{"id":42749,"date":"2021-10-02T08:00:15","date_gmt":"2021-10-02T12:00:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/?p=42749"},"modified":"2021-09-27T13:44:53","modified_gmt":"2021-09-27T17:44:53","slug":"memphis-grizzlies-2021-22-season-preview","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/2021\/10\/02\/memphis-grizzlies-2021-22-season-preview\/","title":{"rendered":"Memphis Grizzlies 2021-22 Season Preview"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Last season, the Memphis Grizzlies made huge strides overall as a team. They won two consecutive play-in games to make the post-season as the eighth seed.<\/p>\n<p>Unfortunately for them, they were taken care of by the Utah Jazz in the first round in five games. Regardless, the Grizzlies had a very successful season last year, as it featured young players like <a href=\"https:\/\/www.basketball-reference.com\/players\/m\/moranja01.html\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\"><strong>Ja Morant<\/strong><\/a> and <a href=\"https:\/\/www.basketball-reference.com\/players\/b\/brookdi01.html\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\"><strong>Dillon Brooks<\/strong><\/a> taking significant leaps.<\/p>\n<h2>Memphis Grizzlies 2021-22 Season Preview<\/h2>\n<h3>Offseason Changes<\/h3>\n<p>Throughout the offseason, the Grizzlies were one of the more active teams. One of the biggest moves they made was shipping <a href=\"https:\/\/www.basketball-reference.com\/players\/v\/valanjo01.html\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\"><strong>Jonas Valanciunas<\/strong><\/a> and the 17th and 51st pick in this year&#8217;s draft for <a href=\"https:\/\/www.basketball-reference.com\/players\/a\/adamsst01.html\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\"><strong>Steven Adams<\/strong><\/a>, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.basketball-reference.com\/players\/b\/bledser01.html\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\"><strong>Eric Bledsoe<\/strong><\/a>, the 10th and 40th pick along with a 2022 first-round pick.<\/p>\n<p>The Grizzlies weren&#8217;t done there. They later shipped Eric Bledsoe to the Los Angeles Clippers for <a href=\"https:\/\/www.basketball-reference.com\/players\/r\/rondora01.html\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\"><strong>Rajon Rondo<\/strong><\/a>, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.basketball-reference.com\/players\/b\/beverpa01.html\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\"><strong>Patrick Beverley<\/strong><\/a>, and <a href=\"https:\/\/www.basketball-reference.com\/players\/o\/oturuda01.html\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\"><strong>Daniel Oturu<\/strong><\/a>. After completing the trade, Rondo was eventually bought and Beverley was traded to Minnesota in exchange for <a href=\"https:\/\/www.basketball-reference.com\/players\/h\/hernaju01.html\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\"><strong>Juancho Hernangomez<\/strong><\/a> and <a href=\"https:\/\/www.basketball-reference.com\/players\/c\/culveja01.html\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\"><strong>Jarrett Culver<\/strong><\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>They weren&#8217;t finished after that. After trading with Minnesota, Hernangomez was traded to Boston in exchange for <a href=\"https:\/\/www.basketball-reference.com\/players\/e\/edwarca01.html\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\"><strong>Carsen Edwards<\/strong><\/a>\u00a0and a draft consideration.<\/p>\n<p>In the NBA Draft, Memphis used both of their first-round picks on solid players like <a href=\"https:\/\/www.basketball-reference.com\/players\/w\/willizi02.html\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\"><strong>Ziaire Williams<\/strong><\/a> and <a href=\"https:\/\/www.basketball-reference.com\/players\/a\/aldamsa01.html\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\"><strong>Santi Aldama<\/strong><\/a>. Overall, their roster is a bit different but the main core of players still remains.<\/p>\n<h3>Memphis Grizzlies &#8211; Expectations For This Season<\/h3>\n<p>After making huge strides last season by making the playoffs for the first time in four years, the Grizzlies are once again expected to compete for a spot in the post-season. With the trade they made during the off-season, it may appear that they downgraded their roster.<\/p>\n<p>That being said, they&#8217;re preparing for the future. They have an extremely young team and I expect Morant to have a breakout season. Morant is going to have an all-star-like season and that alone will put Memphis in playoff contention.<\/p>\n<p>The Grizzlies surpassed many people&#8217;s expectations last season and since they have the same core for the most part, nobody is expecting them to be an elite team whatsoever. This team is young but I fully expect players like Morant and Brooks to take huge strides entering next season. Along with quality rookies like Williams and Aldama, this young nucleus will shine at some point.<\/p>\n<p>A realistic expectation for the Memphis Grizzlies would be them ranging around the seventh to tenth seed in the conference.<\/p>\n<p>Main Image: <a id=\"uAkbTZ0eR7VDiMrBFpyCZQ\" class=\"gie-single\" style=\"color: #a7a7a7; text-decoration: none; font-weight: normal !important; border: none; display: inline-block;\" href=\"http:\/\/www.gettyimages.com\/detail\/1313400981\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Embed from Getty Images<\/a><script>window.gie=window.gie||function(c){(gie.q=gie.q||[]).push(c)};gie(function(){gie.widgets.load({id:'uAkbTZ0eR7VDiMrBFpyCZQ',sig:'qar1wM6-ftZ1uiXyd0RPC6uBboxd99fZIPojIz3UKE0=',w:'594px',h:'404px',items:'1313400981',caption: true ,tld:'com',is360: false })});<\/script><script src='\/\/embed-cdn.gettyimages.com\/widgets.js' charset='utf-8' async><\/script><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Last season, the Memphis Grizzlies made huge strides overall as a team. They won two consecutive play-in games to make the post-season as the eighth seed. Unfortunately for them, they were taken care of by the Utah Jazz in the first round in five games. Regardless, the Grizzlies had a very successful season last year, [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3919,"featured_media":42959,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","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":"1","_ef_editorial_meta_number_word-count":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[32,62],"tags":[772,1822,543],"class_list":["post-42749","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-grizzlies","category-nba","tag-dillon-brooks","tag-ja-morant","tag-steven-adams"],"modified_by":"Dylan Guest, Editor","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/42749","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\/3919"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=42749"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/42749\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/42959"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=42749"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=42749"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=42749"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}