Here come the Grizzlies (again)

Memphis is shockingly one of two remaining undefeated teams, and has four more potential wins lined up on the schedule. With a young and cheap roster, how is this possible?

Good morning. Let's basketball.

When the Grizzlies finally broke up the Grit 'n Grind era team in the late 2010s, after the movement had hit its competitive ceiling in the conference finals and was, at that point, merely existing as first-round playoff fodder, it was expected that the rebuild would be long and perhaps painful. It wasn't. The Grizzlies had two bad seasons, pulled Ja Morant and Jaren Jackson Jr. out of the drafts associated with those bad seasons, and were back in the playoffs with just a 3-year gap. Other Western Conference teams went half-decades or decades between postseason berths. The Lakers and Spurs each had a 6-year gaps. The Suns went 10 years. The Timberwolves went 13 years. The Kings went 16 years! But Memphis bounced back in three. It felt magical, with Morant leading the charge and bestowing good omens on a franchise in need of them.

It didn't last, of course: despite strong regular season records and laurels, the Grizzlies won a single playoff series in the Ja-JJJ-Desmond Bane era. Morant crashed out with on- and 0ff-court problems, and was eventually traded for parts. Bane and JJJ were unloaded for draft-heavy considerations. Another rebuild began in earnest last fall (after the Bane trade) and looked like it would take some time to resolve.

And now the Memphis Grizzlies are 5-0, one of two surviving undefeated teams 10 days into the season. Memphis is one of two teams under the NBA salary cap according to Spotrac (the 0-4 Brooklyn Nets are the other) and have the second youngest team in the league according to Basketball-Reference (the 1-4 Utah Jazz are the youngest).