NBA Film Room: How Ja Morant, Jaren Jackson Jr. have accelerated the Memphis Grizzlies’ rebuild

Memphis Grizzlies
The Memphis Grizzlies have accelerated their rebuild by finding their “big three” in only two draft classes. (Phantom Designs/Def Pen Sports)

Rebuilds are one of the toughest things for NBA franchises to endure. Some rebuilds, such as the one in Sacramento, continue on and off for a decade, while others, such as the Oklahoma City Thunder’s, manage to quickly transition between eras of contending with veterans and moving toward a younger team with high-potential players. After a miserable 2018-19 season, the Memphis Grizzlies looked as if they were heading toward a long and slow rebuild.

The Grizzlies weren’t just bad last season, they were thoroughly depressing. They played at a sluggish pace and with a total lack of structure on offense. JB Bickerstaff wanted to run a freelance offense based on motion cuts, but all it amounted to was a weird roster mixed with youth and veterans all standing around doing nothing while waiting for other players to make a move. During the year, they said goodbye to Marc Gasol, who was moved to the Toronto Raptors, and Mike Conley parted with the only franchise he had played for as he signed with the Utah Jazz.

With the departure of the final pieces from the grit-and-grind era, it was expected to take time for Memphis to find its feet again. The Grizzlies had Jaren Jackson Jr., who possesses the type of skill set that could make him a top-10 player in terms of overall impact on the game, but one big man is not usually enough to fast-track a rebuild.

Anyone who thought this Memphis team would be bad is being made to look silly, as it currently occupies the eight seed in the Western Conference and is on a 12-4 run since Christmas. This is not to say that it will end the season here, but this is not a bad team by any means, and its rebuild has gone insanely smoothly, to the point that the Memphis Grizzlies might already begin looking to add to what they believe is their “big three.” They took franchise players in back-to-back drafts in years they were trying to win games, and Brandon Clarke fell into their lap in the late first round because NBA teams seem to care more about physical gifts than good basketball players.

Taylor Jenkins deserves insane credit for simply burning JB Bickerstaff’s one-page playbook and installing a creative modern offense that has maximized the skillsets of his young players and the surrounding veterans. It feels crazy to praise a coach for installing a proper offense, but given what Memphis went through last year and also that many young and rebuilding teams run very basic schemes, it’s impressive and has contributed to this surprising season.

Ja Morant was a prospect who obviously received a lot of scrutiny as he was set to be selected high in the draft. Many had concerns about his jump shot mechanics and the fact he was a clueless defender. Just being an athlete does not automatically make you a good defender, even though it does improve your defensive ceiling. But your defensive floor will not be heightened merely because you are athletic. There were some concerns over his decision making, but those could have been contributed to by a supporting cast that he had not shown much trust in.

Morant is not a perfect rookie, but there is no such thing as a perfect basketball player, let alone a perfect rookie. He is averaging 17.5 points and seven assists on an impressive 57% true-shooting percentage. He’s the runaway leader for the Rookie of the Year award and is already propelling himself into the upper tiers of point guards. Even I, as someone who was high on Morant, thought his jump shot would be a problem, as he wouldn’t be able to punish the drop coverage that athletic guards often see because teams don’t want to give them free driving lanes. Morant is shooting 39% from beyond the arc on a small sample size, but what is most impressive about him is his precision, agility and footwork in the half court. He does a lot of things that are very subtle but allow him to navigate the half-court areas. He almost appears to play at a slow pace, with every tiny step being key to him being able to freeze and leverage defenders to maximize driving lanes and space for spot-up shooters. This is how he has essentially eased any real concerns about his early impact as a high-usage offensive engine. His precision and ability to create favorable driving situations have generated easy buckets and justified his usage.

Morant’s creation of separation and understanding of how to manipulate interior defenders and recovering pick-and-roll guards is already elite. The play below showcases this.

The Grizzlies run a basic high pick and roll between Morant and Jonas Valanciunas. After Morant attacks downhill, he stops, backs into Kendrick Nunn and takes a small step to his right. This freezes the underneath defender, Meyers Leonard. What it also does is prevent Nunn from ever truly disrupting his progress. By backing into Nunn, he prevents him from being parallel to him while he is moving to the rim, almost in the same way a screen would work. And the step to his right means Nunn cannot use his long arms to disrupt the floater Morant ends up taking. This is the type of mastery expected from a 10-year veteran, not a rookie point guard. He did something small but very effective, and in real time, to give himself a good opportunity against a packed paint. The screen obviously helped, but he disrupted Nunn on a second occasion, which is what created the open floater attempt.

For a rookie, Morant has showcased the ability to avoid rim protectors and give himself the highest probability of ending possessions with a score. The play below showcases this.

The Grizzlies run their core early offensive action, which is to have Valanciunas set a screen at the top of the key. Morant receives the ball and immediately drives. I have lost count of the amount of times over the years people see Rudy Gobert in the paint and immediately just turn away and try and find something else. Morant carefully plants his left foot and drives slightly away from the basket, which gives him a good angle to finish with his left hand off the glass. He keeps his hand very far to his left, but his footwork helped him maintain balance all the way through the driving motion, which made it impossible for Mike Conley or Rudy Gobert to even get close to him. Morant forced himself left in order to maximize his opportunity. This has arguably been his best area as a rookie. He can do this with either hand, though, as he shows against the Oklahoma City Thunder on the play below, when Nerlens Noel ends up switching onto him. He once again plants his foot and takes himself wide of the basket. He has terrific touch on his finishes.

One of the most important attributes a guard needs to succeed at the top level is the ability to be a weapon at the end of the shot clock. This is purely because, by default, after initial sets have broken down, the ball will go to the lead ball handler, who is expected to go and make a play. One of the potential concerns about Morant coming out was that he may struggle here due to a potential inability to shoot pull-up jump shots and make the correct decision against the high-end athletes in the NBA. Morant’s incredible ability to sell defenders with subtle movements and his ability to then compromise the dazed defenders with precise footwork and flexible drives have rendered concerns about his ability to create consistently against NBA level athletes somewhat irrelevant. The play below is a great illustrator of this.

The Grizzlies default into a five-out set, and Morant uses Clarke’s screen and attacks downhill. From the Suns’ perspective, they had the right type of defense to deter the drive into the paint. Kelly Oubre Jr. is a good defender and was in position to help, but Morant manipulated him. He made a slight move to his left while driving and quickly shifted to his right. Oubre was frozen by the potential threat of a pass to the corner, so Morant ended up with an easy layup. It was subtle, but this is the type of move that has allowed Morant to be so efficient. He turned a potentially contested shot into an open layup because of deception and great acceleration. He makes this stuff look easy. He planted his left foot as a pivot and finished with his right hand on this occasion.

Morant doesn’t just use his masterful acceleration and deception to kill teams on the interior. He has developed a floater, which has been his main weapon against drop coverage. Due to the Memphis Grizzlies having very good spacing, he will see true conservative drop coverage less frequently than other guards. But on the occasions he has seen it, he has gone for the runner as opposed to the pull-up jump shot. He’s shown promise of the floater-zone in his early career, ranking in the 73rd percentile on runners thus far.

On the play below, Morant again takes the screen and backs into Shai Gilgeous-Alexander to make sure he is behind him. He then creates extra space for himself by darting left and shows excellent touch to nail the floater over a very effective drop defender in Steven Adams.

Morant pretty much has a response to everything the defense throws at him at this point. Drop coverage is something many thought he might struggle to beat, especially when faced with NBA length and athleticism on the perimeter. But in reality, he is great at using his body and his footwork to separate from defenders, which is a big reason the floater has been so good for him. On the play below, he hits a floater with ease over Nikola Jokic, showing good acceleration before planting his foot and releasing. His timing on his floaters is excellent, with very few even being contested, let alone blocked.

Taylor Jenkins deserves a lot of credit for designing different ways to get Morant into the paint. On the play below, Morant nails the floater after coming up through two staggered screens from the corner.

It is a great way to get Morant into the paint without just endlessly running high pick and rolls like some teams do. His precision in his drives to the rim are given room to flourish in many ways by the Memphis Grizzlies’ scheme, which initiates offense from everywhere on the court.

Morant’s already a very good driver who excels at using his natural athleticism while not completely relying on it when attacking downhill. He has a variety of good stop-start moves that can manipulate defenders, and he has the ability to adjust his drives to burrow around shot blockers.

Something that has complemented this is his superb passing. He has been on the nightly highlight reels on many occasions, combining his great drives with his quick, intricate passing, which is a big reason that his fakes and use of his eyes to deceive people are so effective.

Morant showed terrific passing ability at college, even if he did sometimes telegraph the passes he was going to make. The ability to hit cutters and shooters in stride and fire into tight windows was something most respected draft analysts thought would translate to the pros. Those analysts appear to have been right. The play below is a showcase of what he does routinely.

He goes left on a Valanciunas screen, but once again, his ability to stop-start creates an open bucket. He freezes Bismack Biyombo, which forces PJ Washington to rotate hard. Morant then dishes to Jackson for a wide-open corner 3. The pass was precise, but he did everything he could to make the look as open as possible. Morant knows Jackson is an elite perimeter shooter, so he walks back down the court, knowing the former Michigan State product won’t miss. The pass was a bullet, and Morant once again uses his eyes to manipulate defenders, firing the pass while looking elsewhere. Against NBA defenses, every second counts, and Morant is expert at creating extra windows of time to set him and his teammates up. He does the same on the play below, where he throws a behind-the-back pass to Valanciunas to punish the “Ice” defense.

Because of Morant’s precise passing, Memphis does not have to use a variety of elaborate ball screens to free up its perimeter shooters. He simply hits guys in stride and draws defenders in. Max Carlin of Celtics Blog called him a “siren” in his pre-draft analysis, and I couldn’t have put it more succinctly myself. He draws defenders in and punishes them as soon as he has used them to give his perimeter guys extra space. Per Cleaning the Glass, Memphis shoot nearly 4% higher from beyond the arc when Morant is on the floor. This difference places him in the 88th percentile, which showcases how he vastly improves the perimeter aspect of Memphis’ offense with his precision.

Even with Morant’s superb passing and dribbling, the Memphis Grizzlies still need great shooters to be as effective on offense as they have been recently. This is where their second building block, Jackson, comes into play. Jackson played well in a horrible situation last season, but due to Memphis being more watchable and an actual good team this year, he may start seeing national attention sooner rather than later.

Jackson is shooting 41% from beyond the arc on the year, which puts him in the 88th percentile for perimeter shooting. His stroke is excellent, and Memphis draws up plays for him as if he were a sharpshooting two-guard.

On the occasion above, Memphis look as if it’s going to run its core early offensive action, which is to send a shooter towards the ball handler off a Valanciunas high screen. From here, the Grizzlies can either attack downhill or get a quick 3-pointer, as defenses fear Valanciunas’ jump shot. Phoenix plays high to prevent this, and Memphis responds by having Dillon Brooks set a screen for a deep Jackson 3-point attempt. This is called a wrinkle, which is essentially a way of protecting your base calls. It shows the prowess of Jackson, because this is the type of deep attempt you’d associate with guys like Trae Young, Damian Lillard and Stephen Curry, as opposed to a big man.

The thing that makes me believe Jackson can be a borderline elite offensive talent is the fact that his 3s are not simply spot-up 3s. This should push him closer to the likes of Karl-Anthony Towns than merely becoming Ryan Anderson or Davis Bertans. He can hit 3s on the move with ease, as he shows in the play below.

This Grizzlies possession isn’t really going anywhere; the Kings defenders are placed in good enough positions, and the other three Memphis players are stationary. Jackson simply makes something happen here as he quickly initiates into a pick and roll and drains the 3 with speed over Dewayne Dedmon. Most big men cannot pull off stuff like this. It allows the Grizzlies to simplify a lot of their late-clock offense because they have a 40%-shooting big who can hit 3s on the move. Simple pick and pops like this could reap rewards for Memphis when it is forced to move away from its frequent transition tendencies. Hitting on-the-move 3s has become the norm for Jackson.

Something that makes me believe Jackson can become even more valuable is the fact that he shows flashes driving downhill. In the modern NBA, you can argue that the power forward is the most essential position in terms of dictating your on-court philosophy. If a team is going with a big power forward, such as Anthony Davis, we refer to its lineup as “traditional.” If it has Robert Covington at power forward, we call this a “small” lineup. The power forward essentially can be used to dictate your opponents’ lineups. If you have a swingman at the four, like the Warriors’ dynasty did with Andre Igoudala, then teams cannot really justify going big against you, as they will get killed with mobility on the defensive end. But on the other hand, if your power forward is a freak of nature, such as Pascal Siakam or Anthony Davis, teams cannot go small against you, or they will get killed inside and on the boards. Toronto’s success was largely because it had two mismatch killers in Kawhi Leonard and Siakam occupying the forward positions.

Memphis has the abilities to play small and play big, both with effectiveness. Jackson is basically the sole reason for this. This is why I had Jackson at No. 1 on my big board before the 2018 NBA Draft. He can be a long-term option at the “five” due to his defensive instincts and perimeter shooting, but he can also be a stretch four with the potential to create instantaneous offense when he is in the half court. This is proven by the fact he ranks in the 82nd percentile as an isolation scorer. If a smaller player is on him, he can bully his way to the rim, and he can punish any center who is uncomfortable outside of drop coverage.

The play below is the type that makes Jackson valuable at the “five.”

Rudy Gobert is generally much more comfortable in the paint than on the perimeter. Memphis exploits this by isolating Jackson on him in a four-out, one-in set. Jackson quickly finds his bearings, then blows past one of the most feared rim protectors of all time, finishing with ease. He can glide to the rim and, due to the spacing Memphis has, this could become a more common thing. He does the same thing to Noel on the play below.

Jackson has a way to go before he becomes a true mismatch nightmare at power forward, but he is just 20 years old. The isolation numbers suggest that there is a legitimate reason to be excited about his development of a destructive inside game that would turn him from the top-50 player that he currently is into a potential top-20 player. His post-up numbers aren’t ideal; he ranks in the 33rd percentile there. He often struggles to stay in control, and he rushes things, whereas his teammate, Valanciunas, is a much smoother post-up guy. Part of it seems to be that Jackson is uncomfortable with his back to the basket, and he sometimes loses awareness of where he is. The play below is an example of this.

Jackson gets isolated against Lauri Markkanen. The Finland native is a solid enough player, but Jackson ends up throwing up a wild hook when he should have had some kind of plan to get to the rim. Jackson has elite touch in terms of perimeter shooting, but he needs to apply some of that touch to being a more effective finisher inside the arc.

He is much better when he can see the hoop in front of him, and this honestly might be enough, as post-ups are declining in importance on offense, now almost solely used to attack mismatches as opposed to being core parts of offensive sets. The great power forwards in the NBA right now are mismatch nightmares, though, so Jackson needs to polish this side of his game before he can become truly elite. But something that works in his favor is no other power forward who is seen to be in this category is even close to being as good a shooter as he is. So again, it must be said that he can become elite with just a couple of marginal improvements and more composure on post-ups.

From a team-building perspective, Jackson gives the team real flexibility, as he is effective at both big-man positions. The Memphis Grizzlies’ current frontcourt rotation gives him opportunities at both positions, and his elite perimeter shooting is valuable in all lineups. Other young bigs, such as Markannen, are merely spot-up shooters at this point, but Jackson has shown enough flashes in one-on-one situations to suggest that he can become an efficient driver and attack closeouts in the future. The assist numbers are low, but this is largely because there are few opportunities there for him. As of now, the majority of his touches come on the perimeter in a four-out, one-in system. There are more opportunities for Valanciunas and the guards to get assists than there are for Jackson.

On the whole, the Memphis Grizzlies have had one of the quicker rebuilds in recent NBA history. Morant and Jackson both have an insane feel for the game, and they make everyone around them better. They are both young players with room to grow, so Grizzlies fans should be very excited. Morant’s shooting numbers are going to be interesting to watch, as he has a very small sample size at the moment, but his precision inside and his ability to simply create high-probability shots for himself and his teammates make him valuable, even if the jump shot takes a decline. Jackson is already an elite 3-point shooter who deserves his “unicorn” label, but his development as an inside scorer is what can make his already high ceiling even higher to reach the levels of the likes of Siakam and Towns.

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