After a humbling, painfully decisive first-round sweep, the Memphis Grizzlies have potentially reached the end of an era that once held so much promise.
Not that long ago, this franchise was on track to become what their lone playoff opponent, the Oklahoma City Thunder, currently are: a young, talented, deep, connected, and unshakable title contender. But that’s no longer Memphis’s reality; hemmed in by walls that are covered in grease, it enters the offseason at rock bottom, facing several big-picture problems and no obvious solutions.
This doesn’t mean they’re bad. The Grizzlies had the sixth-highest net rating, finished dead last in win differential (they lost five more games than their point differential indicated), and saw lineups featuring Ja Morant, Desmond Bane, and Jaren Jackson Jr. outscore opponents by 9.3 points per 100 possessions. They also saw important role players like Brandon Clarke and Jaylen Wells suffer season-ending injuries, and both were badly missed down the stretch. But after a cataclysmic post-All-Star meltdown wherein they lost to every good opponent they played and fell from the 2-seed to the 8-seed, it does mean they aren’t anywhere close to a championship. When you look at what this core has already established, atrophy isn’t acceptable.
A quick catch-up on how we got here: Memphis won 56 games in 2022, when Morant was a fringe MVP candidate who won Most Improved Player. The Grizzlies played fast, cared about defense, and talked a lot of shit, an ascent that felt predetermined before they were eliminated in the second round by the eventual champion Golden State Warriors. The next year, they won 51 games but entered the playoffs in turmoil after the NBA suspended Morant for brandishing a gun at a Denver-area nightclub. Season-ending injuries to Steven Adams and Clarke did not help. Morant returned for Memphis’s first-round series against the Los Angeles Lakers but badly hurt his hand in Game 1, and the Lakers won in six.
It was downhill from there. Since 2023, Memphis has paid a severe toll for enabling Morant’s relentlessly immature off-court behavior, endured too many injuries to list in one paragraph, installed a radically fresh offense, fired head coach Taylor Jenkins, and then reverted back to a predictable pick-and-roll-heavy playbook. Through it all, Morant has failed to grasp the numerous ways his obsession with finger-gun celebrations have not exactly helped his team win basketball games. Instead of being a competitive, plucky upstart that I thought could make a Finals run this year, the Grizzlies now resemble Icarus plummeting into the sea.
So much of this adversity is their own doing, and there are surely a whole bunch of people who take pleasure in their comeuppance. But as someone who kind of enjoyed the Grizzlies’ overconfidence and singular showmanship, I can’t help but feel bad watching what may be an irrecoverable downfall. Sitting at the crux of it all is Morant; it’s so difficult to move forward when the person most responsible for making you relevant is the same one who limits your ambition.
Morant is one and the same, a bolt of lightning who’s only three years removed from “face of the league” consideration. At his peak, Morant could levitate above a mosh pit: Fragile but fearless, he averaged more points in the paint than anybody else during the 2021-22 season. Yes, more than Giannis Antetokounmpo, but also, more than every guard since the statistic was first tracked in 1997. Dwyane Wade? Nope. Russell Westbrook? Try again. Shai Gilgeous-Alexander or James Harden? None topped what Morant did in 2022.
But the thing about lightning is that it never strikes with precision. Morant can single-handedly jump-start Memphis’s engine and then, a few days later, fry its battery. Even though he’s still only 25 years old, self-preservation has his body in conversation with his game, begging for some type of adjustment. The bad news is that Morant may not be able to. He’s missed 126 games over the past three seasons, and in 2024-25 his dunk rate was a career-low 2.2 percent, down from the 5.9 percent we saw in his first five years. Morant is also a low-volume, inaccurate outside shooter: Since 2023, he’s made just 30.5 percent of his 3-pointers. To put that in context, there are 166 players who’ve attempted at least 600 of them over that span, and only Scottie Barnes has been worse. It’s hard to be efficient with a shot chart that looks like this:
Morant can still reach transcendence, but it may be more ephemeral now. Here for a good time, not a long time. That’s not ideal for the Grizzlies, a team that’s stood by his side and, according to general manager Zach Kleiman, still wants to be warmed by a flame that’s somehow already on the verge of burning through its wick.
“I can’t blame other ‘executives’ for fantasizing about us trading Ja. But it’s just that—fantasy,” Kleiman said in a statement that was in direct response to something my Ringer colleague Howard Beck said during a live taping of The Real Ones podcast in February. “Continue to underestimate Ja, this team, and this city, and we will let our performance on the floor speak for itself. I’m not going to give this nonsense further oxygen and look forward to getting back to basketball.”
We’re indeed talking about an awesome player. The Grizzlies were very good this season when Morant was on the court, and in 2024-25 he sold more jerseys than SGA, Nikola Jokic, and Antetokounmpo (widely considered the three best players in the league). He’s synonymous with Memphis. Trading him is so much easier said than done, for business and basketball reasons. Morant’s numbers after the All-Star break were excellent, but he also missed 10 games, including the playoff finale after a painful fall on his hip in what wound up being a monumental collapse against the Thunder.
That unreliability underlined how doubling down on Morant as a franchise centerpiece has forced needless personnel decisions that haven’t worked out. Facing Morant’s lengthy suspension at the start of the 2023-24 season, the Grizzlies shed two first-round picks to acquire Marcus Smart, who played just 39 games before getting salary dumped with another first-round pick to the Washington Wizards this past February. In the aggregate, Memphis added Marvin Bagley III, Johnny Davis, and two second-round picks for Jake LaRavia, Smart, and two first-round picks in this year’s draft. A vote of confidence in the franchise’s short-term direction, this was not.
Earlier this season, the Grizzlies were reportedly close to acquiring Dorian Finney-Smith from the Brooklyn Nets, but negotiations broke down and DFS was shipped to the Lakers. Finney-Smith would’ve been a perfect fit in Memphis, the exact type of player it’s needed but hasn’t been able to obtain for all of Morant’s tenure. Fruitless pursuits of Mikal Bridges and OG Anunoby are other “What if?” moments that sting, as does trading up in the 2021 draft to take Ziaire Williams and then watching the New Orleans Pelicans select Trey Murphy III with your original pick.
For all Morant’s warts, it’s worth pointing out that he’s found ways to thrive in spite of rosters that have struggled to create the type of space that accentuates his speed and vision. When the Grizzlies were an ascending 56-win team with one of the youngest rosters in the league and all of their own draft picks to play with (not unlike where the Thunder or Houston Rockets are now), their half-court offense sputtered through congested possessions that were ultimately a secondary plot point thanks to other feel-good characteristics: defensive tenacity, physicality on the glass, and brilliant efforts in transition highlighted by Morant’s athleticism. The elephant in the room was ignored because Morant (who, by the way, is extension eligible on July 6) was able to skate around it. But structural flaws that felt like a footnote in 2022 proved fatal in 2025.
At the same time, Ja’s defensive shortcomings require insulation; the Grizzlies know he’s a liability on that end, aren’t stupid, and care about outside shooting, but they also have to prioritize size—hence the need for load-bearing support beams like Jonas Valanciunas, Adams, and Zach Edey, who help stabilize a frontcourt that can’t afford to be outmuscled on the glass. (Related: It’s fun to daydream about the shape this roster could take if Jaren Jackson Jr. didn’t perpetually exist in foul trouble.)
Morant’s trade value is a mystery box. At his best, he’s a spellbinding phenom who can do things literally no one else can. His on-court intellect is elite. His bounce, verve, and spontaneity make guarding him in space next to impossible. But it’s so, so hard to win four playoff series with a defensive weak link who needs the ball in his hands.
How many teams are willing to absorb that, on a contract that fills about 25 percent of its cap space, knowing some avoidable controversy is right around the corner? And how many of those teams actually have stuff the Grizzlies would want? Would any clubs in a similar predicament be willing to swap headaches? Morant for Trae Young? Morant for Zion Williamson? Morant for LaMelo Ball? Morant for whatever the Chicago Bulls, Brooklyn Nets, Toronto Raptors, or Portland Trail Blazers want to offer? None of these feel particularly realistic, though the league’s landscape could look very different after the lottery is set and the playoffs end.
Elsewhere, if JJJ makes an All-NBA team—possible but not clear-cut—he’ll qualify for a five-year, $345 million supermax extension. That would be quite the investment, particularly when you consider that next season his current deal will only take up 15 percent of Memphis’s cap space.
It could also bump Jackson’s on-court needs ahead of Morant’s. Those two, along with Bane, are natural complements. But Memphis may ultimately decide that what’s best for one might not be best for a team that’d have to reallocate its resources. If Jackson does not make an All-NBA team, there’s less financial incentive for him to sign an extension, which could lead to Memphis trading him.
We’ve reached a crossroads. Can the Grizzlies evolve, or will they crash and burn? Will they stay in the Morant business? Sell high on JJJ? Make a draft-pick-loaded swing for the fences? Sit on their hands and bank on internal improvement from Edey, Wells, Scotty Pippen Jr., and GG Jackson II? Add more 3-point shooting and hope everyone can stay healthy next season, with coach Tuomas Iisalo getting his own training camp to implement and clarify his own system? If they renounce Santi Aldama and Luke Kennard, Memphis can create nearly $20 million of cap space this summer. Would adding someone like Nickeil Alexander-Walker or Malik Beasley change their fortunes?
Pretty much everything is on the table; preserving the status quo would be as surprising as a blockbuster move. That’s what happens when existential questions are so widespread and intractable. The Grizzlies have on-court issues that have to be corrected, but what they may also need is a cultural cleansing. The intimidating aura that carried them to respectability is gone, and there’s a decent chance it isn't coming back anytime soon.
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