Memphis Grizzlies
- Date:
- 1995 - present
- Headquarters:
- Memphis
- Areas Of Involvement:
- basketball
- Related People:
- Jerry West
- Ja Morant
- Derrick Rose
News •
Memphis Grizzlies, American professional basketball team based in Memphis, Tennessee, that plays in the Western Conference of the National Basketball Association (NBA).
The Grizzlies played their first game in 1995 and were originally based in Vancouver as one of the two Canadian expansion franchises (alongside the Toronto Raptors) to join the NBA that year. They were immediately one of the worst teams in the league, winning no more than 19 games in each of their first four seasons and finishing at the bottom of their divisional standings in five of the six years they spent in Vancouver. This prolonged futility took its toll on the Grizzlies’ attendance numbers and profitability, and the team’s ownership moved the franchise to Memphis in 2001 in a bid to increase revenue.
| season | record | playoffs | |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2019–20 | 34–39 | missed playoffs | |
| 2020–21 | 38–34 | lost in first round | |
| 2021–22 | 56–26 | lost in conference semifinals | |
| 2022–23 | 51–31 | lost in first round | |
| 2023–24 | 27–55 | missed playoffs | |
In the newly relocated team’s first draft, it added Spanish forward Pau Gasol, who would go on become the Grizzlies’ first All-Star player. The team hired basketball icon Jerry West to serve as general manager in 2002. West quickly turned the team’s fortunes around, and in 2003–04 Memphis won 50 games (a 22-win improvement from the previous season) to earn the first playoff berth in franchise history. The Grizzlies lost in their opening postseason series that year and experienced the same fate in both 2004–05 and 2005–06. Memphis’s successful run was short-lived, and the team fell to a last-place finish in 2006–07. West left the Grizzlies in 2007, and Gasol was traded in 2008 as the team began a rebuilding effort.
Memphis returned to the postseason in 2010–11 behind the play of forwards Zach Randolph and Rudy Gay, and the team proceeded to upset the top-seeded San Antonio Spurs in six games to record its first playoff series victory. In 2012–13 Randolph, Marc Gasol (Pau’s brother), and a young, defensive-minded squad—nicknamed the Grit and Grind Grizzlies for their dogged toughness—advanced to the conference finals for the first time in team history, where the Grizzlies lost to the Spurs. Memphis continued to qualify for the playoffs in the following years, but the aging roster produced diminishing returns, the team being swept by the Spurs in the 2015–16 playoffs after having posted a 42–40 record in the regular season and putting an NBA record 28 players on the floor over the course of the year because of rampant injuries. Amid injuries and roster turnover, the Grizzlies missed the playoffs from 2017–18 to 2019–20.
A rejuvenated Memphis team led by young guards Ja Morant and Desmond Bane and power forward Jaren Jackson, Jr., finished the 2020–21 season 38–34 and made it to the first round of the playoffs. They had even greater success in 2021–22, with a 56–26 record earning them first place in their division for the first time in franchise history. In the subsequent playoffs, the brash, trash-talking Grizzlies defeated the Minnesota Timberwolves before falling to the veteran Golden State Warriors in the second round.
Memphis was on track for another strong finish in 2022–23 when off-court events began to derail the team’s budding status as championship contenders. In March 2023 Morant, the team’s leader and one of the up-and-coming stars of the league, was suspended for eight games after he posted an Instagram Live video showing himself brandishing a handgun in a strip club while heavily inebriated. Though nothing illegal appeared to have taken place, it is against NBA rules for players to possess a firearm while traveling on team business. The team nevertheless won 51 games and returned to the playoffs for the third straight year, where the Grizzlies fell to the Los Angeles Lakers in the first round. During the offseason the NBA suspended Morant for an additional 25 games after another instance of him posting a video of himself holding a gun and amid news reports alleging that he had been involved in multiple violent altercations.
Hampered by missing Morant’s playmaking and scoring—first because of the suspension and later as a result of a season-ending injury to his shoulder, in 2023–24 the Grizzlies slumped to a 27–55 finish and missed the playoffs.
