The 2021-22 Memphis Grizzlies basketball team will always be held in high regard with the new-aged fan base. That team was fun, energetic, and won a tied for franchise-high 56 games. They also surprisingly finished as the second seed in the Western Conference standings, after winning the play-in tournament the season before to become the eighth seed in the playoffs.
That team had depth and battled the eventual champion Golden State Warriors to six games in the second round of the playoffs before losing. Ja Morant left Game 3 of that series and missed the rest of the series, which had the team thinking that if they had him, they would've had a good chance to win the championship themselves.
However, the off-season came around, and the team didn't remain together as constructed, as general manager Zach Kleiman decided that going younger would ease the transition into future contract extensions for their stars. While losing key rotation players is hard, losing them to rivals is even harder.
1. Kyle Anderson
Kyle Anderson, nicknamed "Slo Mo," spent four seasons with the Grizzlies and was a key bench contributor who could fill in at nearly any position. After averaging a career-high in points the season before (2020-21) while starting in place of the injured Jaren Jackson Jr. for the majority of the season (69 games), he only started 11 games, and averaged five points fewer (7.6 points) in six fewer minutes played.
He entered free agency that offseason and signed with the Minnesota Timberwolves, whom the Grizzlies had just defeated in the first round of the playoffs in a wild series that introduced a new rivalry. Although there were no hard feelings when the teams matched up the following season, seeing Slo Mo on the opposite side was strange.
2. De'Anthony Melton
The Grizzlies' best bench player during the 2021-22 season was De'Anthony Melton, as he averaged nearly 11 points and finished eighth in the NBA's Sixth Man of the Year race. The team ultimately decided to trade him on 2022 draft night to the Philadelphia 76ers for Danny Green and the 23rd pick of the draft, which became David Roddy.
After spending two seasons with the 76ers, Melton signed with arguably the Grizzlies' biggest rival in the Ja Morant era, the Golden State Warriors, last summer. A season-ending sprained ACL injury limited him to only six games with the Warriors before he was traded to the Brooklyn Nets. Although the Grizzlies never faced Melton in uniform on the Warriors, he is widely expected to re-sign with them this offseason.
Honorable Mention: Dillon Brooks
Signing with the Houston Rockets was technically joining the enemy for Dillon Brooks, but the team made it known they weren't re-signing him following the 2022-23 season. They executed a sign-and-trade deal to help both parties get what they wanted.