What we’ve learned about the Grizzlies’ rookies so far in preseason play

How have the Memphis Grizzlies’ rookies performed during the preseason?

The Memphis Grizzlies will host the Detroit Pistons at FedEx Forum on Monday in another preseason game. Thus far, the Grizzlies’ preseason contests have been highly entertaining, teaching us a lot about this basketball team.

Even more specifically, we’ve learned a bit about the Grizzlies’ rookie class, which had a lot of question marks attached to it. Today, I’m going to go over everything we’ve learned about these rookies thus far.

The Grizzlies’ rookies include three big names. The first is Ziaire Williams, who Memphis traded away their star center in Jonas Valanciunas to acquire with the 10th overall pick in the NBA Draft. They would also trade up to the last pick of the first round to grab Santi Aldama and eventually pick up Yves Pons after the draft.

Ziaire Williams, Wing

Ziaire Williams was a risky pick by the Grizzlies’ front office. Williams, who was a one-and-done player at Stanford, didn’t play particularly well at the college level. After an extremely successful high school career, he wasn’t able to knock down his shots.

Not to worry — he’s off to a great start in the preseason. Just kidding, he’s shooting the ball even worse than we imagined.

That said, it’s not time to panic. Sure his 11% three-point shooting and 50% free-throw shooting would worry anybody, but his jump shot looks nice. It’s not like he has Markelle Fultz’s shooting motion and no hope of developing a shot — he simply needs to get into a rhythm.

With 21 minutes per game played this preseason, Williams has scored just 4.7 points. Other notable stats include 1.3 steals per contest, which is promising, and 2.3 assists per game.