NBANBADespite a rash of injuries, the Memphis Grizzlies are in the thick of the Western Conference playoff race. So why sack their head coach? And why now?
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By Michael PinaMarch 28, 7:55 pm UTC • 3 min
The Memphis Grizzlies parted ways with Taylor Jenkins on Friday afternoon, a move that was so surprising relative to his bona fides as a head coach that it warranted a stream of speculative text messages that I continued to receive for several hours after the news broke.
The timing makes zero sense. There are nine games left in the regular season! Jenkins is just 40 years old, scrupulous, and adaptable. Before today, his six seasons in Memphis made him the league’s longest-tenured coach who hadn’t won a championship. The dysfunction and hardship that’s occurred in Memphis feels entirely tangential to his work on the sideline.
From a basketball perspective, the Grizzlies are more of a resilient success story than a disappointment. Coming off an injury-plagued 27-55 campaign last season, they’re 44-29 this season, good for the 5-seed in the West, with a huge game against the Los Angeles Lakers (also 44-29) on Saturday night. That improvement matters, particularly as it’s come in the face of even more injuries to players who were expected to meaningfully contribute this season.
Ja Morant has missed 30 games. Brandon Clarke recently sprained his PCL and will not play until 2025-26. Marcus Smart was a starter who got hurt in the fifth game of the year and is now on the Washington Wizards. GG Jackson and Vince Williams Jr. have combined to appear in 46 games. For Memphis to still be this competitive in such a brutal conference is a credit to a coaching staff that’s leaned on two rookie starters and 21 different starting lineups. Under Jenkins, Jaren Jackson Jr. has looked like an All-NBA candidate and Desmond Bane has quietly become one of the most consistent all-around players at his position.
But it’s not all peaches and cream. The Grizzlies entered this season as a stealth title contender (I picked them to win the Western Conference), but are only 11-20 against teams that are above .500 and 33-9 against teams that are below .500. Despite having the fourth-best net rating in the league, their defense has fallen apart and their offense has, at times, gone flat. In March, they’ve been below average on both sides of the ball, with a lower net rating than the tanking Toronto Raptors.
Memphis has zero quality victories since the All-Star break. Here are all of their wins over that stretch:
- A one-point win against the Magic
- A three-point overtime win against the Suns
- An 11-point win against a Mavericks team that started Kessler Edwards at center and didn’t have Kyrie Irving
- A three-point win against the Pelicans
- A two-point win against the Suns
- Three lopsided beatdowns against the Jazz and Heat
Amid those wins, Memphis lost three straight games (Morant missed two of them) on the final possession and did not look very competitive in losses against the Cavaliers, Clippers, and Thunder. And Jenkins has given Marvin Bagley III real rotation minutes since he came over at the deadline (a fireable offense in itself, as anyone who’s followed Bagley’s career could tell you).
Still, this is not an impatient organization. The Grizzlies don’t make rash moves and it’s unlike them to react to a poor stretch in which some key players have been injured. Firing their coach this deep into a largely successful season appears antithetical to their DNA.
Hours after the Jenkins news, Memphis named Tuomas Iisalo as its interim head coach. Iisalo, who is in his first season with the franchise, has been credited with revamping Memphis’s offense and instilling a brisk, motion-heavy system that’s as atypical as it is hard to stop. Evidently the Grizzlies think he’s better suited to lead this team wherever the higher-ups believe it can go. But firing Jenkins now is strange enough to summon a conspiracy theory or two, and highly unlikely to cure what’s actually ailed this team over the past several weeks.
Michael Pina is a senior staff writer at The Ringer who covers the NBA.
