The Grizzlies are the NBA's forgotten contenders

With the 2024-25 campaign approaching, we're diving deep into some of the players we're most interested in watching. Next up: a whole team looking to rebound from a lost season and re-establish itself as a rising Western Conference power.

Previous entries: Damian Lillard, Darius Garland, Christian Braun, Jalen Green, Devin Vassell

Every NBA season, a handful of teams have their hopes dashed by bad health luck. But rarely has the injury bug bitten as relentlessly or as venomously as it did the Memphis Grizzlies in 2023-24.

To recap:

Steven Adams never made it onto the court, undergoing season-ending knee surgery a day before opening night. His absence further hollowed a frontcourt already missing Brandon Clarke, who sat out all but the last two weeks of the season while rehabbing a torn Achilles. Ja Morant started the year serving a 25-game suspension, then suited up for just nine games before he was shut down with a torn labrum. Marcus Smart, for whom Memphis traded Tyus Jones and two first-round draft picks in the offseason, played 20 games due to ankle and finger ailments. Desmond Bane played 37 of the team's first 38 games, then sprained his ankle and played five the rest of the way. That's four of five projected starters combining to play less than one full individual season.

The injuries extended deeper into the rotation, afflicting reserves like Luke Kennard, John Konchar, and Ziaire Williams. All told, 33 players saw game action for the Grizz, the most for any team in any season in NBA history. That they managed to win 27 games felt like a minor miracle. It was a lost season by any definition.

Still, a season is rarely completely without value, no matter how hopeless it is. A handful of small gems glimmered under the debris in Memphis last year, from the self-creation reps and subtle offensive gains that Jaren Jackson Jr. attained in the absence of basically every playmaker on the roster, to the emergence of all-court chaos agent Vince Williams Jr., to the speckles of brilliance from two-way signee Scotty Pippen Jr., to the gunslinging exploits of second-round rookie GG Jackson II. The Grizzlies' futility also earned them the No. 9 pick in the draft, which they used to select gargantuan two-time Naismith Award winner Zach Edey.

So now they get a fresh slate with a similar nucleus to the one that racked up 56 wins in 2021-22 and sat atop the Western Conference midway through the 2022-23 season, before injuries and Morant's gun-toting Instagram Live misadventures derailed them. In the wake of all those calamities, it's easy to forget just how good this team was, how bright its future once appeared - and might yet be. When they're all available, Morant, Bane, and Jackson still represent one of the league's best and most synergistic young trios.

Morant is a one-man fast break, a pick-and-roll maestro, and a midair passing magician whose at-rim finishing combines equal parts power and craft. He was an All-NBAer in his third season at age 22. Jackson is one of the best switch defenders and maybe the single best weak-side rim-protector alive. He was the Defensive Player of the Year at 23. Bane is an All-Star-caliber wing with evolving playmaking chops and one of the purest shooting strokes in the game. He's the oldest of the three at 26.

A healthy Smart can theoretically complement that trio well, which is why Memphis gave up so much to acquire him. His rugged defense at the point of attack and at the nail can help protect Morant at that end. If he and Jackson can stay on the floor, this team should be a safe bet to finish with a top-10 defense. Heck, Memphis ranked 12th last season despite surrounding Jackson with two-way guys and G Leaguers for half the season. (The team finished second and fifth the two seasons prior.) At the other end, Smart's driving ability and crisp connective passing make him a solid fit with the rest of the starters, as well as a reliable option to run the offense when Morant is on the bench.

At the same time, the Grizzlies might run into spacing issues when they play Morant and Smart (both shaky outside shooters) together alongside a traditional center. That's where their lineup-construction decisions get really interesting. Starting Santi Aldama next to Jackson would help the offense breathe, but it would also compromise defense and especially rebounding. The Jackson-Clarke frontcourt has always been a killer, though it's mostly been deployed against opposing bench groups. If Memphis opts to return to the formula that's worked best in the past, the question becomes: Is the 7-foot-4 Edey ready to start as a rookie?

Despite all the noise about the benefits of making Jackson a full-time stretch-five, the Grizzlies typically perform better when he plays next to an even bigger big. Adams in particular was a crucial part of the the team's identity during its recent 50-plus-win campaigns, and his knee injury in 2022-23 was an underplayed factor in that year's collapse. Across two seasons, Memphis outscored teams by 9.7 points per 100 possessions, with a 120.9 offensive rating, when he and Jackson shared the court.

In 2021-22, the Grizzlies finished fourth in offensive rating, despite starting Morant, Dillon Brooks (a roughly equivalent shooter to Smart), and Adams together. They did so despite finishing 22nd in first-shot half-court efficiency, a magic trick enabled by their devastating Morant-led transition attack and Adams' unparalleled second-chance generation. Edey's offensive gifts and likely defensive limitations make him feel like more of a Jonas Valanciunas stand-in than an Adams replacement, but the hope is that he can approximate and perhaps even harmonize the role those two variously played in Memphis.

That role, broadly, is a hulking center who can set bone-crushing ball screens and Gortats for Morant and Bane, finish out of the pick-and-roll, run some DHO and split action from the elbow, post the odd mismatch, and inhale offensive rebounds at one end; and at the defensive end, save Jackson some physical punishment and clean the glass behind him while simultaneously being insulated by Jackson's elite court coverage and back-side help. (Entering the league as a slower-footed and perhaps coverage-limited big, you really couldn't ask for a better frontcourt partner than Jackson.)

It will also be interesting to see whether the diamonds this team found in the rough can keep shining in a more glittery environment. This should be a very good team playing for real stakes; how will those intriguing performances translate this season?

It's not hard to imagine how Williams can contribute to a winner. Much like Memphis is hoping Edey can serve as a facsimile of Adamsciunas, Williams will be tasked with replicating much of what Brooks provided, mainly in the form of nasty, in-your-jersey perimeter defense. He may not get to quite that defensive level, but he's also shown pops of offensive skill that Brooks never did, especially as a passer. On top of that, he has the instincts and the absurd length to be one of the best rebounding guards in the league. (He snagged 7.3 boards per 36 minutes last season.) If his 38% mark from 3-point range proves even remotely real, the Grizzlies will have an exceptionally valuable role player.

Then there's GG Jackson, the 3-point-bombing forward who finished third on the team in total points as the youngest player in the NBA last season. He'll start this season on the shelf after breaking a bone in his foot during an offseason workout, but when he returns, he has the potential to provide a serious shot in the arm for a team that could always use more offensive punch, especially off the bench. But after having plenty of role security and the greenest lights for an accidental tanker, he'll have to rein in his shot-happy tendencies and improve as a playmaker and defender to get serious minutes for the healthy version of this squad. How much leash will he be afforded now that the results in the standings actually matter?

If things break right, the Grizzlies could have one of the league's best bench groups. On top of Clarke, Aldama, Williams, and Jackson, there's Pippen (who balled out at Las Vegas Summer League), Konchar (a perpetually solid gap-filler on the wing), and Kennard (who owns the best 3-point percentage in the league over the last four seasons, having hit above 44% in each of them). If you're feeling particularly optimistic, Jake LaRavia still offers some intrigue.

Obviously, not everything is going to break right. There are a lot of injury-prone players on the roster, so a clean bill of health is far from a given. Morant still has to demonstrate some serious off-court maturation. There are nearly as many reasons for skepticism as there are for excitement. But you don't have to squint hard to picture the Grizzlies returning to their perch in the upper echelon of the West. They are the NBA's forgotten contenders. Let's see if they can remind us why we believed in them in the first place.

Joe Wolfond covers the NBA for theScore.