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Someone to fly with: Are Ja Morant and Memphis really built for the championship? - Walla! sport

2022-01-24T12:27:10.697Z


She has a true superstar who recovers the lost respect of the world Westbrooks and a sub-star who will become one of the important players in the league. So why is it still impossible to build on Memphis?


Someone to fly with: Are Ja Morant and Memphis really built for the championship?

She has a true superstar who recovers the lost respect of the world Westbrooks, a sub-star who will become one of the important players in the league, a brilliant manager and a smart coach.

So why is it still impossible to build on Memphis as the NBA's future team?

Ravitz on the reasons for optimism alongside the question marks along the way

Assaf Ravitz

24/01/2022

Monday, January 24, 2022, 2:00 p.m.

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Washington is training with coach Wes Ansald Jr. who has left the Corona Protocol (the Wizards' official website)

Sometimes everything connects to one moment that tells a whole story, after which there is no need to explain anything more. For Ja Morant, it was the block. In Los Angeles, facing the Lakers, in front of LeBron James, the gods decided that Ja belongs to the special breed for which they are willing to suspend gravity. A block with two hands well above the height of the basket, he would have caught the ball if he had not had to be careful that his head did not collide with the board. The block came in the middle of a streak of 11 wins, the longest in the club's history, in which Morant scored 33 points against Phoenix, 36 against Brooklyn, 29 against Golden State and 41 in one of two wins over the Lakers. It's no longer a superstar in the making, it's just a superstar, and the block has proven to be one of the exceptions.



In situations like this it is easy to get carried away by the individual story, to talk about the success of a group through focusing on a star whose time has come to shine. And Ja is one of the sweeping stars in the NBA. First of all, this is a bouncing high-light machine, its extensions near the ring are simply spectacular and its ability to create shot positions for itself from all intermediate ranges is at the highest level. But alone it was not enough. In recent years we have stopped believing in the exciting athletic point guard as a player around whom a team can be built. Players like Russell Westbrook, John Wall and Diaron Fox made us doubt this kind of star. Morant convinces him to wink at another material. He has already significantly improved his shooting from the outside, he knows how to move without the ball and allow others to express himself, he is a leader who sweeps the young players around him. After opening a problematic season in the field, since returning from injury he refuses to be a problem in defense and shows considerable improvement there as well. Really big players can come in any size, type and position, Ja probably belongs to the really big ones.



But the Memphis story is much more than a story about a born star who sweeps his team to the top.

It's a story about a whole system that grew up together with its star.

Memphis currently holds the third balance in the league thanks to smart management, quality coaching and a host of good players in a variety of roles.

While a lot of superlatives have been and will be written about Ja Morant, this article is meant to describe everything around him, the team that by all indications is planning to put a stake in the top of the league for many years to come.

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Turns out he belongs to the really big ones.

Morant (Photo: GettyImages, Justin Ford)

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The exceptional data

Memphis is a very unique group, exceptional in no small amount of data.

One of the most important is that this is the second youngest team in the league, after OKC that spends the season throwing 20-year-olds on the floor and checking to see if they can stand it.

Coach Taylor Jenkins has used 23 players so far this year, the oldest being 28. Out of this bunch, 15 players have played over 200 minutes and serve as rotation players for everything, only three of them over the age of 25. The three senior players on the team - Morant, Jaren Jackson Jr. (Triple J) and Desmond Bain - 22-23.

It's pretty amazing that this is data from the team with the third balance in the league.

Usually young teams that want to make a leap forward bring in veteran players, like Chris Paul and Jay Crowder in Phoenix and the line of experienced players that Atlanta signed last year.

In Memphis, even the veterans are relatively young and can be part of the team even in five years.



The spirit of youth allows Jenkins to use an aggressive defensive method that is based on the ability of his players to touch the ball. The Grizzlies lead the league in both steals (10.2) and blocks (6.4) per game, they are second to Toronto in the amount of deflections per game - touching the ball during an opponent's attack, and first in the amount of free balls they take over in the game (all data are correct for Sunday). Hassel's excellence in defense allows Memphis to run on offense - it leads the league in points in bursts with 16.7 such, Ja especially enjoys running those bursts and there is an athletic and energetic bunch around him who enjoy running with him.



Another area where Memphis is the best team in the league is offensive rebounding, which along with the outbursts makes it the team that scores the most points in color in the league.

When you add that to the fact that it imposes a lot of losses on the opponent thanks to the many kidnappings and itself is very surprisingly good at being able to avoid losses, probably for a young team that creates a mess on the floor, you get the main statistical reason for Memphis' success: it wins big.

In an average game she achieves 3.5 rebounds on offense more than her opponent and loses 1.9 fewer balls, together she has a chance to throw 5.4 more shots from her opponent.

That’s a lot, and that’s the difference between an average team in most areas and a very good team.

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Memphis (Photo: GettyImages, Al Bello)

The assisting staff

A key explanation for Memphis' ability to be so good in several major categories is that general manager Zack Kleiman has gathered sub-players who excel in a specific category and know how to contribute in other places as well. The most obvious example of this is Stephen Adams. The New Zealand center is the best offensive rebounder in an unbeaten league. He leads the NBA with 4.3 offensive rebounds per game even though he plays just 26 minutes, and also leads in the offensive rebound percentage of the 233 rotation players in the league.



Many eyebrows were raised when Kleiman gave up Jonas Valencionas in the summer, after a peak season for the Lithuanian chin, in a trade that brought Adams to Memphis. The trade had additional goals (mostly an increase in draft position that allowed the Grizzlies to pick Zaire Williams), but Adams may justify it on his own. Not only is he primarily responsible for Memphis being the best offensive rebounding team in the league, he is also the player who does all the gray work for the stars. He blocks great in pick n roll with Ja and knows how to position himself in color in a way that allows Morant to get to the ring, he also works great with Desmond Bain in the hand-off game, the coordination between them is wonderful and produces quite a few points each game. Adams is the tough tough guy who's always good to have alongside a small-sized star, it would not surprise me if Memphis wanted to keep him long-term, even though its original plan was to turn Jaren Jackson Jr. into the chin that would eventually open.



On the bench there are a few more players who excel in one important area. Tios Jones, the substitute coordinator, leads the rotation players in the league by a huge margin with an S / Y ratio of 5.40 (Chris Paul II with 4.47). His perfect game management makes Memphis ’second unit one that hardly loses balls. He improved his shooting percentage this year in a way that makes it easier for him to play alongside J in minutes that look good. Another guard, Diantoni Melton, is ranked third among the rotation players in the league in deflections per 36 minutes (after Matisse Teibol and Gary Peyton II). Melton exerts constant pressure on ball carriers and is one of the best catchers in the league.



Brandon Clark needs a paragraph of his own. He has always been considered the king of the floater area - the part of the color that is far from the ring, he seems unable to miss from there. While he is indeed ranked third in the league in this range (among the players who threw at least 50 shots away), he is also ranked in the top 10 in percentages below the basket (at least 100 shots), making him one of the most effective players in the league in color overall. That figure helps Clark be one of the best players in the league in the role of the blockbuster pick n roll, Memphis achieves more than 1.5 points on average when that happens. Clark started the season weak, but in January he starts to realize the huge potential with 13.1 points on 67.8 percent from the field and 1.6 blocks per game. His collaboration with Triple J is also great on offense, where one plays outside and one inside and there are quite a few moves in common between them, and also on defense, where both can both face outside players and defend the ring. In their 297 minutes shared this season they have a net rating of 14.9,This is a very encouraging figure for a young duo who are expected to run together in the coming years.

One of the most effective players in the league in the color area.

Brandon Clark (Photo: GettyImages, Justin Ford)

The sub-stars

So Memphis has a main star and an avenue of sub-players of the kind that big teams love.

What is not yet certain is what it has in the medium term, in the sub-star segment.

If the Grizzlies' numbers 2 and 3 are good enough to develop into numbers 2 and 3 in the championship, it could be that all this team needs is some more time and they are ready to compete for the title as it is.



Therefore, Jaren Jackson Jr. is one of the most important players in the NBA in the coming years.

He's supposed to be Ja's No. 2, but the question is whether he's really evolving into one.

Triple J has a unique set of skills that makes him a very interesting player, but it is not yet clear which of the things he is capable of doing at the highest levels.

Defensively, this is one of the best guards in the league close to the basket.

He blocks excellently with 2.2 blocks per game, and he lowers the players in front of him by 15.4 percent with shots close to the basket, second in the field only to Yannis Antokompo.

He gets along with outside players, which allows him to play as a power forward, but the goal is for him to become the future chin of the team.

To do that he will have to be more physical, deal with both the massive chins in the league, and also get a lot better in the rebounding area.



On offense, Triple J is not just tall who throws threes, he is tall who is able to throw threes in motion with a quick ball release. This makes him a player who can be used in creative ways, as part of complex blocking exercises. He is also able to lead a ball at a certain level and lower players from it to the post, which will make it difficult for him to make substitutions. The question is how effective is it as an outside sling. In his second season, before undergoing a tear in the meniscus that caused him to miss almost the entire of last season, he scored 2.5 threes per game at 39.4 percent, indicating existing potential. But this year he is hitting 1.7 threes at 31.4 percent, and he will have to show that he is able to return to shooting ability from before the injury for defenses to really fear him.



The surprising superstar who popped up this year is second-year player Desmond Bain. The winger selected in the 30th pick scores 17.7 points per game this year, mostly thanks to 2.9 threes at 42 percent. In relation to a threesome expert Bain does not release a ball very quickly, but he knows how to be available for a shot even with a close guard and it seems that nothing interferes with his shot. He knows how to do enough with the ball to not only be considered a threesome expert but a more complete player, and in defense his solid structure helps him deal with wingers effectively. If that's what he does after a year and a half in the league, he can develop into a very quality player over the years.



Bain took the place of Dillon Brooks, who was supposed to be the top scorer alongside Jae.

If Brooks is an overly unscrupulous scorer, one who does not prevent him from missing the bundles, Bain is already a much more effective scorer.

Brooks is currently injured, and rookie Zair Williams' fine inclusion in the top five may cause Jenkins to consider making Brooks a sixth player when he returns, it seems like the right role for him.

Williams himself is a great and athletic winger who does a little bit of everything and is not polished enough to be able to assess whether he has a chance to get into a discussion about Memphis sub-stars in the future.

One of the most important players in the league in the years to come.

Jaren Jackson Jr. (Photo: GettyImages, Justin Ford)

The future is already here?

Memphis has become a top team faster than expected, both thanks to Morant who is willing to lead a big team in his third season and also thanks to the precise puzzle built around him. Kleiman is proving himself to be a brilliant manager, with some bull injury in the draft and very smart decisions in staff building. Jenkins is a coach who knows how to adapt to the players, formulate the right method for them, express their benefits, identify the right teams and use them. Memphis' success is not due to exceptional health: Morant has missed 13 games, Brooks is injured most of the time, Clark is absent for a significant period, at the moment the team is suffering from a corona blow that impairs rotation. The quintet that includes Ja and Brooks managed to play just eight games together, in which Net provided an impressive rating of 17.9.



Despite finishing third in the league, it's too early to think of Memphis as a championship contender. She also does not have to think of herself as such this year, the playoffs will mostly be an opportunity to explore what works in real time. The goal is to build a Contender for many years to come in the near future, and Kleiman will have all the tools to do so as long as the owners are willing to pay the young stars the contracts they deserve. He has already started preparing for future expenses when he gave Triple J a contract that goes down over the years. Since the staff is not laden with high-profile stars, it is assumed that it will be possible to preserve the existing one, at least for the coming years and the first revelation of the contracts after the children's rookie contracts.



The question is whether Memphis should aim for more, should it try to strengthen another significant player in the near future.

This summer the Grizzlies will have a good chance to get stronger, have a place under the salary cap that can help absorb a big contract and will likely have three first-round picks.

Kleiman can build an attractive package for a senior player that is age-appropriate for Ja.

The tendency of a general manager in such a situation is first and foremost to let the existing staff run, but he holds so many future reserves, that it would be a shame to give up an opportunity to seriously fight for the title right now if such a one emerges.

  • sport

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  • Ja Morant

Source: walla

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