How Ja Morant, Memphis Grizzlies fit into NBA's 'changing of the guard' | Giannotto

Charles Barkley said only four names. 

Anthony Edwards. Luka Doncic. Shai Gilgeous-Alexander. Jayson Tatum. 

He stopped there to start TNT’s “Inside the NBA” postgame show earlier this week, when the discussion that’s all the rage in these NBA playoffs came up once again.

There’s a "changing of the guard" under way. That’s the prevailing theme through almost one round of this postseason. 

And if this were a couple years ago, Barkley probably would have included Ja Morant. He probably would have mentioned the Memphis Grizzlies as a group that could step into the vacuum the inevitable decline of LeBron James, Steph Curry and Kevin Durant leaves behind.

Except Barkley isn’t saying that. Nobody outside of Memphis is really saying that anymore. Nobody but Grizzlies fans, Grizzlies players and Grizzlies management are including the Grizzlies in that conversation at the moment.

That doesn’t make it right. That's just a function of not being a playoff team.

But making sense of that – of being not hated or loved, but largely just ignored – is what everybody with a rooting interest in the Grizzlies has been forced to do during this postseason.  

Where does Memphis fit into this “changing of the guard” in the NBA? Nobody can actually know the answer yet, even though the answer will define this group's legacy. Waiting on it is that much harder after having to sit through what this season became for the Grizzlies. 

Memphis got a taste of what Morant, Desmond Bane and Jaren Jackson Jr. might accomplish and it still can’t say for sure when the next bite will come.

These playoffs have shown the Grizzlies' trio to, theoretically, be of similar structure to the best teams in the West, particularly while Jackson is on a contract with declining salaries of about $25 million and $23 million the next two years. But the landscape seems more treacherous than before. James, Curry and Durant are still viable enough, but Gilgeous-Alexander, Edwards and Doncic seem ready now, too.

Just this week, New Orleans Pelicans General Manager David Griffin talked to reporters about the “historically great Western Conference” that emerged almost simultaneously with the Grizzlies’ unfortunate detour. He even alluded to teams like Memphis that aren’t in the playoffs but he expects to “get radically better this offseason.” 

In 2022-23, Memphis was one of just three Western Conference teams to win more than 45 games when it finished second in the West. This season, the Golden State Warriors were the last Western Conference play-in team with 46 wins. 

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What’s obvious already is the NBA forgets quickly when you play only nine games in 370 days-and-counting like Morant, and the league moves on to new narratives when you aren’t in the playoffs. 

Guards like Edwards, Gilgeous-Alexander, Jalen Brunson and Tyrese Haliburton have all either done, or sit one win away from doing, what Morant and these Grizzlies did before them – win a playoff series. Teams like Oklahoma City and Minnesota — teams Memphis catapulted past not long ago — are the rosters NBA observers envy now. The Thunder have even inadvertently (or not?) copied the Grizzlies' postgame interview celebration gimmick.

If Morant can get back to playing 65 or more games per season, if he can stay healthy in the playoffs – and those ifs loom larger than anything Morant has or hasn’t changed off the court – the bet here is the NBA quickly remembers what it saw just a couple years ago.  

It’ll remember that Morant won a playoff series over Edwards. That he scored 47 points twice and 45 points once over 19 career playoff games, and has two 35-point performances in play-in games. That he has one playoff triple-double and three other playoff games in which he was either one rebound or one assist away from a triple-double. That his playoff averages in points (27.3) and assists (8.6) would rank among the top 10 in NBA history if he had played in enough games to qualify for those categories.

Hopefully someday soon, Morant and the Grizzlies can remind everyone they really started the changing of the guard.

You can reach Commercial Appeal columnist Mark Giannotto via email at mgiannotto@gannett.com and follow him on X:@mgiannotto