Let’s pause between 2025 NBA Draft rounds to take stock with some next-day notes and reactions to the Memphis Grizzlies’ first-round move, how it might impact the rest of their summer and second-round expectations.

How good will the rookie be? That’s always a key question. But this time another looms: How soon?

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Chris Herrington outlines four different things the Memphis Grizzlies could do with their first-round pick in this week’s 2025 NBA Draft. 

As the NBA offseason rolls down the on-ramp, there’s been so much noise around the Memphis Grizzlies that one of the team’s biggest and most unavoidable issues has felt forgotten.

The Demond Bane trade instantly reframes the Grizzlies’ summer from one with limited means to add players to one with theoretically unlimited means. Who are some of the players the team may go after?

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A look at what the Grizzlies got, why they did the trade, where it leaves the team going into the summer and what could be next.

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A look at the guards and wing players that might be available in the Grizzlies’ price range.

Zach Edey has undergone ankle surgery. Which NBA big men might the Memphis Grizzlies consider acquiring this summer?

Plus, Chris Herrington ranks the Wes Anderson films he’s seen.

Chris Herrington answers some interesting questions about the Grizzlies’ two ostensible tentpole players: Ja Morant and Jaren Jackson Jr.

Will Milwaukee trade Giannis? Do only the healthy teams advance in the NBA playoffs? Can we get a conference quota in the draft lottery? Do you remember Luigi Datome? And much more.

How fully have the Memphis Grizzlies been passed by other young teams? How accurate was Grizzlies general manager Zach Kleiman’s same-day assertion/admission that the team is “not close” to contention?

Tuomas Iisalo only got to coach fifteen games and have two practices, but the work he did in his interim role was enough to earn him the full-time coaching job.

Chris Herrington breaks down what the Memphis Grizzlies were saying one day after their 2024-25 season ended and what he thinks it really means.

There have been a lot of whispers in recent weeks of the potential for major change on the Grizzlies roster this summer.

“As overmatched as the Grizzlies often seemed, there’s every reason to believe this series would have been going back to Oklahoma City 2-2 if Ja Morant hadn’t gotten hurt in Game 3.”

The Memphis Grizzlies think they found a formula to combat the Oklahoma City Thunder. But is there any hope of deploying it without Ja Morant?

With Ja Morant finding his rhythm as both a scorer and a playmaker, the Grizzlies were about to win Game 3. And then it all evaporated in the split second between contact and collapse. 

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Win or lose, the “we’re in this together” energy can enrich a community. Memphis now gets at least two chances to show it in this series.

Tuesday night in Oklahoma City, after his team’s 118-99 Game 2 loss, was as close as Memphis Grizzlies interim head coach Tuomas Iisalo has seemed to angry.

Jackson’s career playoff averages are: 15 points, 7 rebounds and 2 blocks, shooting 39% from the floor and 33% from 3-point range. Can he do more than that Tuesday night in Game 2?

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The Grizzlies lost Game 1 to Oklahoma City by 51 points, and as interim head coach Tuomas Iisalo said, “It’s very hard to play worse than this.”

It’s been too long since Memphis Grizzlies fans have seen, heard and felt postseason hoops. Whatever comes next, everyone invested in the enterprise needed this. 

The Mavs were in the NBA Finals last spring and then added title-tested veteran Klay Thompson in the offseason to aid what they hoped would be another run.