The first time around, it happened quickly. 

When Zach Kleiman took over the Memphis Grizzlies’ front office in 2019, he inherited one recent top-five pick (Jaren Jackson Jr.) and was soon gifted another (Ja Morant). With the team too good to garner another high pick, Kleiman’s front office plucked a third foundational player (Desmond Bane) from the NBA Draft anyway. 

Kleiman inherited two good supporting players (Dillon Brooks, Kyle Anderson) but, in short order, added four more through the draft (Brandon Clarke), trade (Steven Adams, De’Anthony Melton) and free agency (Tyus Jones). He made an effective coaching hire (Taylor Jenkins) on the front end, and within three seasons those nine players led by that coach won 56 games, finished second in the Western Conference and put the basketball world on national TV notice with a two-word declaration: “We here.”

Herrington: Evaluating Zach Kleiman’s Grizzlies draft record

Soon after, Kleiman was named the NBA’s Executive of the Year. He wasn’t even 40. Closer to 30, actually.

It was the youngest NBA playoff team in a decade and perhaps the most raucously enjoyable Grizzlies team ever. It was the thrilling start of a long period of major success. 

Or it was supposed to be.

Instead, it was essentially over — even if we didn’t know it yet — less than a year later. Since that heady spring of 2022, the Grizzlies have won two playoff games in four seasons. And now a rebuild is underway. 

This time success isn’t likely to be as fast or as fun. Let’s hope that when it comes, it has more staying power. 

Herrington: Evaluating Zach Kleiman’s Grizzlies trade record

Some fans think embarking on this rebuild is premature. Some wonder if Kleiman’s the right person to lead it.

Throughout the past couple weeks, I’ve hacked through the weeds of the Kleiman record so far: An NBA Draft “hit” rate that’s double the league average relative to the picks available. A trade and free agency/contract-negotiation record that’s strong on volume and attention to detail but with few bold swings and fewer still that connected. A history of coaching-staff and player-personnel management that has at least a couple of major rough spots, but is mostly open to interpretation. 

And, yet, the management mistakes along the way don’t explain how it all ended so quickly. The Grizzlies thrived after blowing a trade for Justise Winslow. Their stumble came before blowing one for Marcus Smart. 

The fatal wounds are fairly plain but remain unsatisfying for many: Frontcourt injuries (Clarke, Adams) and off-court problems (Morant) derailed the breakthrough Grizzlies in 2023. And, since then, Morant has never been able to reclaim his spot as one of the league’s top players.

This era, now over, was built on the notion of Morant as its engine, and for a variety of reasons — mostly durability, but also some lack of skill development and seemingly more than a little unhappiness — that engine hasn’t consistently revved for four seasons now. 

Herrington: Evaluating Zach Kleiman’s Grizzlies free agency/contract negotiation record

A page unturned

At February’s trade deadline, Kleiman said that the franchise “felt it healthier … to turn the page as much as we were able,” an implication that was clear to most: They’d tried to trade Morant and would try again in the summer. 

Prior to Monday’s home finale against Cleveland, Morant sat at his locker talking to a teammate as a succession of out-for-the-year players conducted early media exit interviews.

Morant, also out for the season, had spoken briefly a few weeks earlier and wasn’t expected to speak again. As teammate after teammate fielded questions about the franchise’s direction and spoke with cautious optimism about the youth movement they expected to be a part of, Morant’s absence seemed already internalized. But there he sat, a page yet to be turned. 

Resolving the Morant situation will be the franchise’s most uncomfortable business this summer. 

As colleague Geoff Calkins outlined this week, the Grizzlies have public communications problems on a variety of fronts, but on this one, at least, there’s an unavoidable hurdle: It’s hard to explain to fans why you’ve moved on from Ja Morant when you haven’t yet moved on from Ja Morant. 

Calkins: The Grizzlies have a problem. And it isn’t just basketball.

If and when that departure comes this summer, fans will be owed a more direct explanation than Kleiman has been able to give while Morant remains, even if the motivations are no longer that much of a mystery. That explanation may be even more delicate and fraught than whatever surgery removes Morant from the roster. Reasons are required. Recriminations best avoided. Good luck on that tightrope, especially if Morant voices the latter. 

While the Grizzlies have their reasons, Morant’s Memphis limbo was acutely painful this month, during the recent LeBron James brouhaha. (The LeBrouhaha?) 

Memphians aren’t ones to wait for someone else to stand up for them, but the relative silence from the Grizzlies was loud. In better times, the remaining player most equipped and most likely to speak up would have been Morant. Whatever has gone wrong with the Grizzlies, Morant has always embraced Memphis. That he was the rare major star who seemed truly happy to be here makes the disintegration of the era all the more awful.

For some, the rarity of the Morant/Memphis match would be reason enough to keep it together, to keep chasing success with Morant, even after four consecutive seasons of disappointment and strain. There will be disagreement about this, probably forever. 

Herrington: Evaluating Zach Kleiman’s history of coach and player management

A bigger challenge ahead

If the final chore of a “tear down” remains, the rebuild is actively underway. But this one starts with more immediate challenges than the first. 

The most reliable place to find an NBA All-Star is with a top-five draft pick. Kleiman began his first build with two of them, and they both became multiple All-Stars. 

Unless the Grizzlies get lucky in next month’s NBA Draft lottery, this build will start with none. 

It might be starting with two foundational players in Zach Edey and Cedric Coward. But it also could be with none. 

Edey looked dominant in an 11-game sample in his second season. But those games were bracketed by two surgeries on the same ankle, for a player who’s 7-foot-3 and 300 pounds. 

Grizzlies’ Zach Edey to undergo another procedure on ankle

Coward was instantly a starting-level player, and has the physicality on the wing that’s prized leaguewide. But he’ll already be 23 years old before next season. Is he one of the leading men of the next era or just a great supporting piece? 

If the team lacks a surefire cornerstone or, for now, a certain high pick, it does have an abundance of assets — a surplus of future picks, a surplus of tradable players, a big trade exception, the ability to carve out major salary cap space in the near future. 

Kleiman’s front office has tools. Now comes the test. 

I’ve made the case that management mistakes didn’t derail the earlier era, that injury and Morant issues made other moves — bad transactions or missed opportunities — irrelevant to major success. 

But that can be flipped. 

Cedric Coward’s balancing act: Grizzlies rookie accepts mental, physical challenges of NBA schedule

If the injuries and Morant issues hadn’t happened, would the Grizzlies have been ready to take their shot? Coming out of the 2021-2022 season, Morant was young but already an All-NBA player. The team didn’t pounce, banking on a future that never came. 

Maybe the Grizzlies had bad luck before. This time, they need to be prepared for good luck. 

Part of that is to make better luck. 

A recent game-broadcast graphic suggested that the Grizzlies have had the NBA’s two worst-ever injury seasons, based on games lost, with this season only topped by their own 2023-2024. 

Whatever the Grizzlies can control in this area — a hard look at how they gauge durability in player evaluation, a hard look at their medical/training practices — has got to improve. 

For all the sore feelings about the current era’s too-early end, the Kleiman front office has probably been shortchanged for the value of good processes and what it suggests going forward. Mistakes have been made, but in Grizzlies history the worst draft pick, worst signing, worst evaluation stretch, longest success drought and biggest management embarrassments are all on the resumes of predecessors. 

Grizzlies Mailbag: Can Zach Kleiman steer the rebuild? Will Cedric Coward get the ball?

The Presti path

Look around the NBA recently and it’s not all major markets and glamor franchises having success. Any team has a chance to win big and there are different ways to get there. 

In Victor Wembanyama, the San Antonio Spurs lucked into a generational center with a No. 1 pick, for the third time in franchise history. The East-leading Detroit Pistons are also led by a lottery prize in former top pick Cade Cunningham.

Lottery luck is great, but even in small markets good management can overcome a lack of it. Just look at last summer’s NBA Finals. 

The Oklahoma City Thunder played the Indiana Pacers, and only one former top-five pick — OKC’s Chet Holmgren, a former No. 2 — was on the floor. 

The rest of each roster was assembled via sharp drafting and development with later picks, good trades and astute signings. And, right, with some luck. 

Zach Kleiman defends Grizzlies’ change in direction

These rosters were also assembled by front offices whose leaders had been there awhile: Indiana’s Kevin Pritchard (who started as general manager in 2012) and Oklahoma City’s Sam Presti (who’s run basketball since 2007). 

In nine of 10 seasons before breaking through to the Finals, Pritchard’s teams won between 34 and 48 games, churning through competitive but non-great teams before landing on the right mix. He was given the time to find that mix.

If Kleiman began his first Grizzlies build with the boost of back-to-back top-five picks, Presti had an even more fortuitous foundation. 

Presti took over the Thunder — then the Seattle Sonics, actually — the summer the team landed No. 2 pick and future Hall of Famer Kevin Durant. The Thunder added the fourth and third picks, respectively, in the next two strong drafts, which brought in Russell Westbrook and James Harden. 

That’s three future league MVPs with three straight top-four picks, one of the strongest cores of young talent ever assembled. Few teams have ever been set up as well. The Thunder made one NBA Finals with that trio, losing in five games. 

Calkins: Jaren Jackson had to be traded. Because it’s time for the Grizzlies to start again.

When that group broke up — prematurely most would say — Presti’s second build was more transitional, an attempt to add veteran talent to the remaining Westbrook. 

After his second build quickly stalled Presti began his third build, one that began with less good fortune than the first. Six years later — including three straight non-playoff seasons along the way — it was this more difficult build that brought a title to Oklahoma City. The third time around, Presti did a better job with less. Maybe his luck was better. Maybe he grew in the job. Nothing’s guaranteed, but part of Oklahoma City’s success was the faith to let Presti operate through three cycles. 

That’s the choice the Grizzlies face with Kleiman, who won Executive of the Year in his early 30s and is embarking on this second build before he’s turned 40. His management team has already shown a good eye for draft evaluations and an attention to transactional detail and smooth front-office processes. 

Can they clean up a bad injury record going forward? Can they land some higher-impact trades and/or signings if needed? Can they learn from and improve on management and communication problems of the past? 

Kleiman doesn’t have to be Presti. He’s made mistakes and will make more. (If you look closely, even Presti’s made plenty.) Kleiman and his front office have to be good, and right now a better bet than the uncertainty of an alternative. 

The resume is mixed — any lengthy one is — but it’s strong enough to warrant a chance to lead the next build.