For two seasons in a row now, the Memphis Grizzlies have finished as the second seed in the Western conference. Yet despite that, they haven’t really been treated as contenders and still aren’t. They haven’t gotten the respect that teams of their level of winning usually have. That could be for a few reasons. They are much younger than teams of their stature usually are. Their main star, Ja Morant is 24 years old. The reigning defensive player of the year in Jaren Jackson Jr is also 24. Then Desmond Bane is the oldest of the three at 25. They also were pretty cocky for a team that hasn’t made a conference finals, and that turned a lot of people off. But they had an interesting offseason of change. The cockiest and most provocative of the bunch, Dillon Brooks, was not re-signed in free agency this summer. They also swapped out backup point guard Tyus Jones for 2022 defensive player of the year Marcus Smart. Then they signed Derrick Rose in hopes he could be a good mentor for the young guys, and provide some backup point guard minutes. However, a fair doubt of the team heading into this season is the looming 25-game suspension of franchise player Ja Morant due to repeated gun violations. But that was the big reason for bringing in a player like Smart, and if they can survive the first third of the season then this could be another high finish for Memphis. There’s a real argument that this is the best team that they’ve had with the current core. On top of the good young four, they also have a really solid starting center in Steven Adams, and rising young players like Kenneth Lofton Jr, David Roddy, Jake LaRavia, and Santi Aldama. Acting like the team will just fall off a cliff and won’t be towards the top of the west seems disrespectful. The Memphis Grizzlies are the NBA’s Most Disrespected Contender.
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#memphisgrizzlies #jamorant #jarenjacksonjr
5 Comments
You forgot about Ziaire Williams 😭😭😭
What are they contending for? Most missed games?
Bro I don’t have high expectations for the grizzlies in the western conference this season in comparison to the expectations I had of them last year. Morant is missing 25 games at the start, they are missing tyus jones who was already a reliable efficient sixth man. Dillion brooks (although he makes some bonehead offensive plays ) gave them height, physical presence and decent defensive which was especially evident in the fiba World Cup. Smart is a good addition but is more injury prone than tyus jones and sometimes makes bad offensive plays.The grizzlies got a bit weaker in my opinion. They are still a playoff team but I already can name 5 other rosters in the west that are currently better than this current iteration of the grizzles team. Roddy is still developing too.
They have no spacing
D Rose has past gang ties, but was able to overcome it and become a role model for players by leading by example. Him and Adams are enough to fix Ja Wick