If you take a step back, the Memphis Grizzlies‘ 2020-21 season was a huge success. The ending was disappointing, but the fact that the Grizzlies stole a game against the NBA’s best team by record says a lot about where this franchise is at right now.
That said, you can thank a few different people for this team’s success. Firstly, you’d have to point the finger at the Grizzlies’ front office, which put together as good of a team as physically possible at this point in the rebuild.
Even though General Manager and Vice President of Basketball Operations Zach Kleiman won’t be in the running for NBA Executive of the year, he has done a better job with the cards he was dealt than any other front office executive in the game. This would not go without recognition though, as Kleiman was recently given a contract extension by the Grizzlies.
That said, one of Kleiman’s hires may have been the X-factor in the 2020-21 season. That hire is Taylor Jenkins, the head coach of the Memphis Grizzlies.
Memphis Grizzlies HC Taylor Jenkins fast-forwarded his team’s rebuild by a couple of years
Taylor Jenkins did something that nobody expected in 2021: he took an objectively worse team and brought them to the NBA Playoffs.
Before you get upset that I called this team objectively worse, allow me to specify what I mean. The Grizzlies were playing without Jaren Jackson Jr. for the entire season. Even upon JJJ’s return, he never got back into full form. Memphis basically had a single true big man the entire year in Jonas Valanciunas.
Add that to the fact that this team struggled with injuries all season long and hardly anybody gave Memphis a chance to reach the playoffs.
Memphis Grizzlies HC Taylor Jenkins did everything he wasn’t supposed to do in year two (in a good way)
As mentioned, the Memphis Grizzlies were playing basketball with half of a team in 2021. Their best defender in Jaren Jackson Jr. was out, while the rest of the squad struggled with injuries the entire season.
Jenkins didn’t care.
He took Xavier Tillman, a second-round pick in the 2020 NBA Draft, and turned him into one of the best backup centers in the league. That’s not an exaggeration either, as Tillman was serviceable on offense and arguably the team’s best defender down low in 2021.
Most importantly, he created a roster that could work cohesively with one another, even without a key part of their starting lineup. He allowed each player to step into a role that best suited them.
Ja Morant became the team’s spark plug. Dillon Brooks became the alpha dog on defense. Jonas Valanciunas became an unstoppable force in the paint. Kyle Anderson became one of the league’s sneakiest pickpockets.
Every single starter improved from last season, helping this team reach a 38-34 record.
Jenkins took a team that was projected to finish last in the conference by some and had them competing with anybody you put in front of them. Even in a 4-1 series loss against the Utah Jazz, Memphis hung around for the entirety of the series. The Jazz have much more established talent, but the contests looked like a dogfight between two equally-talented teams.
That said, Taylor Jenkins’ 2021 season was not without its flaws.
Memphis Grizzlies HC Taylor Jenkins 2021 season was very far from flawless
Again, as a Memphis Grizzlies fan, you have to be happy with what you’ve seen out of Taylor Jenkins thus far. That said, there are some extremely clear holes in his head coaching style, which I am going to discuss now.
The first, and perhaps most glaring issue, is the fact that Jenkins is seemingly afraid to challenge any calls. I’ll go to the grave saying that the Grizzlies could have gotten 3-4 more wins on the season if Taylor Jenkins had challenged very distinctly bad calls that led to a Grizzlies one-possession loss.
There’s no list of total challenges by each NBA team but you’d have to imagine that Memphis would be near the bottom.
The second glaring issue is Jenkins’ inability to coach a game in late-game situations. In 2021, he took no strides in these games. In Jenkins’ defense, he was working with a team that was the youngest in the league for the bulk of the season. That said, the Grizzlies’ offense consistently disappeared at the end of important games.
More often than not, Jenkins would completely ditch the team’s offense, which was working, and opt to run Ja Morant isolation offense. In particular situations, this isn’t a bad idea, but when other teams see it coming, it’s a terrible idea. We probably watched this Memphis team throw away a dozen games to a lack of effort offense when it mattered most.
This could be Taylor Jenkins’ effort to get Ja Morant late-game experience. Regardless, it’s an area that we’ll hope to see improve in 2021-22.