Just in case the Memphis Grizzlies needed a reminder of how far away they remain from legitimate NBA title contention, the Oklahoma City Thunder had a piping-hot one waiting for them in Game 1 of the first round.
Sunday's overall result—a loss—is not a surprise. Nobody expects the Grizzlies to win this series. That includes, approximately, everyone inside the Memphis organization, provided you have some truth serum handy.
The final score of Game 1, though? Now that is shocking. The Grizzlies fell to the Thunder 131-80. In doing so, they were forced to endure the mother of all reality checks: They are further away from title contention than they probably though.
Game 1 was a beatdown of historical proportions
Don't call this a drubbing. That is too charitable. It is more like an historically painful reality check. These Grizzlies are just the sixth NBA team on record to lose a playoff game by 50 or more points, and the first since 2015, back when the Milwaukee Bucks loss by 54 to the Chicago Bulls.
Oklahoma City upended Memphis in every conceivable way. Just two of Memphis' players, Ja Morant and Marvin Bagley III, scored in double figures. Six of them were a minus-25 or worse during their time on the court, including every single member of the Big Three.
Damn pic.twitter.com/2dbrB4eirw
— Oh No He Didn't (@ohnohedidnt24) April 20, 2025
The Grizzlies wore their frustration on their face. It was coursing through their veins. Morant spent the entire game in basketball purgatory, which is to say, being guarded by the Thunder's endless supply of all-world defenders. It was Lu Dort, and it was Alex Caruso, and it was Cason Wallace. It was everyone.
Jaren Jackson Jr., whose likely supermax candidacy this summer is looking a lot more interesting, played with the presence of someone standing 6'2" rather than 6'10". He finished with more turnovers (three) than defensive rebounds (zero).
Every second of every minute of every quarter brought with it gnawing perspective. And from that perspective comes an existential question: Where do the Grizzlies go from here?
Memphis is nowhere near championship contention
This is right around the time when we should point out that one game is not an entire series, let alone the contents of an entire future. In this case, though, it's enough to douse Memphis' complete and total trajectory in arctic-cold water.
Nobody gets to claim that this core needs time, or that they are a heartbeat away, or that this is just about the Thunder being an all-time juggernaut. The Grizzlies forfeited that right even before their controversial dismissal of head coach Taylor Jenkins.
Sure, another head coaching candidate may get more out of this exact group. That candidate may even be current interim head honcho Tuomas Iisalo. But Memphis is the only Western Conference playoff team that won fewer than 15 games against opponents .500 or better during the regular season. And it finished 6-21 overall versus squads with top-10 point differentials.
Changing up the head coach will not offset that gap between the Grizzlies, and every other viable contender, never mind the indomitable Thunder. Harping on the ill effects of injuries doesn't mean diddly squat, either. Extended absences are officially part of this nucleus' DNA. Plus, Memphis ranked a far-from-outlandish 15th in overall value lost to injury this year, according to BBall Index.
No, for the Grizzlies to enter the real title-contender ranks, they will have to materially change the roster. That doesn't have to mean blow it up, which is a reductive concept anyway. They can add to the meat and potatoes of what's already in the place. They just have to figure out how.
Where do the Grizzlies go from here?
Therein lies the problem. Memphis options are fairly limited.
If Jackson fails to make All-NBA, the Grizzlies will need their projected cap room to renegotiate-and-extend him, lest they risk him hitting unrestricted free agency in 2026. And even if they keep their forecasted cap space, something between $7 and $8 million isn't nearly enough to bag a major addition. The same logic applies if they operate over the cap, and use the $15.5 million mid-level exception. They aren't signing someone for that amount money who makes the required difference.
That leaves the front office to explore trades. And yet, Memphis lacks a ton of expendable matching salary. The injured Brandon Clarke currently projects to be the team's fourth-highest paid player in 2025-26, and he's only on the books for $12.5 million. Though the Grizzlies can aggregate different names to increase the outgoing money and incoming return, their next highest paid players after Clarke are John Konchar ($6.2 million) and Zach Edey ($6.1 million), neither of whom is on the cap sheet for $7 million.
This is a roundabout, albeit totally necessary, way of saying Memphis will be hard-pressed to pull off a trade that vaults itself inside the Association's inner circle of contenders without including Jackson, Morant or Desmond Bane. And good luck moving one of them while actually getting better.
Make no mistake, the Grizzlies are far from the league's worst situation. They still have draft equity to spare, even after the Marcus Smart salary dump, and a smattering of not-yet-finished projects who could level up.
Do they have the type of internal upside that can fuel their ascent into the same area code as a team like Oklahoma City, or like Boston, or like Cleveland? Is the organization willing to pony up (i.e. potentially pay the luxury tax) in service of doubling- and tripling-down on this group? If it is, are the Grizzlies' best players good enough to headline a squad as menacing, or nearly as menacing, as OKC, Boston and Cleveland? And what is the move that gets Memphis over the top?
These questions do not yet have answers, at least not in the affirmative. For now, all we know is that the Grizzlies, these exact Grizzlies, are galaxies from real, actual championship contention. And failing the surprise materialization of a wormhole, the path to changing that may be a long one, if it exists at all.
Dan Favale is a Senior NBA Contributor for FanSided and National NBA Writer for Bleacher Report. Follow him on Bluesky (@danfavale), and subscribe to the Hardwood Knocks podcast, co-hosted by Bleacher Report's Grant Hughes.