Grizzlies shockingly urged to move on from former first-round pick

Part of why the Memphis Grizzlies have become one of the NBA’s top up-in-coming teams is their ability to find promising talent in the draft. Along with finding a superstar in Ja Morant with the second overall pick, the front office and scouts have managed to find gems with later selections. Two prime examples of this are Desmond Bane (30th overall pick) and Brandon Clarke (21st overall pick).

Gathering an array of young talent can be easy. Keeping them is where things really get challenging. As many teams before Memphis have learned, there is only so much money to go around. Because of this, they have some tough decisions to make in the coming years.

Before the regular season gets underway, the people over at Bleacher Report listed one player each NBA team should trade this year. For the Grizzlies, they chose Brandon Clarke due to his offensive limitations.

"The Grizzlies are overloaded in the frontcourt, and they’ve already shelled out huge amounts of cash to Jaren Jackson Jr. and Steven Adams. Clarke’s bounce and versatility allows him to fill a role in this rotation, but his offensive shortcomings (no outside touch, no shot creation) will always keep the size of his role in check."

It’s also worth noting that Clarke will be entering restricted free agency this upcoming offseason.

The Grizzlies should be in no rush to move Brandon Clarke

It goes without saying that every avenue to improvement should be explored. That said, the Grizzlies shouldn’t be in any hurry to move on from the young big man.

After signing Steven Adams to a two-year extension, Memphis has their frontcourt for the foreseeable future. However, having Clarke behind him and Jaren Jackson Jr. gives the Grizzlies some versatility at the center position.

In today’s era, the small-ball center has become a key component of most NBA rosters. Since he is such a strong rebounder, Clarke is able to fill this role for Memphis while standing at only six-foot-eight. Having an athletic big in Clarke could allow the Grizzlies to up the tempo and use their speed and youth to their advantage.

The key for Clarke going forward is to get back to being a near-league-average three-point shooter. He shot 35.9% from deep his rookie year, but that is appearing to be an outlier. Since then, he has never shot over 30% in a season.

Being able to stretch the floor would allow Taylor Jenkins to deploy Clarke alongside another big. With the promise he showed in his first season, the Grizzlies should strongly consider holding onto him and rolling the dice in free agency this summer.