Grizzlies star Jaren Jackson Jr reveals motivation for 2023-24
By Mark Nilon
The Memphis Grizzlies come into the 2023-24 season with high hopes of pushing themselves over the proverbial hump and into legitimate title contention. Considering their slew of offseason decisions and shakeups, some have already suggested the club should be in the conversation as a serious threat to the defending champion Denver Nuggets.
However, trades and free agency acquisitions aside, Grizzlies star Jaren Jackson Jr recently revealed in an interview with ABC24 Memphis that, for him, the club’s shortcomings from last year are motivation enough for him heading into the new campaign.
“There’s no more motivation I need than how we left last year,” Jackson said. “It’s a moment you’re going to remember and you have to make something good out of it. Otherwise, it don’t make sense and it don’t matter.”
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As fans are sadly already aware, the second-seeded Memphis Grizzlies were bounced in the first round of last year’s postseason by the seventh-seeded Los Angeles Lakers in just six games.
Since their ouster, GM Zach Kleiman has been quite busy trying to restructure head coach Taylor Jenkins’ assortment of talent within the rotation, adding trusty veteran Marcus Smart via blockbuster and parting ways with polarizing wing Dillon Brooks by means of sign-and-trade with the Houston Rockets.
Though the team will be without superstar guard Ja Morant for the first 25 games of the season, as he will be serving out his league-issued suspension, luckily they’ll still have their two other young cornerstones in Desmond Bane and, of course, their vocally motivated franchise center in tow to hold things down during his absence.
Jaren Jackson Jr is coming off his first All-Star campaign in 2022-23, as he finished with stellar per-game averages of 18.6 points, 6.8 rebounds, and 3.0 blocks while shooting 50.6 percent from the field and 35.5 percent from deep.
He would also go on to claim his first Defensive Player of the Year title as a result of his efforts on the less glamorous side of the ball.
