WHOOP EM

That is all

Killa with a heart of gold. This one’s gonna hit me harder than I expected.

Our car broke down and we’re getting it towed I’m very depressed about it but want someone to enjoy the game tonight. It’s last minute but please hit me up if you want them

New era loading tonight at 7 pm CST / 8 pm EST as Jaren returns home. DAZN if you’re local, league pass if you’re out of market.

Isaiah Stewart is listed as doubtful (ankle sprain). Coward and Edey just got their rookie scale options accepted through 27-28.

SHIT IN THEM UM GAWD.

the jazz seem like a good matchup for us. they have a really strong offense but almost no defense. this could easily be a blowout but edey might feast and keep us in it. i just feel like these two teams are linked since the jaren trade with us beginning the rebuild and them ending theirs.

I saw Stew was getting shots up at practice the other day, so they are probably just playing it safe since the Jazz barely have a center rotation. Hope to see him this week.

Check out my 2026-2027 Memphis Grizzlies season outlook article plus some predictions from random Grizzlies fans on Twitter! With all of the differing opinions on how this season would go I thought it might be kinda fun to see what other fans thought (got 34 predictions) and put together and average record! Go Grizzlies and let’s hope we start off 1-0 tonight!Ⓜ️🐻

Ok so I was going to respond to a Reddit comment asking what exactly happened with the Grizzlies for the fall off to be so severe for Ja, and in writing out my reply and going to send, I got an error saying a comment can not exceed 10,000 characters.... oh I wrote alot.

I almost feel like this was me journalling out my grief/loss of that era, just in time to truly appreciate the start of what's next **WITH GAME DAY TOMORROW**

THIS IS NOT A TELL ALL AND FULLY DETAILED RECAP, THIS IS MY MEMORY AND RECOLLECTION OF EVENTS, TIMELINES MAY BE SKEWED AND PLAYERS/MOMENTS HAVE DEFINITELY BEEN MISSED

from a Grizzlies fan that started watching basketball the year Jaren got drafted and watched the entire Ja saga unfold from draft day, let me tell you a story.

First off, that young Grizzlies team overachieved incredibly that first season. Seriously, look at that roster, the only vets were Jae Crowded and JV surrounded by a bunch of kids who were having the time of their lives. I know it sounds salty (it definitely is) but that whole post game towel thing and the comradery, that young Grizz squad had it in spades well before, and everyone loved the scrappy underdogs. I think they even took a game off the KD/Kyrie nets with a Ja game winner that season, and barely missed out with a loss in the play ins to the Dame led blazers.

Then, momentum kinda held the following season (2020-21) with a rookie Desmond Bane joining the fray, the team went to the play ins again but this time made it through, sending the Warriors to Cancun in what was, in true next gen Grizzlies fashion, a chirpy game to say the least. The birth of the warriors fandoms bear related hatred slowly bubbled underneath that offseason, as the Grizzlies manage to steal 1 from the 1st seed Spida/Gobert Jazz, with a Ja 40+(?) piece, but ultimately get sent packing in a gentleman's sweep.

Then, the first season I could finally find related merchandise for my favourite team in a brick and mortar NBA store as an Australian fan, 2021-22. oh BOY this season was the TITS.

Where do I start:

* Firstly, the most underrated piece of this whole era, that offseason the Grizzlies sent JV, along with the 17th & 51st picks for Steven Adams, with the 10th and 40th picks, along with a future protected first rounder from the Lakers. Stevo was the perfect pairing for Ja & Jaren, setting incredibly hard screens and Ja had easy blow bys on late switches for days, he did the dirty work on the boards (led the league in OREB% at 17.9%) so Jaren could roam as a free safety on defence, also he's incredibly handsome

^(side tangent, it is alleged the Grizzlies moved up to draft Giddey, but OKC snagged him at 8, so we took a swing on Ziare Williams oof and the Pelicans took Trey Murphy ouch)

* The birth of the block panther. JJJ played SEVENTY-EIGHT GAMES and only fouled out THREE times, he was an absolute defensive engine on his own this season and was low key underrated imo despite making Defensive 1st team. I'm not really an advanced stat kinda guy but he led the league in Block % at 7.4% (of total FGA) followed Mitch Rob, Timelord and Mo Bamba, while having a bounceback year from 3 keeping defences honest with 32% on nearly 5 3PA

* THE FLY BY KING IS CROWNED: Desmond Bane takes his throne, with a huge jump from 9ppg the year prior to 18/4/3 on 46/43/90 percentages on SIX+ 3PA per game, cementing himself as the 2nd scoring option in just his sophomore season in the league. I swear I haven't been able to find video evidence of him doing it, but I vividly remember him doing the big balls celly this season, if that sums up the kind of energy he carried. Honestly should've been MIP this year, but ironically that went to the next guy lol

* CALL 12: Ja starts to make his ascension, the highlight poster dunks, the incredible finishes around and through contact, the full court dimes and flashy passes to an equally loud mouthed teammate, Ja makes All Star & All NBA second team this season, is one of the highest voted and most watched stars on social media (despite still missing time due to nagging injuries and only playing 57 games - little did we know). He goes from 19/7/4 to 27/7/6 with the best shooting splits of his career (34% 3PT%!!) and leads the Grizzlies to the franchises first Divisional Title (is that what it's called? no one cares but it was a big deal for us ok.), beating out a solid West and securing a 2nd seed in the playoffs!

* I can't believe I haven't mentioned Dillon Brooks yet. oh my sweet prince. Dillon was my favourite Grizzly. Dillon was also my least favourite Grizzly. But you take the highs with the lows, and for good or for bad, he was a huge part of that brash trash talking hungry energy the team brought out there every night. There was more than 10 occasions in a tight game this season that Dillon made me say "what the fuck are you.... YES", there was definitely no's in there too, but let's not start counting those...

OK now that you have the landscape, let's go to the post season. First up we have an equally young and hungry Wolves team with Ant coming out to leave an impression in his second year, with KAT and Dlo (and a undercooked McDaniels & Vanderbilt - shoutout Jordan McLaughlin he was balling that series) as the supporting cast. I am not exaggerating when I say, this was potentially the dumbest series of games I've ever watched, and also some of my favourite games I've ever watched. This series could convince me they are able to telepathically pass on CTE, the Grizzlies win in 6, thanks to some Ja and Bane heroics and Wolves catastrophic meltdowns, and the young Wolves get their first taste of playoff experience in decades! how sweet for them, thankfully my team is looking like at least a playoff competitor for the foreseeable future! sigh

THE TIDES ARE TURNING - up until about this point, the Grizzlies were pretty popular (or at least well received) with the general audience (here on Reddit). The team was still that fun brash trash talking young (I think they were either the youngest or 2nd youngest in the league at that point) underdog that'll get in your face, but also they're the 2nd seed in the western conference, which comes with new expectations on a team that was seemingly well ahead of schedule, and maybe not prepared for it, and patience isn't exactly a common trait found online.The Wolves series, for those who watched, started to highlight the holes in the team from a BBIQ and half court offence perspective, and they were about to head into a second round series with the polar opposites in the (eventual champion) Warriors. Keep in mind, after that play in game the year prior, the regular season games between these two teams were just as chippy. You can imagine how this one goes.

Steven Adams misses the first 3 games of the series, but Ja balls out, they lose the home opener, split the pair (GPIII gets injured this game off a hard foul from Brooks - "broke the code" Kerr quote) and head back to golden state. Ja puts up 38PPG in those first 3 games and a 1-2 record, only to get injured late in a 4th QTR blow out in that 3rd game to a Jordan Poole knee pull (intentionally or not, you can decide). The Grizzlies get decimated in game 4, only to head home and absolutely brutalize the Warriors in a full game blowout, without Ja Morant (this was also near the start of, "Are the Grizzlies better without Ja Morant?"). There is that clip of the whole crowd chanting WHOOP THAT TRICK and Draymond waving the towel along with them that was pretty funny at least. They then lost the next back at the Warriors home, and you know how that run ended.

The very vocal warriors fanbase starts flying the pretender banners and humble pie online, suddenly these kids that were once underdogs and fun are just annoying and lame, a label that seemingly only became reinforced over the following year.

WHERE WE REALLY STARTED TO FUCK UP

That next offseason was a good time to be a Grizz fan, we had our most successful season in over a decade and lost to the eventual champions, and as a fan you can apply so many asterisks to how we could've been the ones to do that. Although the online sentiment slowly turned, it didn't really matter because the team was good!

So the front office realised we were doing good on time, so why not flip some assets for younger late picks who can fill the same role? We shipped out (or didn't resign) Melton and Slomo, and brought in a whole bunch of rookies with David Roddy (whiff), Jake LaRavia, Kennedy Chandler, Kenny Lofton Jr, Vince Williams Jr. It wasn't all bad, the team still looked good, that was, until Steven Adams injured his knee diving for a loose ball at the end of regulation in a lost game against the Sun's mid season (and what we didn't know then, would miss over a whole year due to bad rehab advice). It all went downhill from there, the team tried to stay steady, the big 3 all missed at least 20 games, but after a road loss to Denver, Ja decided to share with his Instagram followers his love of the first amendment, and titties, which swiftly saw him hit with an immediate 8 game suspension, only to be met with a revitalised post trade deadline Lakers in the first round... Great.

Our Center matchup for Anthony Davis was Xavier Tillman. Yes. Shoutout John "Jitty" "AD Stopper" Konchar in that series aswell. Austin Reaves also cooked us in his breakout year, the team talks a lot of shit but looks lost and doesn't back it up, Dillon Brooks pokes the bear and refuses to do press after, Jaren dumb fouls, Ja gets injured game 1 and limps through the rest of the series with the most low effort underwhelming performance from the whole team we've seen so far which I can only attribute to the locker room drama (media circus around Dillon's comments, Ja's suspension and turmoil with the FO), I'm honestly surprised we won 2 games looking back, I thought it was a sweep lol. Another massive fanbase adds us to the "get humbled" list and forever skews the general sentiment of this new team towards disdain.

AND THE WHEELS FALL OFF

that next off season was a wild ride, Ja announces his new signature shoe deal with Nike, replacing Kyrie (not exactly well received), a Gatorade deal and he is looking positioned as a future face of the league. Then in May, he decides to once again flash a gun on IG live, seriously you can't make this up. He is hit with a harsher 25 game suspension (Miles Bridges got "30", which they deducted 20 off due to time missed already, for domestic battery of his baby mama but whatever). Shams puts out an unsourced and untrue quote about how the Grizzlies will not be bringing back Brooks "under any circumstances", and the same people who were clowning him and the team for not doing the post game pressers after the Lakers series are now crying sympathy for how mistreated and "scapegoated" he was.

^(quick tangent, I think everyone knew Grizzlies would not be bringing back Brooks, we had drafted multiple replacements and simply could not afford to give him the money he wanted with our roster construction, and now he didn't fit the new coaching system either, yet - this is still misattributed as a FO blunder despite it being just a fabricated general statement from an unsourced pundit)

I honestly think this was the point it all fell apart. The league quickly caught up and the other young teams are passing us by as our talent stagnated and the vibes were rough, Steven Adams got shipped out to Houston after he had been quoted discussing the lack of veteran leadership and accountability in the locker room and his injury only got continually setback. The team seemingly moved away from the trash talk this next season without Brooks (except Bane, the muscle hamster can't be stopped as seen in his time with the Magic), and to be fair we were so bad and injured there wasn't much shit to talk.

One of the only highlights I have of that whole season is GG Jackson. Well, GG and that magical first 2 games when Ja came back from suspension and had back to back game winners... and then got injured and ruled out for the season 7 games later from an undercut on a dunk against the Lakers by future Grizz legend Christian Koloko. Oh yeah we also GAVE UP picks before the season to do a sign and trade with the Celts & Wiz for Pingus/Tyus/Smart, which eventually helped the C's with their championship... and gave us the most abysmal 39 games (when he wasn't injured) of Marcus Smarts career.

This was the season Grizzlies ran through a record 33 total rostered players, the injury reports were truly marvelous, ancient burial ground or substation I think.

THE END OF AN ERROR

Finally, 2024-25, the team is rewarded for its Injury curse with incredible lottery odds! Only to fall all the way down to 9th. We also had a chance at the better of the Magic or Suns picks, who both scraped in on the second game of the play in the season prior, thus out of the lottery with those. It doesn't matter, because we drafted the PERFECT Stevo replacement and the core is back ON. He's a mean big ass Canadian dude who is going to be our saving grace! (well maybe not yet). The team looks pretty good WHEN HEALTHY, however it's almost as if that's never the case. Ja says he's no longer dunking as much as the league won't protect him, and seems to be playing with an attitude in the worst way. Ja still misses 32 games to injury/rest, the team fires it's coach 9 games before the playoffs and you guessed it, Ja gets injured and we're sweeped in 4 by eventual champs OKC in the first round.

That offseason we ship Bane to the Magic for a haul, and the writing is on the wall for the final 2 of our core. A lot of us (me included) wanted to tell ourselves it was a retool year, that we'd get a great pick and come back with a squad around Jaren and Ja, but the damage is done, the turmoil is rotting the vibe from the inside out, the new coaching system doesn't play to Ja's strengths or put the ball in his hands, and once again that attitude is evident, they are not happy together. He plays 20 games, gets undercut twice (2 seperate injuries), we move Jaren at the deadline and accelerate the tank, the front office can't repair the relationship with its superstar, and so it's best to move on than drag it out.

There's two sides to every story, should Ja have not been flashing guns? yes. Was it really worth the 40+ games he missed? probably not. Was the franchise too hard on Ja and already potentially looking to the future without him as a priority? Likely. Would you judge them for it? Well it is a business I guess.. but this was the biggest star we've ever had. He was popular internationally, he had a signature shoe, he was a human highlight reel that showed us the pearly gates, but unfortunately just like lots of toxic relationships, you can't really hold on once it's past a certain point, you just end up living with sunk cost fallacy guilt. I know the city still does and always will love Ja though, and I am sure he feels the same.

I still think he has it in him, and I do think the move and "fall off" he's experiencing is exactly what he needs to rebuild and come back from, say what you will about the injuries and the loss of burst but none of them have been super debilitating or non recoverable, I think Ja is as much a confidence and flow issue that will be rebuilt over time, and I'm hoping for it

in the meanwhile, our current squad? WE GOT SOME FUCKIN DAWGS. I feel like we're back at the start of the cycle and ready for the wild ride

IF YOU READ ALL THAT, YOU'RE INVITED TO MY BIRTHDAY PARTY

Boozer labeled the belief that his NBA bloodline paved his way a big misconception.

If so what's the sitch with the two free tickets? Are they Terrace level?

I live out of market so I can’t get DAZN.

The is no way shown in the guide to see Pete and Brevin.

It only offers the Jazz feed for tonight’s game, and the same for upcoming Warriors and Kings games.

Any idea what’s up?

Trying to buy a Boozer jersey but none of these designs do a single thing for me. Is this all just the same as last season?

Grizzlies basketball returns tomorrow and I haven’t felt this optimistic heading into a season in years. There’s something incredibly exciting about kicking off a new era and actually feeling like there is a concrete plan for the direction we’re going.

But with all that optimism, comes delusions, and with those delusions comes reality’s heavy hand ready to bitchslap me when my delusions are proven false.

So to mentally prepare myself for the season, I am setting up boundaries for myself to hopefully help keep me from attaching my mental health to a bunch of 20 year olds’ ability to put a ball in a hoop (I will have failed this by the time we win one game).

THIS TEAM IS REALLY YOUNG.
The average age is 25, making Memphis the 4th youngest team in the league. Take Jerami Grant off the roster (who is 3 years older than the next oldest player Ty Jerome, who is 3 years older than the next oldest player Quentin Post) and we would be the youngest in the league. A majority of the team is in their third year or less in the league. They will make dumb decisions, bad shots, and get exploited. Don’t be surprised when the team with only 2 players born before the 2000’s plays like they’re inexperienced.

EASY WINS HAVE BEEN ELIMINATED FROM THE META.
The new tanking rules are going to at least for the first year, pretty much erase easy wins on the schedule. This offseason saw both a redistribution of existing talent and an influx of solid to great new talent across the league. The west feels weaker than the east for the first time in my life, but even the Kangz have positives on their roster. Don’t be shocked if we lose a few that look easy from the outside, but also don’t overreact if we win some that we probably shouldn’t. Games are gonna be decided on the court, not necessarily by draft position strategy. This is peak parity.

JURY IS STILL OUT ON IISALO’S SYSTEM.
I like Iisalo, but mostly that comes from listening to him talk ball. Last season was him performing the inglorious task to lead us to Boozer. But this is his first season with a young core being raised in his system. I don’t think we will have pure Iisalo Basketball Socialism on day one, I expect lots of experimentation in lineups and minutes during the first half of the season. I hope everyone keeps an open mind. This won’t be a make or break season for him, but it will be a proving ground for what feels like a new basketball philosophy in the NBA.

INJURIES ARE A WHEN NOT AN IF.
While I pray we may never have another season like last year or 2024, I must accept that injuries are an inevitable in the modern style of play. The Angel of Death will come for some of our players regardless of whether we changed medical staff or not. Kleiman did say Campbell is focused on availability for our guys’ recovery efforts, but there really only is so much a medical staff can do. Look at all the hamstring and ACL injuries across the league, injuries are a promise not a threat.

90% OF NBA FANS HAVE NO IDEA WHAT IS BEING BUILT IN MEMPHIS.
Nothing new here, but you are going to hear some god awful takes about this team. Most national outlets who are paid to cover the league look at us as the same thing type of organization as the Kangz or the Nets. They don’t know about Edey, they don’t know about our coach’s philosophy, they don’t know about GG, they don’t know about our GM’s obsession with hidden gems in the second round, and they think Boozer is a boring unremarkable player. And that’s fine. We are the league’s best kept secret and in a matter of time nerds are gonna start flocking to us as their favorite league pass team. But until then, people will continue to roast us as a poverty franchise. Don’t let it get to you. Opinions on the internet aren’t real or hold any merit.

THIS YEAR IS ABOUT VIBES NOT RESULTS.
This is a year where our range of wins could be anywhere between 20 and 50. Keep your expectations low and look for the little victories, like individual player growth and team synergy. Anything beyond that is just icing on the cake. There’s something freeing about low expectations for a young team at the start of a new era.

IT’S JUST A SILLY KIDS GAME FOR MILLIONAIRES WITH NO BEARING ON ANYTHING REAL IN YOUR LIFE.
That’s pretty much it. Touch grass and enjoy the bouncy ball game. I know that’s crazy coming from the guy who obsessively posts daily about the smallest market in the league, but in the end of the day, it’s supposed to be fun.

We have parking at the Gibson lot for the Grizzlies game tonight. They wouldn't let us in before 6 the last game we parked. We would like to go earlier lol I want a towel 😅 If anyone has any ideas 💡 please help

I signed up for the 7 day trial on my phone then tried to download and log onto DAZN via Apple TV and it’s not matching my login/password. Anybody else have this problem? I feel old.

For over a decade now we've had multiple teams every year blatantly tanking before the first game is even played. That won't happen this year because the best strategy for a high draft pick is to be outside of the bottom 3 but outside of the playoffs. If a team can make the playoffs they 100% will try if for no other reason than playoffs make the owners a ton of money. The best records are going to be worse and the worst records are going to be better. The amount of teams with over 60 or under 20 wins is going to plummet when there isn't 10 teams desperately trying to lose games after the trade deadline

The 2026-27 NBA season is upon us, so The Athletic is asking its staff for their predictions for the upcoming campaign.

According to our 30 respondents, a New York Knicks repeat is unlikely, the Defensive Player of the Year race is essentially a wrap and a star-studded squad in the Eastern Conference might be disappointing.

Read for free: https://www.nytimes.com/athletic/7704516/2026/10/20/nba-2026-27-predictions-championship-awards-trades/?unlocked_article_code=1.KFE.E_Yf.cJbEGCnCEqqO&source=emp_shared_article&smid=re-share-ta

Zach Edey played in three of the Grizzlies preseason games averaging:
22.4 PTS, 15.3 REB (7.1 OREB), 2.0 AST, 3.1 STL, 3.1 BLK, on 77.8% FG% per 100 possessions. With Edey on the court the Grizzlies had an offensive rating of 116.3 and a defensive rating of 87.6 for a net rating of +28.7.