Memphis Grizzlies: Kyle Anderson has been a rare consistent piece

There are a lot of words that could be used to describe the 2021 Memphis Grizzlies basketball team. Feisty, motivated, inspiring. But one word that nobody will use to describe the second-youngest team in the NBA is consistent.

There have been times this season where Taylor Jenkins’ squad looks like they could compete in a seven-game series with anybody in the league. But just when confidence heightens, they’ll take a horrible loss to a clearly inferior team.

We saw it against a decimated Oklahoma City Thunder team earlier in the year. We saw it against the Los Angeles Clippers’ backups a week and a half ago. Most recently, we saw it against an Orlando Magic team with nine healthy players, playing without their head coach.

The Grizzlies have potential, but they’ve been wildly inconsistent.

The Memphis Grizzlies have had one piece of consistency among the mess

Among the rollercoaster ride of a season that we’ve been given by the Memphis Grizzlies, there has been one piece of the team that hasn’t budged. That piece goes by the name of Kyle Anderson, or “Slow-Mo.”

Slow-Mo hasn’t done much on the offensive end recently. This isn’t concerning because he is never expected to do much on that side of the ball. That said, he’s good for double-digit points in most games and that hasn’t changed recently.

The part that has been extremely helpful for a struggling Grizzlies team has been on the defensive side of the ball. While the rest of the team has been completely streaky, Anderson has stayed true to his playstyle.

Since the beginning of April, Anderson has averaged a steal and a half per contest, only going a single game during that stretch without a takeaway. During that same stretch, he has had three games with three blocks, cementing himself as a defensive force. Even in the return of the team’s true power forward, he hasn’t budged.

Unfortunately, the rest of the team has not followed suit. There hasn’t been another player on the roster who has brought this level of play in each game since the start of April. That has been the cause of the Grizzlies’ wild inconsistencies lately.

They’ll bounce back, but they’ll have to follow suit from one of their veteran leaders in Anderson.