 1 of the perceived rebuild, made the playoffs in Year 2 and are now No. 4 in the West in Year 3, despite their star having missed a significant stretch with an injury and COVID. But I’d go back to the point about when the rebuild really started: in 2017, when Z-Bo and T.A. left. The front office did not intend the 2017-18 and 2018-19 Grizzlies to be bad, but they were. That resulted in the team getting JJJ (picked by the old execs) and Ja (picked by the new execs). Those two picks sparked a lot of the current success.

Frame it this way: the old Grizzlies bosses were in denial that it was time to rebuild, but inadvertently started a rebuild anyway. The new Grizzlies bosses have benefitted from that misfortune, and taken full advantage of that advantage.

What’s also interesting here is how the new Grizzlies front office has remained so patient in the face of having a respectable team. I wrote this summer about Memphis not needing cap space to improve a competitive roster right now and instead using it to improve draft capital on the edges. The Grizzlies finished over .500, made the playoffs and spent the summer doing OKC-style salary cap arbitrage deals. It was a tell that there’s no rush here, that Wexler and Kleiman were satisfied with the talent base and willing to let it grow organically.

And they were absolutely right! JJJ is healthy and looks great with Ja and the others. Desmond Bane has made a real jump in his second season. The offensive downgrade from Valanciunas to Steven Adams hasn’t been felt at all, even when Ja was out. The loss of Grayson Allen in a weird offseason trade hasn’t been felt at all. This is still the deepest team in the league, with surprising new youngsters popping up all the time. Word to two-way player Killian Tillie, who had one of the best dunks of the month last night.

Bally Sports: Grizzlies @GrizzOnBally

Come for the Tillie incredible dunk. Stay for the bench reaction.

It’s all come together and still coming together, and I’m starting to believe Memphis can be a top-tier Western team for the next half-decade or more if everything stays healthy and there aren’t any major disruptions. Their road win over the (admittedly tired) Suns on Monday — with Ja stealing the show late, quelle surprise — was magical.

The Suns are a legitimate title contender, the reigning conference champs, one of the two top teams in the entire league this season. They came back from down deep, Devin Booker with a go-ahead three with seconds left off some bad Memphis defense. And yet: Ja, again.

The Grizzlies are here, and they are going to be here for a while, and it’s all at least in part thanks to the old front office not coming to terms the last good version of the Grizzlies was toast. Reality kick-started the Memphis rebuild before the Grizzlies themselves got on board, and that helped the Grizzlies get back to good much sooner than expected.

So in a way, the Chandler Parsons thing — insomuch as the Parsons contract led to the implosion of the Grizzlies in 2017-18 and 2018-19 — did work out.

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Scores

Rockets 99, Hornets 123 — Let’s check in on the post-win streak Rockets.

Kevin Pelton @kpelton

The Rockets are currently playing five rookies, which I can confidently say ties a record.

Yes, definitely. How are things when the vets are on the floor, though?

Bleacher Report @BleacherReport

Christian Wood nailed a fan with an errant pass 😅

Bulls 130, Hawks 118 — Go tell 2018 You that DeMar DeRozan and Zach LaVine are going to each have 30-point, 9-assist nights on the cusp of the Year 2022 as the best players for a No. 2 seed. What a turn of events.

On the other side: Cam Reddish is having a moment.

Celtics 103, Timberwolves 108 — The Celtics have a COVID outbreak and I’m really not trying to judge too many losses right now. HOWEVER: Greg Monroe is Back In The League and dropped 13-9-6 on Boston off the bench, and then admitted he has no idea who his teammate who hung 29 on the C’s was.

Dane Moore @DaneMooreNBA

Greg Monroe when asked if he knows who all of his teammates are: "Not gonna lie, Jaylen Nowell played awesome tonight, but I had no idea who that was."

This month is going to go down as one of the weirdest in NBA lore.

Jazz 110, Spurs 104

Grizzlies 114, Suns 113

Mavericks 132, Blazers 117 — Portland is 3-12 in its last 15 games. Losing by 15 at home to a Dallas team without Luka Doncic, that’s really bad! When Jalen Brunson and Frank Ntilikina outplay Damian Lillard and Norman Powell, that’s really bad!

Nets 124, Clippers 109 — James Harden with a reminder that he’s one of the best offensive players in modern NBA history. As if we needed the reminder.

Schedule

All times Eastern. I would say “tentative” as well, but it appears the NBA is done postponing games.

Bucks at Magic, 7
Wizards at Heat, 7:30, NBA TV
Sixers at Raptors, 7:30
Lakers at Rockets, 8
Knicks at Wolves, 8
Cavaliers at Pelicans, 8
Nuggets at Warriors, 10, NBA TV
Thunder at Kings, 10

Links

The NBA is embracing new CDC guidelines to shorten isolation for COVID-19 positive vaccinated players. I mean, given the testing regimen, so many infected and infectious players are in any given game right now that I’m not sure it makes all that much of a difference.

A teacher hit a shot to get her third-grade class some hot chocolate, and their reaction is really uplifting. But folks, this is how we end up with NBA fans cheering when their team is LOSING but earns free tacos by scoring 100 points. In this column I will —

Marc Spears caught up with Joe Johnson to talk about his return to the NBA.

Katie Heindl on the fake sanctity of the NBA’s Christmas slate.

Eric Woodyard on how the Pistons have embraced Black Detroit.

I missed this last week, but Hassan Whiteside’s absurd custom truck Big Shirley is really something. It’s so extremely Hassan Whiteside.

BEEF HISTORY on Danny Ainge vs. Pat Riley, one of the longest simmering NBA beefs on record.