{"id":117512,"date":"2025-01-11T23:02:17","date_gmt":"2025-01-12T04:02:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/?p=117512"},"modified":"2025-01-11T23:02:17","modified_gmt":"2025-01-12T04:02:17","slug":"grizzlies-gg-jackson-vince-williams-return-injury-near","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/2025\/01\/11\/grizzlies-gg-jackson-vince-williams-return-injury-near\/","title":{"rendered":"Grizzlies Hope Young Pieces Back From Injury In Near Future"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>The Memphis Grizzlies have several players out with injuries. However, they hope to have <a href=\"https:\/\/www.basketball-reference.com\/players\/j\/jacksgg01.html\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">GG Jackson II<\/a> and <a href=\"https:\/\/www.basketball-reference.com\/players\/w\/willivi01.html\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Vince Williams Jr.<\/a> back &#8220;by the end of the month,&#8221; according to head coach Taylor Jenkins.<\/p>\n<p>On Jan. 7 and Jan. 9, the organization assigned Jackson to a practice with their G League affiliate, the Memphis Hustle. The second-year forward has yet to play this season after undergoing a procedure <a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/2024\/09\/04\/grizzlies-gg-jackson-unfortunate-injury-update\/\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_self\">to repair his fifth metatarsal<\/a> in the offseason. Williams has received no such assignments from the Grizzlies, yet. Nonetheless, he&#8217;s recovering from <a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/2024\/12\/20\/grizzlies-vince-williams-jr-return-injury-date\/\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_self\">a Grade 3 ankle sprain<\/a> after missing the start of the season <a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/2024\/10\/13\/notable-nba-players-that-will-miss-start-of-regular-season-with-injury\/\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_self\">with a shin injury<\/a>. The third-year wing has played just three games this season.<\/p>\n<h2>Grizzlies Hope GG Jackson II, Vince Williams Jr. Back From Injury In Near Future<\/h2>\n<p>&#8220;They&#8217;re still on the timeline,&#8221; Jenkins tells reporters prior to their matchup against the Minnesota Timberwolves. &#8220;I think their timelines take them up to at some point by the end of the month.&#8221;<\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\">\n<p dir=\"ltr\" lang=\"en\">Jenkins ends pregame press conference reiterating that the hope\/expectation is to have both GG Jackson (foot surgery) and Vince Williams Jr (ankle) back \u201cby the end of the month.\u201d <a  href=\"https:\/\/t.co\/pxmRFJSzPd\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">https:\/\/t.co\/pxmRFJSzPd<\/a> <a  href=\"https:\/\/t.co\/lu28xtstwP\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">pic.twitter.com\/lu28xtstwP<\/a><\/p>\n<p>\u2014 Michael Wallace (@MyMikeCheck) <a  href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/MyMikeCheck\/status\/1878224984079782383?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">January 11, 2025<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n<p>&#8220;So I&#8217;m very hopeful that by the end of the month we get both of those guys back.&#8221;<\/p>\n<h3>Gregg Popovich&#8217;s Influence<\/h3>\n<p>Without having been at full health this season, the Grizzlies are still third in the West at 25-14.<\/p>\n<p>Like the Oklahoma City Thunder and Houston Rockets &#8211;first and second in the West respectively &#8211;they&#8217;re young, <a href=\"https:\/\/nbaage.com\/\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">their average age (25.4 years) ranking 10th.<\/a> Yet, they&#8217;re obviously elite. So much so that they&#8217;re ahead of teams led by a two-time league MVP (Golden State Warriors guard <a href=\"https:\/\/www.basketball-reference.com\/players\/c\/curryst01.html\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Stephen Curry<\/a>), three-time league MVP (Denver Nuggets center <a href=\"https:\/\/www.basketball-reference.com\/players\/j\/jokicni01.html\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Nikola Jokic<\/a>) and a four-time league MVP (Los Angeles Lakers forward <a href=\"https:\/\/www.basketball-reference.com\/players\/j\/jamesle01.html\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">LeBron James<\/a>).<\/p>\n<p>The secret sauce cooked up by Jenkins has them believing in the power of pace, space, and ball-movement. That these pillars would be their foundation is expected given Jenkins&#8217;s background. Like Golden State Warriors head coach Steve Kerr and others, he&#8217;s part of Gregg Popovich&#8217;s highly-touted coaching tree.<\/p>\n<p>Currently recovering from a stroke, Popovich&#8217;s future as head coach of the San Antonio Spurs <a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/2024\/11\/15\/gregg-popovich-coached-spurs-last-season\/\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_self\">is up in the air<\/a>. Nonetheless, what he&#8217;s done in the 28 years since being hired by the Spurs is popularize philosophies that people equate with winning culture. His emphasis on quick decision-making &#8211;shooting, driving, or passing <a href=\"https:\/\/www.foxsports.com\/stories\/college-basketball\/jay-wright-explains-how-gregg-popovichs-influence-will-be-felt-at-villanova-this-season\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">within half a second<\/a> &#8211;is just one tenet.<\/p>\n<h3>Getting With The Program<\/h3>\n<p>When Jackson and Williams return, this will be the biggest adjustment from last season.<\/p>\n<p>Because they were in development mode, Jenkins tended to let them freewheel. There will likely still be opportunities for both players to play their games. However, Memphis&#8217;s egalitarian flavor will require them to sacrifice some individualism to make the offense more efficient.<\/p>\n<p>At the end of the day, Jackson and Williams will only make it easier for Grizzlies to come away with wins though.<\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" width=\"560\" height=\"315\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/VACPzyEZXV4?si=_j8RYOANLf3Yka2Z\" title=\"YouTube video player\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" referrerpolicy=\"strict-origin-when-cross-origin\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>In Jackson, Memphis has found a scoring-minded star-caliber player with two-way upside. His 2023-24 performance included a dazzling 20.8 points per game in April.<\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" width=\"560\" height=\"315\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/SsixjCt2xWM?si=d5nFHkIj2nyP-MB9\" title=\"YouTube video player\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" referrerpolicy=\"strict-origin-when-cross-origin\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>Williams is his complement; a defensive-minded role player with scoring upside and playmaking potential. After the 2024 All-Star Break, he averaged 12.1 points, 5.9 assists, 1.0 block, and 0.9 steals per game and made 46.4 percent of his threes.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The Memphis Grizzlies have several players out with injuries. However, they hope to have GG Jackson II and Vince Williams Jr. back &#8220;by the end of the month,&#8221; according to head coach Taylor Jenkins. On Jan. 7 and Jan. 9, the organization assigned Jackson to a practice with their G League affiliate, the Memphis Hustle. [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5008,"featured_media":117513,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_lmt_disableupdate":"","_lmt_disable":"","sfio_featured_image":false,"sfio_embed_code":"","_ef_editorial_meta_date_first-draft-date":"","_ef_editorial_meta_paragraph_assignment":"","_ef_editorial_meta_checkbox_needs-photo":"","_ef_editorial_meta_number_word-count":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[32,1608,62,3],"tags":[49943,204,4745,3840,49812],"class_list":["post-117512","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-grizzlies","category-basketball","category-nba","category-news","tag-gg-jackson-ii","tag-gregg-popovich","tag-nba-injuries","tag-taylor-jenkins","tag-vince-williams-jr"],"modified_by":"Quenton S Albertie","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/117512","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5008"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=117512"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/117512\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":117515,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/117512\/revisions\/117515"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/117513"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=117512"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=117512"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=117512"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}