Jonas Valanciunas has been playing some of the best basketball of his career, but his season is coming to an end a few games early. The Memphis Grizzlies will be without another key player the rest of the way due to injury.
Jonas Valanciunas has been an absolute stud since he joined the Memphis Grizzlies. In the 19 games he played in with the Grizzlies he averaged 19.9 points, 10.7 rebounds, 2.2 assists, and 1.6 blocks per game. If that was over a full season it would easily be the best mark of his career as his prior high in scoring was just 12.8 points during the 2015-16 season.
Medical update for @memgrizz center Jonas Valanciunas: pic.twitter.com/8o1eB4eFqt
— Grizzlies PR (@GrizzliesPR) April 1, 2019
He has had many dominating performances during just a short time with the Grizzlies. The team as a whole has improved and his play is a big part of that. The future continues to get brighter in Memphis and with him at the center spot they should be a much-improved team next season.
In many recent games, he has completely stuffed the stat sheet. Prior to the Clippers game in which he was injured he had posted at least 18 points and 13 rebounds in the previous six games, which included a couple of games that really stood out.
In a road loss against the Orlando Magic, he finished with 23 points and 24 rebounds which is a career-high in rebounds. The Grizzlies haven’t had a guy like that who can dominate the boards for a couple of years, really since Zach Randolph. He isn’t on that level, but he certainly is an upgrade in that area over Marc Gasol.
The best game of the season for him certainly was in the recent win on the road against the Phoenix Suns. He finished with 34 points and 20 rebounds in that game as he was dominant inside. He did also have five assists in this game which is tied for the highest mark of his career with another game since he’s been in Memphis.
Valanciunas was also extremely efficient in this game as he went 16-28 from the field. He was dominating inside and they continued to feed him the ball in the paint. Those are career-highs of his in both field goal attempts, as well as makes.
You may notice that there are a lot of career-highs mentioned since coming to Memphis not even two months ago. The way he has played should have all Grizzlies fans excited about the future of this team. Getting him healthy next season alongside Jaren Jackson Jr. inside will be a lot of fun to see.
While you never want to see players get injured it will be good to see some of the other players get an advanced role. They will struggle inside with depth, but that should lead to heavy minutes for Ivan Rabb. Outside of him, it will be a struggle, but with just five games left, they will find a way to make it work.
Jonas Valanciunas couldn’t have started his Grizzlies career any better. This is a team a long ways from competing, but being able to get him back instead of just letting Marc Gasol walk is a big step towards building a contender, in Memphis.