Grizzlies coach urged to learn from Kyle Shanahan, Matt LaFleur
By Mark Nilon
The Memphis Grizzlies currently find themselves gearing up for a mightily important 2023-24 season. After fizzling out in the first round of last year’s playoffs against the Los Angeles Lakers, GM Zach Kleiman and company stepped into action and addressed many areas on the team’s roster that were in need of tweaking.
From adding experienced backcourt depth to much-needed veteran leadership, the Grizz seem to have a revamped unit heading into the upcoming campaign and, in some people’s eyes, they may now be in a position to enter into the legitimate title contender conversation.
Of course, in order for them to be intertwined with such talk, they’ll first need to find a way to weather the impending storm that is the first 25 games of the season, as they will be without superstar centerpiece Ja Morant due to a league-issued suspension.
On the surface, fans may feel quite confident in the Grizzlies’ potential to stay afloat during this period of time, as they boast a 31-15 record over the last two seasons without the guard in the rotation.
That said, their fate will be heavily influenced by how head coach Taylor Jenkins manages to adjust to using this reshuffled, Morant-less talent pool to start the season and, based on specific circumstances from last year, some are growing weary of his ability to modify his on-court strategy.
Grizzlies beat writer suggests Taylor Jenkins has struggled to adjust strategy
During a recent episode of the Locked on Grizzlies podcast, co-host of the show and beat writer for The Commercial Appeal, Damichael Cole, pointed out that Jenkins’ struggles to stray away from the usual gameplan when faced with key player absences was put on full display when starting center Steven Adams was shelved last year in late January with a sprained PCL.
With this, he went as far as to suggest that the headman may want to emulate what some of the best coaches currently in the NFL do when faced with similar adversities and name-dropped Kyle Shanahan of the San Fransisco 49ers and Matt LaFleur of the Green Bay Packers as specific individuals worth analyzing.
"“You think about the greatest football coaches out there…When your number one receiver isn’t playing, now you can’t throw that guy the ball 15 times a game. Now you have to revitalize your entire game plan,” Cole said. “Kyle Shanahan, when he doesn’t have [George] Kittle, or when he doesn’t have Deebo Samuel, he just says ‘ok, now you just go to the next option, build the offense around that player or the next skillset.’ Or when Matt LaFleur…didn’t have Devante Adams. Remember, the Packers at one point were undefeated — 7-0 [or] 8-0, something like that — in games Devante Adams didn’t play. Basically, the point here is, I want to see Taylor Jenkins this season show…when Steven Adams is out of the game…I want to see the Grizzlies revamp their playing style. When Steven Adams went out [last season], they tried to be the same exact team as if Steven Adams is in the game. That is not indicative of good coaching.”"
Once Adams was officially shelved, Jenkins opted to replace him with 6-foot-7 Xavier Tillman at the five.
While the soon-to-be fourth-year big man certainly possesses many positive attributes and has produced admirably throughout his tenure with the Grizzlies, his skill set differs quite considerably from that of Adams, and the team’s production seemed to drop drastically as a result of the coach’s insistence to run the same scheme.
During the 46 games prior to Adams’ season-ending injury, Memphis placed third in the league in win percentage (.674), first in offensive rebounding (13.4), first in total rebounding (49.4), first in defensive rating (109.2), and second in net rating (5.4).
Following Adams’ injury-induced removal, and with Tillman primarily serving as the club’s starting pivot, they plummeted in each of these categories, ranking 13 (.556), 13 (10.3), 15 (43.1), ninth (112.6), and 13 (2.2), respectively.
To Cole, this unwillingness to differentiate his team’s scheme based on personnel has proven to be a major concern, and is something he hopes will change during this coming season.
"“Steven Adams goes out of the game, ok no problem,” Cole said. “We’re going to play small ball a little bit more, we’re going to get up and down, we’re going to completely change some things around because, guess what, rebounding isn’t our strength anymore.”"
The beat writer would note that it’s evident Jenkins “can’t just ‘next man up’ it” if the Grizzlies wish to overcome obstacles that clearly come when missing key contributors within the rotation.
An early test this season will be how the coach handles the absence of Morant.
