The Memphis Grizzlies have an incalculable and undeniable energy. Before their game against the Los Angeles Lakers last month, an abundance of fans in Grizzlies jerseys were lined up buzzing outside Crypto.com Arena. When a smiling Ja Morant warmed up inside, a crowd congregated to watch the young phenom work out with assistant coach Blake Ahearn, finishing with—per tradition—a game of dodgeball and a race into the tunnel.
Toward the end of the long shootaround that morning, Desmond Bane’s eyes drifted between the media and the gym, where his team was engaged in an intense post-shootaround pickup run. The Grizzlies had just won 11 straight games, tying a franchise record.
Bane didn’t need to stare up at the 17 banners hanging from the rafters to know that big markets, with their ability to attract stars and dollars, have historically ruled the NBA. The small markets, short-stacked by geographical circumstance, have been hard-pressed to keep up. But Bane had an experience like Memphis—the NBA’s second-smallest market—in mind when he was entering the NBA. Going to high school in Richmond, Indiana, a town of 35,000 people, the sharpshooter saw value in “flying under the radar.”
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“[Memphis] just kinda feels like home,” Bane said before the game. “You don’t have all the extra stuff. I think I still have the discipline and the self-awareness to be able to block out a lot of the noise, but Memphis definitely helps.”
The Grizzlies have a passionate young core that’s bought into a franchise with a meticulous developmental system, a sharp front office, and an ownership group with a willingness to pay. But the main driver of their success has been the central belief that elite players would be attracted to what Memphis has to offer: a tight-knit family, a self-contained environment, a prideful rejection of small-market defeatism, and a rabid local fan base that values toughness. Morant, mirroring the city’s fearless, prideful ethos, is the most obvious fit, but the attitude is reflected up and down the roster.
In Morant’s sophomore season, the ahead-of-schedule Grizzlies made the play-in tournament, followed by a first-round loss to Utah. The next year, they made it to the second round before losing a hard-fought series to the eventual champion, the Warriors. This season, the Grizzlies—who have drafted eight out of their top 10 rotation players—have made another leap. They currently own the no. 2 seed in the West, the no. 3 defense in the NBA, and the no. 5 net rating overall—markers of a true contender. But they’ve also lost six of their last seven games, and their no. 13 offense could clearly use a boost. Can staying on the homegrown path get the Grizzlies to the promised land, or is it time for them to consolidate their young players and draft picks and try to upgrade at the trade deadline?
Predictably, the Grizzlies believe they would have beaten the Warriors last season if Morant had stayed healthy. But the playoffs laid their weaknesses bare: They had turnovers, scoring droughts, and overaggression from their defensive pillars, Jaren Jackson Jr. and Dillon Brooks, who were in perpetual foul trouble. Memphis’s offensive rating dropped by about five points in the postseason, and it became apparent they were missing a shooter or two on the wings. Morant took 31 shots against the Warriors in both Games 1 and 2, then hurt his knee in Game 3 and missed the rest of the series. Even when he was healthy, it was clear he was overburdened as a creator.
The Athletic reported that the Grizzlies made calls about Kevin Durant’s availability in the offseason, but their only notable actions were trading backup point guard De’Anthony Melton for Danny Green and the first-round pick that became David Roddy and letting Kyle Anderson walk. The hope was that Ziaire Williams, a standout rookie, would make up for Melton’s and Anderson’s departures by expanding his playmaking skills for the second unit. The same bet had worked out for the Grizzlies’ front office before, when Bane took a leap after Grayson Allen exited the year prior.
Bane, for the second offseason in a row, filled Memphis’s gaps through his own development. At Texas Christian University, the sharpshooter learned to hunt open spaces by studying tape of JJ Redick, Danny Green, and Devin Booker. Now he’s watching Donovan Mitchell and CJ McCollum, players who can, in Bane’s words, score on all three levels.
Morant best represents the Grizzlies’ fearless, never-say-die attitude, but Bane’s mix of passion, analytical balance, and incremental improvement is the most accurate representation of their culture—bravado backed up by a blueprint.
“They had a plan for me,” says Bane. “They wanted me to become a better pick-and-roll playmaker, be able to create offense, not rely on someone else.” He’s running more pick-and-rolls this year, and his efficiency has jumped up, too. His playmaking has taken a similar leap, with his assist percentage rising from 13.5 to 20.3 percent.
He’s also become more efficient about his shot selection, taking 5 percent fewer midrange jumpers per game this season. His improved ballhandling has allowed him to increase his drives to the rim from 5.3 to 8.3 per game this year. And he hasn’t forgotten about his bread and butter; he’s hoisting a career-high 7.2 3s per game at a sizzling 43.7 percent clip. In all, he’s averaging a career-high 21.7 points per game. The flashes of dynamic creation he showed last year have become more regular.
Morant has also cut down on his midrange attempts, opting to drive to the nail, suck in the defense, and find shooters, yielding a career-high 8.3 assists per game. Jackson, returning from a stress fracture in his foot, is back to his sharpshooting ways, taking 4.2 3s and shooting 34.9 percent.
Since Jackson came back, Memphis has boasted the NBA’s no. 1 defense. The young rim protector has simultaneously cut down on his fouls while blocking a career-high 3.3 shots per game, becoming the odds-on favorite to win Defensive Player of the Year. And if you’re the conspiracy theory type, here’s this: Opponents are shooting 14.5 percent worse than usual within 6 feet of the basket when Jackson is present.
Beyond just the core, the Grizzlies have rebuilt their now-robust roster almost exclusively through the draft. Brandon Clarke is an Energizer Bunny at the 4, a modern tweener with the hands to catch Morant’s zestiest dimes and the double-jump ability to clean up his misses. Xavier Tillman, a second-round pick, is his brawnier body double, good for containing slower-moving but heavier covers on defense. Williams, a lottery pick out of Stanford, became a key wing rotation piece in the playoffs last year. Santi Aldama can stroke it, and he’s showing nascent playmaking ability. John Konchar is the only NBA player to come out of Purdue–Fort Wayne. Jake LaRavia and David Roddy, drafted this summer, still have to show what they can do. And I haven’t even mentioned Kenneth Lofton Jr., who rocked Chet Holmgren’s world in Summer League.
Why, then, is this heartening counterbalance to a league filled with cold-blooded dealmaking a perpetual trade machine favorite? Because success, in the NBA, is earning the right to have your weaknesses put under a magnifying glass. Take Jackson, who has calibrated his timing and aggressiveness to stay on the floor and terrorize opponents. He’s still fouling a lot, averaging 3.3 per game. But holding that against a 23-year-old center on the NBA’s fifth-youngest team seems unfair, but this is the treacherous terrain the Grizzlies will need to thrive in to win a championship.
Similarly, while the no. 13 offense sounds just fine, aside from last year’s Warriors, who turned the jets on on offense in the playoffs, only the 2004 Pistons and the Bad Boys of the late ’80s have won championships with an offensive rating outside the top 11 in the last 40 years. The smashmouth brand, the NBA and recent Grizzlies history will tell you, usually goes only so far.
Maybe these Grizzlies could actually be the tough guys who transcend. There’s also a chance they take the persona too far. But on the court, there are eerie parallels between the Bad Boys and the modern-day Grizzlies. The Pistons had Isiah Thomas, the last small drive-heavy guard to lead a team to the promised land. Joe Dumars was the perfect foil to Thomas, the way Bane is to Morant. And then there was Bill Laimbeer, the guy opponents hated and called outright dirty, but he was loved by the team and city.
If you haven’t already guessed, we’re about to get to Dillon Brooks, whose shut-the-door defensive ambitions range from giving Memphis a Bad Boys–esque edge to being borderline belligerent. In the final possession of Memphis’s nail-biting win against Cleveland last month, Brooks jumped out at Darius Garland twice, first forcing him to pass out of a jumper and then blocking his game-winning attempt.
The next time Memphis played Cleveland, Brooks sneakily hit Mitchell in the family jewels, resulting in a scuffle and a one-game suspension for Brooks. After the game, Mitchell told reporters Brooks has “been busting his ass for years,” referencing their battles in his Utah days. In the first round of the 2021 playoffs, Mitchell repeatedly took advantage of Brooks’s overaggressive screen navigation by pump-faking before pull-ups, getting to the free throw line off jump shot attempts, and fouling him out in Game 3. Brooks is fouling almost just as much as he was that season, having fouled out three times this season.
If the Grizzlies want to take a more balanced approach, there are potential options out there. Would it make sense, for example, for the Grizzlies to offer Brooks’s expiring contract, a young player of Toronto’s choice, and three first-round picks to Toronto for O.G. Anunoby, a tactical and cultural fit and a career 37 percent shooter?
Most of the NBA would say yes, but the Grizzlies value Brooks in a way most of the league doesn’t. Is he the kind of player an outsider can see more clearly? Or is his value so imperceptible, so intangible, that you have to look more closely to understand it? Is he more Patrick Beverley—an effort-infusing jump-starter who usually wears out his welcome with time—or Marcus Smart, a cultural bedrock who can be forgiven when his combination of intensity and confidence creates bouts of delusion? More important, would a deal that breaks up the core compromise an ethos rooted in self-belief?
If the Grizzlies don’t want to risk losing the momentum they’ve built, a smaller move to shore up their bench could help. Williams, struggling in his new role, gave up the game-winning layup to Jordan Poole on an inbound play against the Warriors two weeks ago—the kind of inattentive youthful folly that could cost Memphis in the playoffs. But he also missed the first two months of the season with a knee injury, and Green, a sharpshooter with three rings to his name, made his return Wednesday.
Conventional team-building wisdom suggests that the concrete is about to thicken on the Grizzlies’ core, that if they want to make a deal, the time is now. Morant, who signed a supermax extension this summer, is about to get a $20 million raise. Bane is also eligible for an extension after this season. But the Grizzlies have also made shrewd cap decisions that could help them stay nimble enough to make a big move later if they need to. Green’s contract coming off the books will help offset Morant’s raise. Steven Adams is scheduled to take a $5 million pay cut next season. Jackson’s contract is descending. Look up and down the Grizzlies roster, and even the players who are locked up would be attractive trade targets.
Five of the Grizzlies’ last seven losses have been on the road, where they’re 11-16 this season. The last few weeks have been a reminder that while this team is ahead of schedule, it’s still fallible to the blunders of youth. They could answer these problems—inexperience, reckless defense—at the deadline. Or they could take their chances on the formula that’s gotten them here: standing pat and watching the seed grow organically in ways they couldn’t have imagined when it was first planted. With a horde of young players and picks at their disposal, the Grizzlies will certainly take and make plenty of calls as the deadline approaches, but their best move could be hanging up the phone.
