OFFICIAL 2022-23 MEMPHIS GRIZZLIES FAN THREAD | WELCOMING NEW FANS | SEASON OPENER VS NYK 10/19

[bhzmafia14]

Felt like this team is starting to pick up some steam and would rather put most Grizz material in here than clogging it up in the NBA thread. Had a thread from way back right around the time GnG got started, but



Prior to last night:


Last night's highlights against Houston:

Spoiler

https://twitter.com/fastbreakbreak/status/1217263447785852928

https://twitter.com/peteredmiston/status/1217305804879147009

Plan to do an analysis on the team soon, but its looking like Ja/JJJ are making one hell of a 1-2 combo. Clarke, Melton and Brooks are looking to be very good young role players moving forward. If this team just so happens make the playoffs or simply continues an excellent rebuilding year, Melton and Brooks may be costly RFA's.

Val has been a very big piece of the puzzle as well. His ability to stretch the floor more consistently now and also give us options in the post when in half court sets have been huge.

The best thing about all this is that we are still in position to receive more assets from a Iggy trade and potentially moving off the expirings of Solomon Hill, Josh Jackson and Jae Crowder.

 

[bhzmafia14]

Athletic article from Hollinger w/ a few snippets below:

Hollinger: How the Grizzlies have become a must-watch League...

The Grizzlies rebuild is ahead of schedule thanks to a sparkling rookie and a dynamic mix of capable youth and crafty vets.

theathletic.com

On Dec. 7, the Grizzlies fell to 6-16 after losing for the ninth time in 10 games, and nobody seemed terribly surprised by this. They weren’t necessarily trying to be bad, but with a young team centered around two 20-year-olds and six other players on their first NBA contract, they were a long way from being good.


Well, they’ve bridged that long way in a shockingly short amount of time. The Grizzlies completed the most exhilarating 19-22 first half in recent NBA annals by going 13-6 over their last 19 games, including their current six-game win streak that they launched into with a 140-114 mashing of the mighty Clippers at Staples Center.


The more notable part isn’t just what they’re doing but how they’re doing it. With rookie point guard Ja Morant pinging the ball around with highlight-reel passes and capable finishers at the end of his deliveries, the Grizzlies have overnight morphed into a fun as hell team that has become a nightly must-watch for League Pass aficionados.


If you haven’t seen them yet, you’re missing out on a great show. Over the past month, Memphis has the league’s highest-scoring offense, at 119.8 points per game, delivering multiple cases of whiplash to a local populace reared on 78-74 rock fights in the Grit-n-Grind Era. (Full disclosure for those of you who spent the last few years spelunking in Turkmenistan: I was the Grizzlies’ VP of basketball operations from 2012 to 2019).


All of which is great news for Memphis (and, coincidentally, bad news for Boston. The Celtics own Memphis’s first-round pick with top-6 protection this year and none a year from now. That potentially offered high-end outcomes, but it looks like Boston will have to settle for a pick in the teens in a weak 2020 draft). With the Grizzlies’ two best players locked in on rookie contracts, a clean cap sheet going forward, and draft assets from five trades in the last year that resulted from unspooling the previous Mike Conley-Marc Gasol core, few teams are better positioned for success in the years to come.


The bright future was a known entity coming into the season; the surprise is how quickly the future has turned into the present. Memphis’ sudden emergence has breathed vitality into what looked like a depressing race of the West’s final playoff spot; the turbo-Griz and the LaM3rc3s-infused Spurs have changed that.


So let’s dig deeper. With the Grizzlies’ lone scheduled national TV appearance coming Monday against New Orleans, it’s a good time to ask what happened.


How did this team go from zero to 60 so quickly? A few factors resonate:[/spoiler]

Spoiler

Ja-Mania



Obviously, any discussion must start with Morant, whose rapid shift from “fairly good” to “spectacular” over the past month has been the main catalyst for the recent win streak. I listed Morant 26[SUP]th[/SUP] in my “quarterback” rankings back in the halcyon days of last week, and that already


Normally we treat samples this brief with suspicion, but nothing about what Morant has done seems fake or flukish. There will still be some bumps in the road, for sure – in particular, his turnover rate remains high thanks to his ambitious pass attempts – but Morant’s 10-11, 26-point, 8-assist shredding of Houston this week was littered with the type of highlights that only the game’s best players can produce.


For instance, check out this feat of wizardry: Casually using the Chris Paul fake-pass dribble out of a pick-and-roll before dropping a behind the back pass between two defenders for a Jaren Jackson Jr. and-1. Note how soft the pass is, too – most players throw a Nolan Ryan fastball on a play like this, but it’s hard to whip a ball around your back quickly and yet softly.



Solidifying the shooting guard spot

The Grizzlies’ leading scorer during this winning streak hasn’t been Jackson or Morant. It’s been third-year guard Brooks, who is averaging 19.6 points per game in January — notable because the Grizzlies are 12-0 when Brooks scores at least 20 points. Like several of his teammates, Brooks saw his numbers take a major uptick since December. He’s been a 55.0 TS% proposition on a relatively high usage (25.5); more impressively, he’s pushed his assist rate in a notably positive direction while reining in his instincts to fire away indiscriminately.


The recognition to turn down a quasi-open pull-up J and instead fire a sweet lefty dish to the corner was not in his arsenal two years ago:


The shooting guard spot has been an open sore for the Grizzlies since Tony Allen’s Grindfather reign ended, but Brooks’ emergence this year has turned it into a positive. He is shooting 38.5 percent from 3 and knocking down pull-up 2s consistently as a secondary creator. He still fouls too much (6.4 per 100, a phenomenal rate for a wing), but he’s arguably been Memphis’s best perimeter defender.


Brooks also represents an interesting decision point for the Grizzlies going forward, especially given his recent hot streak. He’s eligible to sign an extension at any time, and will be a restricted free agent after the season. With 3-and-D wings always in demand, he will have suitors.


The sledgehammer

The focus on the Ja-Jaren-Dillon core (with some De’Anthony Melton and Clarke thrown in for good measure) is obviously the key, but the most overlooked piece is the one that has mostly kept doing what he always does.


Despite the fast tempo, the Grizzlies can still play beastball like the good old days, thanks to human sledgehammer and serial-shot faker Valanciunas. Already this month he’s posted a 30-point game against Phoenix (on just 16 shots) and a 31-point, 19-rebound mashing of Golden State.

The bench is good

It’s instructive to see the plus numbers of some opposing starters in games the Grizzlies won. James Harden was +3 in a game his team lost by 11; DeMar DeRozan was -1 in a game the Spurs lost by 13; Chris Paul was +8 but his team lost to Memphis by 13; Jimmy Butler was +7 but his team lost by a touchdown.


The Memphis bench has been a consistent advantage, especially since the addition of Melton to the mix in early December. Gifted from Phoenix in the Josh Jackson salary dump that also sent Memphis a second-round pick (and possibly two), Melton is a combo guard who doesn’t exactly pass like a 1 but doesn’t exactly shoot like a 2.


However, his combination of defense, plus rebounding and transition play paired with just-good-enough perimeter shooting makes him a huge plus against backups. Melton’s rate of 3.3 steals per 100 is topped by only Kris Dunn and Matisse Thybulle; his 10.5 rebounds per 100 are the best of any guard except Dejounte Murray.


Melton has the best on-off rating on the team, partly because his addition to the rotation coincided with Tyus Jones and Grayson Allen shaking off miserable November slumps. Combined with energizer rookie Clarke (shooting a tidy 62.9 percent) and the defense of steady vets Kyle Anderson and Solomon Hill, Memphis’s second units have quickly flipped the switch from liability to asset. Clarke, Anderson and Jones are under contract for the long term, but the 21-year-old Melton will be a restricted free agent after the season and presents another decision point for Memphis.


(One other factor I should mention, that is a common thread in nearly all surprise teams: Health. The Grizzlies had empty injury reports for several games in early January, an incredibly rare feat at this time of year.)


What now?



All of this success has actually created some first-world problems for the Grizzlies. A team that was presumed to be selling off veterans like Crowder and Hill at the trade deadline now may have some incentive to hang onto them. Crowder, in particular, has fit in as a starting small forward and, at age 29, conceivably could re-sign in Memphis after the season as a veteran leader. (Crowder is also extension-eligible, by the way).


He’s also received renewed attention from trade suitors since having the game of his life in front of several pro scouts in L.A. two weeks ago (a 27-8-7 performance with three blocks and three steals added on, soundly outplaying some guy named Kawhi Leonard). A reading of the tea leaves in this market is that Memphis is unlikely to receive an offer for Crowder so compelling that it trumps keeping him.

 

[HIM]

Grit n Grind!

 

[pmatic]

 

[bhzmafia14]

Dillon Brooks is slowly becoming one of the better young 2 guards in the league. I cannot believe I'm saying that

What he's done over the last few months has been crazy from a scoring/shooting perspective. He has the highest offensive rating on the team during a 10-3 month. He's making over 3 3's a game on 46% shooting, averaging 20.8ppg. Shooting splits of 46/46/82.

I want to say its just hot shooting, but this goes all the way back to December 1st as well. Shooting splits of 44/41/84. He was making 2.5 3's a game on 6 attempts and averaging 18.1ppg. I'm starting to be fearful as to what he would command this offseason.

 

[bhzmafia14]

Grizzlies trade analysis: What it means for today, the summer and beyond - Memphis Local, Sports, Business & Food News | Daily Memphian

The Memphis Grizzlies added to a talented young core at the NBA's trade deadline, and now seemed well-positioned to build a contender.

dailymemphian.com

When Jason Wexler and Zach Kleiman took control of the Memphis Grizzlies basketball operations last spring, they talked about building “sustainable success” and commenced a full-on rebuild by trading franchise stalwart point guard Mike Conley for a bundle of smaller “assets”: Three players, two draft picks and a new, large “trade exception.”

They’ve been working the margins of that deal ever since. One of those draft picks turned into rookie forward Brandon Clarke, an instant sensation off the bench. One of those players (Kyle Korver) was flipped for second-year guard De’Anthony Melton, who’s emerged as a do-it-all needle-mover and potential long-term keeper. That trade exception was turned into Golden State discard Andre Iguodala and a future first-round pick.

After months of too-much-ado-about-too-little drama regarding in-exile Iguodala’s basketball future, the Grizzlies pushed the Conley trade return even further, by dealing Iguodala and initial Conley trade acquisition Jae Crowder in a six-player, three-team trade that brought back, as its centerpiece, 23-year-old forward Justise Winslow from the Miami Heat.
Now that the chaos of the NBA trade deadline has subsided, a look at what the Grizzlies did this week and what it means, for now, for this summer, and beyond.

Spoiler

The Broad Strokes
If you pair the Grizzlies’ trade-deadline maneuvering with their three-year, $35-million contract extension for incumbent scoring guard Dillon Brooks — and those decisions are very much paired — then a general team-building strategy is revealed, one that you can break into three related parts:

1. Add another young talent to the team’s core
2. Punt on outside free agency in 2020
3. Position the team to make another major move in 2021 free agency or, perhaps more likely, in next season’s trade market

The Grizzlies are rebuilding, but through a mix of good luck and good decisions have found their success accelerated.

The team began this season with twin 20-year-olds Ja Morant and Jaren Jackson Jr. as cornerstones and the outside expectation of being the worst team in the Western Conference.
Despite owing a future first-round draft pick to the Boston Celtics, the road more taken suggested being bad enough to add a third high-lottery pick to go with the Morant/Jackson duo. The Grizzlies must now know that this path has likely been closed to them.

At the same time, the team’s ahead-of-schedule spot in the playoff race this season could have inspired short-term thinking. What can be done to maximize playoff odds this season?
Instead, the team’s decisions this week suggest an eye on the middle path: “Sustainable success” on a slightly accelerated timeline.

Short-term would have meant trading for or keeping vets. Long-term might have meant building more draft assets. In focusing on the 23-year-old, five-year-vet Winslow in trade and extending the 24-year-old Brooks, the Grizzlies have locked in a young starting lineup — joined by Morant, Jackson and 27-year-old center Jonas Valanciunas — for at least the next two seasons. This is a group that, with Clarke and Melton, can win now and still has room to grow together.
The Grizzlies are betting that Winslow has a better chance to be a new core piece than anyone who would come out of the next couple of drafts or anyone who could have come out of free agency next summer. But because the veteran contracts — guard Dion Waiters and center Gorgui Dieng — the Grizzlies absorbed to acquire Winslow each expire at the end of next season, the team still has the flexibility to hunt for another big splash, either in 2021 free agency or in next season’s trade market.

More on the New Guys
The Grizzlies are placing a big bet that Winslow is the right new core piece to add to what the team already has. Winslow seems like an ideal fit in terms of age (23), position (small forward, the team’s most unsettled), skill set (3-and-D with a little extra playmaking) and contract (cost-controlled at $13 million in each of the next two seasons).
The biggest question with Winslow is the back issues that have limited him to 11 games this season. The Grizzlies don’t anticipate him playing until at least after the All-Star break and plan to be cautious with him despite being in a playoff race.

The Grizzlies seem to believe that the back strain/bone bruise issue that Winslow has had this season is akin to what Melton dealt with in training camp, and is not a long-term worry. Others around the league have expressed more concern. Time will tell.
Already in his fifth NBA season at age 23, Winslow has only averaged 9 points a game in his career. But after shooting 39-151 (26%) from 3-point range in his first two seasons, Winslow shot a combined 145-385 (38%) over his next two seasons. Winslow has been a modest and not terribly efficient scorer, but will be something of a fifth scoring option in the Grizzlies’ starting lineup. The hope will be that Winslow’s growth as a 3-point shooter is sustainable and that the team’s system can coax a higher rate of long-range attempts from him.

This will be important because while Winslow is an excellent playmaker as a wing, Morant will be running the show in Memphis and Winslow will need to be effective off the ball.
But Winslow’s biggest impact will likely be elsewhere. He’s an excellent rebounder and defender for his position, and the Heat have consistently been better defensively with Winslow on the floor.
Coming over from the Minnesota Timberwolves in a late-breaking addition to what had been a two-team deal, center Gorgui Dieng might be something of a Solomon Hill redux: A locker-room class act who helps off the bench and whose large soon-to-be-expiring contract ($17.3 million next season) could become a meaningful trade piece.

Dieng isn’t much of an offensive threat inside the arc, but like a lot of current big men has worked to extend his shooting range. After never taking more than 14% of his field-goal attempts from long-range, Dieng is taking 40% of his attempts from 3 this season, and making 39% of them.
This suddenly stretchy game could pair well off the bench with rim-attacker Clarke and could also allow Dieng to play some in bigger lineups with Jackson or (less likely) Valanciunas. Dieng is a good shot blocker and rebounder and, like Winslow, has tended to have a positive impact on team defense.
The Grizzlies added more than a million dollars in salary for next season in swapping forward James Johnson (initially coming over from Miami) for Dieng, but like that Dieng could shore up the team’s depth chart at center, where the team took a big hit whenever Valanciunas was out, and adds a quality veteran in the locker room to help replace what was lost with the departures of Crowder and Hill.

Speaking of which …
At his peak, Dion Waiters was a mid-teens scorer and meaningful 3-point shooter, but recurring ankle problems have slowed him down and, of late, myriad off-court issues have sidelined him completely: Waiters was suspended by the Heat three times this season.

Waiters arrived to a team with an already crowded depth chart at his position (Brooks, Melton and Grayson Allen) and one that doesn’t seem to have a lot of interest in keeping distractions in house when they can instead send them away.
The Grizzlies have a recent history of managing awkward player situations with Chandler Parsons, Andre Iguodala and Josh Jackson all under contract but away from the team — for different reasons — over the past two seasons. Anything seemed possible with Waiters and now it appears that the Grizzlies will buy him out, putting $12.7 million of dead money on next season’s salary cap sheet (or perhaps a little less pending buyout negotiations).

This will cost the Grizzlies a trade chip: Waiters’ expiring contract next season is only movable if he’s still on the roster, but there’s precedent here: Last summer, the Grizzlies flipped Chandler Parsons for Solomon Hill and Miles Plumlee, turning one big expiring contract into two with the notion that this would be better for future trade purposes. Hill ended up being a nice contributor before becoming a trade chip. Facing a roster crunch, the Grizzlies chose to buy out Plumlee rather than keep his contract on the books.

In this scenario, where Dieng is the Solomon Hill, Waiters is now the Plumlee, whose $12.5 million dead salary has been on the team’s books all season. Perhaps this was a tough decision, but it was hard to imagine the Grizzlies bringing Waiters into this young locker room.

Footnote: The Grizzlies got some very minor but favorable draft return in swapping Bruno Caboclo to the Houston Rockets for center Jordan Bell. Caboclo was going to be an unrestricted free agent this summer; the Grizzlies can make Bell restricted. So there’s more control there if they want it. Bell is an undersized, rim-running center who is a pretty good rebounder and shot-blocker. Is there really room for him and the similar but better Clarke on the same roster?

The Value
Was this a good deal for the Grizzlies? The dispassionate evaluations have been decidedly mixed. The Grizzlies took on nearly $30 million in what are considered “bad” contracts next season to get Winslow, but the players they traded away, particularly Iguodala and Crowder, were thought to have positive value of their own.
It may be that the trade market for Iguodala wasn’t quite as robust as once imagined. Remember, the Grizzlies got paid a good draft pick — rather than paying one themselves — to absorb his contract last summer.
Winslow is certainly a more valuable get than whatever bundle of draft assets Iguodala and Crowder would have fetched in separate draft-oriented deals. But with the extra $30 million salary addition for next season?

It’s somewhat disappointing that the Grizzlies apparently couldn’t have done this deal excluding the Solomon Hill for Dion Waiters swap (it would have worked financially without either in the trade) or couldn’t get at least some type of draft-asset return from Miami (that didn’t have much to give).
But the opportunity cost of taking on the extra salary might be minimal given where the Grizzlies are and want to be in their competitive trajectory.
Yes, the Grizzlies decided to forgo potentially massive cap space this summer, but in doing so are making the calculation that Winslow for an additional two years and $26 million would be preferable to anyone they could reasonably sign.
Setting aside New Orleans’ Brandon Ingram, a restricted free agent who will be hard to poach, the best wings on the market this summer are likely to be restricted free agents Bogdan Bogdanovic and Malik Beasley, unrestricted free agent Joe Harris or potential free agents with player options such as Evan Fournier or Otto Porter. In terms of age, upside, position and skill set, none of them are as strong a potential fit as Winslow.

What else could that cap space achieve? They could take on contracts in exchange for draft picks, as they did last summer for Iguodala. That’s the classic rebuilding-team strategy. That the Grizzlies preferred to lock in Winslow now rather than build up assets for some indeterminate future suggests an embrace of a slightly accelerated timeline.

What Does it Mean for This Season?
At 26-25, the Grizzlies are solidly in playoff-qualifying eighth place in the Western Conference, with a three-game cushion ahead of the Portland Trail Blazers, 3.5 on the San Antonio Spurs and six games each on the Phoenix Suns and New Orleans Pelicans.
Do this week’s moves make the Grizzlies a stronger or weaker bet to make the playoffs this season? That’s hard to say, but it seems clear that this year’s playoff race had minimal impact on the team’s decision-making, and that’s encouraging.

From a simple subtraction standpoint, the losses shouldn’t be crushing. Crowder had been starting and soaking up heavy minutes, but had also generally been shooting poorly. The Grizzlies have gone 6-0 with Kyle Anderson in the starting lineup in Crowder’s place. That could be happenstance. More persuasively, while the Grizzlies’ starting lineup on the season has been effective (+6.4 per 100 possessions), the same lineup with Anderson rather than Crowder has been even better (+8.3).
And that’s not factoring in Winslow at all, who is a better player than either.

In the front court, Dieng is an upgrade over Hill, though a different player positionally. The Grizzlies also have a recently promoted Josh Jackson in the mix.
Even if Winslow doesn’t play this season, the trade shouldn’t lower the team’s chances. If Winslow does, it’s likely the Grizzlies have improved for the rest of this season. And while some will wonder about the less tangible impact of the loss of the locker-room presence of Crowder and Hill, the Grizzlies’ precocious core seems ready to take the lead.
The field remains a better bet than the Grizzlies in this season’s playoff race, but this week’s moves should not diminish their chances.

What Does it Mean for This Summer?
By my math, the Grizzlies will enter the summer above the NBA’s projected $115 million salary cap, including qualifying offers for restricted free agents Melton and Bell and a cap hold for unrestricted free agent Josh Jackson.
But in terms of guaranteed money, they would be more than $25 million below the NBA’s projected luxury tax. So the Grizzlies should have plenty of room to retain Melton. They could then re-sign Bell or Jackson (or both) if they so chose or pursue lower-salary outside free agents via the league’s mid-level or bi-annual exceptions. They have Phoenix’s second-round pick in June’s draft, but likely neither of their own.
Unforeseen trades could always shake things up, and probably will, but it’s easy to imagine a fairly quiet summer that gets the Grizzlies to their 15-man roster next season:

• Point guard: Ja Morant-Tyus Jones
• Scoring guard: Dillon Brooks-De’Anthony Melton-Grayson Allen
• Small forward: Justise Winslow-Kyle Anderson-Marko Guduric
• Power forward: Jaren Jackson Jr -Brandon Clarke
• Center: Jonas Valanciunas-Gorgui Dieng

With three spots left, choose among the following: Josh Jackson, Jordan Bell, second-round pick, lower-level free agents.
It probably won’t be that simple, but it could be. It feels like the Grizzlies did their summer work early with the Winslow trade and Brooks extension. Next February’s trade deadline could be more momentous than the coming summer. Which brings us to …

What Does it Mean for the Broader Future?
If the Grizzlies send their first-round pick to the Boston Celtics this summer, as expected, they will be clear of future first-round pick obligations.
This means they would have all of their own first-round picks available to trade as well as one from Utah (likely in 2022) and one from Golden State (likely 2024). Eight first round picks over the next six seasons, all unencumbered.
The Grizzlies will also have a big expiring contract (Dieng), with several smaller contracts connected to actual good players. It will be easy to arrive at most salary levels, though dead money for Waiters could hurt them somewhat.

Translation: The Grizzlies will be very well positioned for the trade market starting next season.
Maybe Justise Winslow becomes the third leg of a championship-contending stool along with Ja Morant and Jaren Jackson Jr. Maybe that player is Brandon Clarke or Dillon Brooks or even De’Anthony Melton. More likely is that this group, collectively, is good enough together that no one is a clear third in the pecking order.
More likely still: That player is still out in the NBA ocean somewhere, and the Grizzlies now have the tools to pursue a big fish.

They can eschew multi-year contracts in free agency this summer and let Dieng’s contract next season expire and go into the summer of 2021 with the meaningful cap space they decided to forgo in 2020. In the last summer before they have to pay Jaren Jackson Jr. for real, the Grizzlies could be an attractive free agent destination with money to spend.
There are plenty of intriguing potential free agents looming in 2021, both unrestricted (C.J. McCollum, Victor Oladipo, Kelly Oubre) and restricted (Jonathan Isaac, O.G. Anunoby, Luke Kennard, Derrick White, Duncan Robinson).

Yet the trade market seems a more fertile future option for the Grizzlies than free agency.
But as the 2019-2020 NBA season enters its post-trade-deadline homestretch, the blow-it-up Grizzlies of last summer now have a young playoff contender whose core is locked up for the foreseeable future, and they have the assets in place to be opportunistic in pursuit of even better.
This isn’t — yet — the best team in franchise history. But the Grizzlies have never been better positioned for sustainable success, and at a very high level.

In depth look at the Grizz deadline moves and what it means for today and the future.

 

[D StaXX]

In

 

[bhzmafia14]

Created this one during Ja's sophmore year.

Looking at a MVP season from Ja, but going to need him to play 70+ games. I'm hearing Jaren back prior to Thanksgiving, maybe much sooner.