What’s next for the Memphis Grizzlies? | Gary Parrish Show

What’s next for the Memphis Grizzlies? | Gary Parrish Show

let’s talk about what this means now for the Grizzlies yeah let me hit my Let me hit my little number one sound play your number one number one we got five more things we got five more things you need to know we got five more things you need to know yeah i One of them being that I forgot to say the five that’s okay it’s okay uh but yeah we we got five more things and one of them is going to be the Grizzlies we talked about sort of saying goodbye to Desmond our moments with Desmond i’m not done saying goodbye never can say goodbye i’m not done saying goodbye i’m going to miss Desmond it’s so hard to say goodbye to yesterday so many good moments like I mean it it is just a bummer like you know you and I are kind of like they were they were the thunder but you know they they were on that same trajectory right like they were the thunder before the thunder and we were going to be what they are now yeah i told it to Michael Leaves by the way digression real quick totally unrelated there was a big political wedding in New York this weekend mhm uh Hillary Clinton’s former chief of staff married uh the son of George Soros okay who’s like the big financial guy for the Democrats and I was reading the story about it in the New York Times and it said the music at the wedding it was in the Hamptons you know everybody who was anybody was there said the music was provided by Boys to Men and I was thinking like what would they what do they sing at a wedding they don’t sing it so hard to say goodbye they don’t sing I’ll make No you can’t sing into the road right yeah all their songs are about breakups i don’t know anyway totally unrelated but it made me think about boys um I don’t know like yeah it’s sad to see Dez go so but we got to we got to turn the page man shout out Bob Seager we got to figure out what’s next and how the Grizzlies are going to move forward you said in the chat you’ll be disappointed if they don’t bring in somebody new for the starting lineup yeah so I’ll just go ahead and put it out there i like for me the ideal starting line like like all things considered um and we all assume that more moves are likely to be made um I think my ideal starting lineup uh not going into next season because we know Zakit is going to miss the beginning of the season but my ideal starting lineup next season at some point when they are at full strength would be Jaw move Jaylen Wells to the two and he and he’s your starting two now because then you have a guy with size next to Jaw that can defend which I I think is super important like we talked about you know how far can the jaw Desmond Bane back court go just because of the size of the back court it’s a smaller back court well now your back court is a little bit bigger if Jaylen Wells is slided over to the two can he facilitate if Jaw you know like the way Dez had to a lot last year if if if Jaw’s getting doubled or whatever like can Jaylen be that secondary ball handle also by the way just speaking of Jaylen Wells massive summer coming up for him and I was excited to see him say that because he’s obviously uh had the scary injury to miss the end of last season and miss the playoffs um he said he’s good to go for summer league when he was sitting in here with studio the cast is off and everything his arm’s good yeah he joined us in studio and told GP that he’s going to be ready for summer league i think it’ll be a huge summer league for him you know we remember Dez’s summer league after his rookie year when they just put the ball in his hands and said “Go this is your team you’re running the show.” Good call and it improved his game a ton like I think that was huge for Desmond Bane i think this summer’s got potential to be huge for Jaylen Wells so looking forward to his summer league so my my starting lineup I’d go Jaw Jaylen Wells a three yet to be determined an awesome wing not Contavius Cwell Pope i don’t know if he’s a starting level player he was last year i I I know I on a championship team he won two titles i mean clearly clearly they don’t clearly the Magic didn’t think he was a starting I think like he didn’t shoot the ball as well last year you know he he’s he’s like career 37 38% on three-pointers and last year he was like 34% and to your point that you made earlier like that he had a down year last year their offense their offense wasn’t good last year i wonder how much of that was like a well first of all you’re not playing with LeBron and Nicole Joic anymore second of all though you’re playing with all these other guys who can’t shoot either on the Magic so like they know one guy can shoot and you’re going to get doubled and get you know run out more often um but I don’t I don’t know if that means they go out and get somebody what somebody in the chat said “What about Gigi at the three?” Uh I think GG’s just got a lot to prove like I think you need a veteran there gg’s got a lot to prove that’s I’ll leave it at that i wouldn’t want Jaylen and Gigi starting next to each other you know like two a second year player and a third year player yeah both out there trying to start if you’re going to compete this year I’m completely with you yeah so again like starting line my ideal would be Jaw Jaylen a three yet to be determined Jiren and Zach Heiti that’s Do you go So we saw last year or this year in the playoffs late in the season jaylen got hurt grizzlies went to that lineup with Jaw and Scotty Pippen together and they’re not terrible would you Scotty’s important at the two Jaylen at the three that’s a again your back court is small like you got a small back court i think that’s just back to the problems that you you know might have ran into with John Dez as your starting back court um so I I don’t know i don’t know i don’t I again I think that there is a starter that’s not I think there’s a starter yet to be determined that’s not on this team right now yeah for sure i saw a lot of that yeah i saw a lot of names thrown around of like people that were possibly available for for the these teams to go get uh John Hollinger had a column today in the Athletic where he listed a bunch of guys i mean you’re talking about you could do like sign a trade for Nquille Alexander Walker that type of player um you know the other the other thing in all this Bennett is is you mentioned Zakiti’s out for the start of the season and we don’t know how long he’s out for right it could be it could be a month could be a week could be three months who knows right like we we’ve learned from previous seasons watching these guys try to figure out you know we don’t know when guys are coming back so do you try and get by with do do you use that draft capital to go get a center or to go get somebody who can get you through until you know until Zack D comes back or do you just I mean or do you try to split the difference like you try to get somebody serviceable at the three a rotation guy and somebody who helps out at the five because I think that’s also to our point like you need one through 11 rotation guys i mean the other thing too about the Desmond Bane trade is like it’s not something you think about but you lost six rebounds a game with Desmond Bane right there i mean that’s more rebounding out the window cuz he’s a pretty good rebounder for guard um you’re going to have to address it because I think I mean BC if he’s back to you know his true self next season you feel comfortable starting him and Jiren next to each other but again that’s a big if like is he going to be ready we assume he’s going to be good and ready to go with that knee injury he had last year um and I think we’d all feel comfortable with him in that starting lineup until Zakiti comes back but then your depth is just as far as rebounding you just don’t have it at all really um so I Yeah it’s something that I think like their biggest needs in this upcoming offseason for sure shooting and rebounding like that’s that’s the biggest things that they got to address this upcoming off seasonason what about defense well the clearly I mean that’s the other thing yeah yeah clearly that um so I saw um you know Parker Fleming had an interesting tweet yesterday um said that uh the thing that I’m fascinated with is who does Zack Kimman see as the guy that can be the third best player on the team behind John Jiren because we clearly you know don’t think it was going to be Desmond Bane how about this right now is and is it a three and D wing is it a ball handler with this you know trending toward a retool like which which way is that gonna go right now who do you think is the third best player on the team uh how about that it might be Scotty it might be Scotty might be Zack it might be Edy actually yeah it might be Edy the guy who struggled for most of the season yeah I don’t know maybe Edy scotty i don’t know it’s why his injury just really sucks because I again I’m a fan and I think that he’s got a chance to be a really good NBA player but now he’s got this bit of a setback he’s going to miss whole summer which I thought it was going to be a big summer for Santi depending on what happens there yeah do they do they resign Santi um are they more inclined to resign Santi i know he’s not a rebounding big but it’s a it’s big depth right um and he’s a guy that you can start we’ve seen him start next to Jiren before my favorite Santi thing is like once a game he throws an unnecessary behind the back pass you know like just like what are you doing man he just whips it in there with a little bit of pizzazz uh some of the names that were mentioned of uh so if you move Cole Anthony because I guess that’s part of this whole thing too like do you feel like Cole Anthony could be a Yeah I think is he on is he going into like year two well he’s got two years left but the second year is a team option so it’s essentially could be a uh the last year of his contract cuz the team can decide if they want to keep him or not so it’s basically an expiring contract okay and then KCP is going to be on year two of a three-year deal with a player option in 27 the other thing though let’s mention this is that you know Jiren Jackson’s going to be a free agent jiren Jackson Jr or not free agent this summer but he’s eligible to sign an extension yeah and for the Grizzlies to sign him to a maximum extension something’s going to have to give in the next couple months to free up enough money for for that to to work yeah I was watching uh Bobby Marks had a really great breakdown of it yesterday and he said that he would expect if they do in fact intend to sign Jiren to that long-term deal this summer um they’re probably going to have to clear more money um you could maybe see that with Brandon Clark although I love Brandon Clark on this team and I love Brandon next to Jiren um I would I would want Brandon Clark back if he’s healthy um John Kar is another name uh and but he also mentioned that the Grizzlies you know now they have this 16th pick in this upcoming draft where they didn’t previously have a first round pick um they could also clear money by trading the 16th pick yeah cuz essentially it’s slotted in how we know how much the 16th pick makes and so that’s a a caphold basically for the Grizzlies for the next four seasons you know X you know is coming up off so if you want to clear some more money off the books the issue there though is like I mean then you’re just going to kick the can down the road right because because you if you’re trading away that pick you can’t get money back for it because the whole point of it is to get rid of money yep so you’re trading it for a future pick or something yeah i like I’m looking Okay so there’s Bobby’s breakdown first off the thing that like that starting five that is not good enough so that is not going to be your starting five going into next season if it is I think that we’re all a little worried i’m just being honest yeah that’s not going to be the starting five we know Zach Edit is not going to start next season well yeah right but he will at some point right um and then you look at the reserves with you know Cole we haven’t talked a lot about the guys coming back in this trade with KCP and Cole Anthony um KCP we mentioned had a down year shooting shooting he was still really good defensively he was still really good defensively and I think a guy that you I mean we’ve talked about just veteran championship experience um Georgia Bulldog yeah i mean I think he’s a guy you could play next to Jaw um I just I he’s a guy that I would want on the team for sure cole Anthony up and down season um remember it got a little testy in the was it the game at Orlando that was like our only good win the second half of the season was that game was it after Allstar break at Orlando yeah I think it was i they had a weird season the Magic cuz they started out so good and then everybody got hurt and then there was these games where you would watch and Cole Anthony was like the main guy yep and that was one of our games it was after the All-Star break at Orlando it might have been like the first game after the All-Star break or it was right after the All-Star break in Orlando and Cole Anthony is like coming out trying to be like the the A1 option on offense right the Grizzlies got the win but Cole Anthony was shooting like crazy and and you know kind of playing in a way that’s probably not the best way for him to play the other moving part in all this before we get back to the Cole Anthony part of it is we got a new coach and there’s going to be a different offense and a different system in place probably defensively also does that system better fit Cole Anthony Contavius Cowwell Pope Scotty Pippen some of these other guys Vince Williams GG does that system fit some of these guys better and help maximize what they can bring to this team and that like that one we can’t really answer we don’t know right we know it’s going to be more pick and roll we know it’s going to be probably more three-point shooting but I I I don’t know how that’s going to affect these guys maybe maybe Cole Anthony is the type of player they’re looking for for this system that’s a fair point i don’t know um yeah that’s a fair point i mean again like just looking at his numbers last they’re so all over the place there he did have some nice standout games but to your point like it was that lineup was they had guys in and out and so when he got some opportunities he was okay but when he was more of a roll guy he just wasn’t that great for them um so we’ll see and it did get again it did get testy in that game i’m not sure how much that matters but uh there was definitely some beef between him and the Grizzlies last year so that’s just uh you know worth uh worth keeping an eye on i I I don’t know if both those guys would be on this team um starting next season but I don’t think I’d have a problem with it at all i want I want Casey P on But you don’t want either of those guys starting no no I do not want either of those guys which means the Grizzlies got to go find somebody else to start and that means maybe trading the 16th pick and some other players or something else to to go or trading any of these i think the Grizzlies have 10 draft picks in the next four years or 10 first round picks coming up in the next five some crazy amount of picks you know I I also it’s all relative in the NBA right so people were yesterday on Twitter being like “Wow Desmond Bane got you got four first round picks for him and Luca only got one.” I was like “Well yeah but they also got back Anthony Davis an amazing player in his own right.” But you know Mikuel Bridges was five first round picks it It’s all relative based on team and need and contract and all that stuff too like it might not necessarily take the Grizzlies moving for first round picks to get somebody in here that can start that could be on that you know Nikquil Alexander Walker for instance could be a signing trade with the Minnesota Jones and and Jones saw Cam Thomas was a name that gets kicked around a guy we’ve heard rumors wise you know past couple season aia is a name that I saw a lot this weekend yep on the Blazers i’m a fan yeah um PJ Washington could be somebody yeah I like PJ too um yeah of course as far as that uh and there’s a couple questions folks had in the chat that I wanted to address um Tim Bontimps also had a really nice piece on the Grizzlies and just talking about what’s next steps for them um and just to clarify because again I think that when when you see a trade between we said this in the open when you see a trade between the Orlando Magic and the Memphis Grizzlies um maybe sometimes people that talk about the NBA for a living on a national level uh don’t necessarily know how to talk about a Grizzlies magic trade i don’t know i because I just again I saw some wild takes yesterday i think part of it was so you remember on draft night the two years ago there was the uh the the woman from Yahoo Sports who said like she gave the Grizzlies an F for drafting Zaki i think part of it is like in the moment you’re trying to come up with a hot take right right and you’re like it’s going to go viral if you say something that’s a little bit out of pocket people are going to go crazy with it yeah yeah because the the go-to line yesterday was well there it’s a fire sale they’re going to move John Mar where’s John going next and it’s like whoa whoa whoa that is not what this means at all i mean look trading your third best player for four first round picks does not mean you’re tanking no it just means you got four first round picks no and so that’s why I wanted to highlight these guys that are actually covering it well um and Tim Bonams had a good piece yesterday um and obviously acknowledged that uh more star trades are not expected with the Grizzlies regarding John and Jiren Jackson Jr um he said that uh his sources are telling him that the Grizzlies are not looking to deal either of their two remaining franchise cornerstones and that the team has spent the last several months clearing salary cap space to compete a renegotiation an extension of Jiren Jackson Jr.’s contract this off season preventing him from hitting free agency in 2026 the belief is that an extension will get done but the Bane trade gives Memphis an avenue to give Jiren Jackson even more on that deal and lock him in long term there was also there was another line in that story uh here’s a little bit of a behind the scenes for these articles you read when you read things when somebody says uh there’s a belief or sources say or whatever that means they probably talked to somebody off the record yeah and that they somebody called them and was like “Hey look we’re not tanking this is what’s happening.” You know don’t don’t quote me on this there was another line in that story the Grizzlies believe Jaylen Wells who finished third of the year in rookie finished third in rookie of the year voting this past season uh can be a long-term starter on the wing sources said all right but well well who’s your source somebody from the Grizzlies says “We think Jaylen Wells can be a a starter.” So that answers that question of of who’s your wing where’s one wing now we got to find the other wing uh you know there was no point in here where it says sources said they they think KCP is gonna start on the other wing so I don’t know if they’re going to move him they’re gonna flip him uh I feel like at the worst he gives you depth right yep and I think like you know people uh you know Jiren’s obviously a polarizing he’s been with this team for a long time now he’s kind of a polarizing player because he’s this amazing big that can’t rebound well and so people just feel some kind of way about that i just look at it as he’s a great NBA player and a great defender like I I look at it as a different way i look at it as that’s a guy that um in a small market like Memphis like it’s it’s very hard to get those guys and keep them longterm in places like this and so signing Jiren to a long-term extension and paying him a lot of money like that’s I’m totally cool with that and obviously it goes without saying I want to be committed longterm to John Morant too so I think it makes complete sense like do I wish that Desmond Bane could have been a part of this but obviously the numbers just don’t don’t work out for those three long and because the numbers don’t work out you got to figure out a different way to go down this path yeah so uh next move I say that they’re going to make a big free agent splash i don’t think that they’re going to they don’t have like I’ve been on the record on this show saying I think we got to temper our expectations like I don’t think the bar should be Giannis and Kevin Durant um but that’s not that’s like making a trade for somebody that’s not like free agency you know what I mean like Yeah yeah they’re gonna have to go they’re gonna have to go get somebody from somewhere else is what you’re you’re saying correct correct um but again I I I think as a fan base we should temper our expectations a little bit like the bar should not be Giannis and Durant like let’s let’s just go for like a a really good starting caliber player i’m cool with that somebody better than your best player like I don’t think we’re gonna go find somebody better than our best player i think you’re right i think you’re right um even though some people say Jaw’s not a top 40 player in the NBA now do I think that they are trying to be in the Kevin Durant mix yeah I do we’ll talk about that in just a second um but yeah I do think that they’re trying to be in the mix there being in the Kevin Durant mix doesn’t necessarily mean Kevin Durant ends up on your team mhm you know what I mean good point yeah like being in the mix might mean you come out of it with somebody else yeah maybe it’s a three-team deal something of that yeah we see a lot of that we’ve seen the Grizzlies do that a few times in the past okay so the draft real quick you mentioned we got our our draft show coming up next week uh which is obviously the stakes are a lot higher than they were i was excited cuz you know Gary and I have spent so much time filming those things the last month and uh I most years I kind of go into the draft like with no knowledge of the players i’ve watched all these guys now and I know all about them and I know who’s good and who’s not and honestly I’ve heard Gary talk about all these guys so I kind of know like different stories who might be a good fit who might not be a good fit uh if you’re drafting a 16 there’s some sort of interesting names out there that that might if the Grizzies use that pick might be a good fit for this team i don’t I don’t know like I So it hasn’t been updated since um yeah since they uh and I I’ll be interested to see who you like but this is Gavon and his last mock draft had the Magic at 16 taking Jace Richardson and the and he talking about the needs for Orlando right the Magic need shooting in the worst way but also saw their lack of backcourt depth exposed with the season ending ending injury to Jaylen Suggs which forced them to start uh Cory Joseph in the playoffs and so he suggested Jace Richardson out of Michigan State good shooter yeah combo guard out of Michigan State good shooter 48% from three um good defensively um and kind of knows who he is as a player that was a comp that uh Gavon gave to him i look at that from a Grizzlies perspective and I’m like that’s exactly what we need well let me ask you this you said you didn’t want to start pipping and jaw together why the small back court fair enough jace Richardson measured six feet tall without shoes at the combine well there you go gary’s point with Jace Richardson was that he started the year on the bench at Michigan State and ended the season as their best player yes so clearly figures things out puts in the work all that stuff the size thing is what gets me to Tim i also don’t like I a lot of people in this draft world that I’ve been swimming in for the last month are linking him to the Hawks at number 13 and apparently the Hawks have a lot of interest he’s talked a lot i’m like well we got Trey Young like why why do we and Dyson Daniels like there’s your back court like why would you put Jace Richardson next to him so Winhorse meme maybe they’re going to move from Trey Young maybe that’s a guy who’s out there i don’t know but Jace Richardson to the Grizzly scares me from the size thing like because I I just feel like like you said you already got Pippen you already got Jaw do you really want another 6-1 guy in the back court as unless he could play like backup point guard yeah sort of like and then you could run him and Pippen out there together maybe your second team is just smaller well and another thing too like depending on what they do in free agency um if they don’t address the rebounding which they’re going to miss for the first at least we know first couple weeks of the season probably with Zack Edy out do you try to address that with a guy in the draft it’s like do you go get a guy that you can develop um you know is and you know he’s kind of a placeholder until Edy comes back you know if BC’s that starter if BC BC is still on the team that’s something I think that uh that could be interesting too they got a lot of different ways they could go with this yeah there’s a couple bigs that are like I’ve seen names get thrown around after the 16th pick like um Danny Wolf’s one guy from Michigan uh the guy who you know good passer uh kind of a a connecting player good shooter all that stuff uh I don’t know how good he is as a rebounder um but that’s a name I’ve seen uh the other like big who who’s sort of interesting is Maxim Rainol he’s French but he’s played at Stanford the last four or five years he also averaged like six three-point shots a game last year for Stanford he’s a good shooter he shot like 35 367% mhm for a big he’s 71 big dude who who can actually shoot like a big guy who can shoot a lot of these mock drives have him like at the end of the first round so maybe the Grizzlies think I don’t know who they’re going to look at but maybe they’re like we’ll trade down there’s another guy Thomas Sorber from Georgetown a center who a lot of teams have looked at um or or do they go swingman and try to get like a neat Clifford from Colorado State who would be an interesting fit here too as a guy who maybe comes in and can play the three for you man this is going to be a wild off season this is going to be a wild off seasonason

After the Grizzlies traded Desmond Bane, there are a ton of different directions they can now go with their roster. What do they do and what players will the Memphis Grizzlies target?

Lang and Bennett discuss possibilities for the inevitable next step, including extensions for Jaren Jackson Jr. and Ja Morant.
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