The best rookie seasons in Memphis Grizzlies’ history

Who are the players who can lay claim to the Memphis Grizzlies’ best rookie?

It’s almost pointless to keep mentioning this, as almost everyone has noticed by now, but Ja Morant is have a fantastic first year for the Memphis Grizzlies. The second overall pick coming out of Murray State had high expectations, as all players picked that high do, but any excitement over him was being overshadowed by the first overall pick: Zion Williamson.

Still, despite expectations being high, Morant has been able to blow every single expectation out of the water. He’s a lock for Rookie of the Year, and he has become a key part in bringing this Memphis team back to the playoffs. Probably his most impressive feat, though, is the fact that it seems he’s already become a locker room leader; something that is almost unheard of with a rookie.

But that got us thinking, where exactly does Morant’s first year rank among other Grizzlies’ first year? How great, over the course of Memphis history, is Morant’s first season.

Now, even though it’s not finished yet, we still have a fairly accurate sample for the current rookie’s first season, so players like Ja Morant and Brandon Clarke are being considered for this list.

Another problem we had is trying to find a way to better conceptualize the numbers when there’s such a big dispersion of minutes played. Because of this, I broke the players I selected into three tiers: 1,000-1,600 minutes played, 1,600-2,000 minutes played, and over 2,000 minuted played.

I took the top performing player from each tier, and put them in a list along with one other rookie who was in a tier to himself (well get to him later). After that, I ranked those four rookies against one another.

So where does Morant fall among Memphis best rookie seasons? And who is the best rookie to ever lace up for the Grizzlies?

Editor’s Note: Due to a lapse in research, Pau Gasol’s rookie season is not included on this list. To make up for that fact, I wrote an entire article looking back on that season, which you can find here. Sorry about that! Enjoy the rest of the piece! — Ethan