Which Memphis Grizzlies players are primed for an important offseason?

Which Memphis Grizzlies players are primed for an important offseason?

If the Grizzlies want to take that next step, they want to be that team in the Western Conference that’s going to take that leap into the upper echelon or whatever you want to call it. Three players on the current roster stand out to me as guys who have a lot of room for improvement. I’m not talking about J. I’m not talking about Dez. I’m not talking about Jiren. Three other guys can drastically raise the team ceiling if they do what we’re about to talk about. Let’s get into it. Let’s talk about those guys and what they have to do coming up here on Locked on Grizzly. You are Locked on Grizzlies, your daily Memphis Grizzlies podcast, part of the Locked On podcast network, your team every day. What’s going on everyone and welcome back to Locked On Grizzlies. I am your host today, Deco Cole, beat writer for the Commercial Appeal right here in Memphis, Tennessee. Going solo without my co-host Joe Mullenax. He’s getting a day off. We both got a day off on yesterday. I hope you guys didn’t miss us too much. Uh but we’re back. Maybe you didn’t miss us, but I I hope you missed us. I hope you missed us a little bit because uh if you missed us, that mean we’re doing something okay here. But anyways, we’re back here on Locked on Grizzies. Appreciate you guys for tuning in to Locked on Grizzlies each and every day. Make sure you continue to tune in to Locked On Grizzlies. Whether that’s Apple, Apple Podcast, Spotify, Stitcher, wherever you listen, wherever you watch, make sure you continue to like, rate, review, comment, subscribe, all those good things. Locked on Grizzlies as we’ve recently reached 5K subscribers and we’re on the up and up. Like, we’re only going up from here. Uh, the Grizzlies got a few players. Speaking of going up from here, the Grizzlies got a few players uh that’ll definitely go up from here. and how much those players go up and the progression of those quote unquote ups will be big indicators in the team success no matter who they go out to get in free agency no matter who uh they trade for because I mean a couple of these guys at least I don’t really see any of these guys that I’m about to talk about really getting traded um but before we get into those names I want to kind of throw some names away like like not throw names away literally but like we’re focusing on three guys this episode. So, I want we’ll touch on a couple other names uh before we kind of dive into those names. And and you know, like I said at at the intro in the intro of the show, uh we’re not going to talk much about John Mar, Desmond Van, Jiren Jackson Jr. Uh teaser, we’re going to talk about those dudes 100 times over this off season. uh in May and June and July and August and September and all the way up till the season gets here in October. We’re going to talk about those dudes all off season long. So, you don’t got to worry about that. Uh these guys that I’m going to talk about today, they’re going to be talked about a decent amount as well. But when you think about improvement, right, and if you look it up and statistically speaking in whether it’s football, whether it’s basketball, uh I don’t know if this is really the case in baseball, but for the most part in in sports like basketball and um basketball and football, players make their most improvement. The biggest leap comes from year one to year two. That’s when things slow down mentally. That’s when you can kind of uh you progress a little bit more physically and uh you start to get a better understanding of what I need to do to stay and compete and to be confident at this level. Uh the Grizzlies have a few guys that that meet those qualifications. We’re going to talk about some of those guys here. Uh we’re not going to talk much about Cam Spencer just yet. Uh we will talk about Cam Spencer over the course of the offseason. Real good three-point shooter. uh who I think is kind of in position to, you know, replace uh Luke Canard in that role uh for the Grizzlies as that three-point marksman coming off the bench who can make an impact. Uh so we’re not going to talk about him necessarily yet. There are some other guys who I think could be impactful. You know, me and Joe MX both have been high on Vince Williams Jr. He’s someone we talked about in the past about what can he do for the Grizzlies? How can he continue to improve and and get back to being 100% healthy? And it’s it’s a question mark for me because Vince Williams at the end of the season said he was 80%. And if that truly was the case, uh it made sense as to why he looked the way he did down the stretch did not look like the Vince Williams that we saw last season, you know, causing all the havoc and and all of those things. He didn’t look like that same player. So, uh he’s someone that, you know, there is room for improvement uh on his end as well. But we’re focusing on three guys this episode. The first one is is pretty much a layup and he was a rookie of the year finalist and he’s going to be rookie of the year. I mean, he’s going to be first team all rookie when when that announcement comes out. And that player is Jaylen Wells. Uh Jaylen Wells, his rookie season is just best described as solid. like, and we’ll dive into the numbers here as we go through uh this episode, but if you look at Jaylen Wells rookie season, he wasn’t really spectacular at anything statistically speaking. I mean, he was a spectacular find for the Grizzlies, right? Like I mean, they’ve talked about it how uh in the organization this was a guy they expected, oh, you know, give him some reps in the G-League and we’ll see how he comes along over the course of the season. It it only took a few games into the regular season where the Grizzly said, we we got something here. and he played the first 79 games of the season before that wrist injury uh you know the facial laceration and those things ended uh his rookie season. 79 games played over 10 points per game, 35% shooting from three-point range. Uh what a terrific find at the 39th overall pick that Jaylen Wells was. I got three areas. It’s really two. the the second bullet point will kind of be an extension of of a couple things, but here is how Jaylen Wells makes that jump because let’s get out the way that he is interested in playing in the summer league. He wants to go play in the summer league. He not only wants to go play, he wants to go win the thing. So, if you’re you’re looking at him being one of those players that goes play a couple games like, “All right, sit him down.” Like, Jaylen Wells wants to go down there and compete. But with all that being said, here here are the areas that stand out for me when you talk about Jaylen Wells. This one isn’t going to be talked about as much, but it’s a it’s a big one for me because uh we’re talking about raising this team to the next level, right? We’re not talking about the Grizzlies being a solid team, and that’s going to be the theme over the course of this offseason. Uh you want to be a championship level team. I mean, look at the Western Conference right now. Like, you got a bunch of teams that feel like they can win championships uh sooner rather than later. So, with all that being said, uh the first thing for me when it comes to Jaylen Wells is strength. strength and and and more particularly on the defensive end. Um if you watch him this year, you like 67 roughly 205 pounds or so. Jaylen Wells is is naturally a two guard to me. He he’s naturally a two, but again cuz he’s 67. He has those long arms. He has good measurables to match up against a lot of, you know, wings in the NBA. But there are certain matchups where he kind of didn’t have a lot of success because it was against those more physical, the bulkier guys. Uh LeBron James, you know, earlier in the season had some success against him. Luca when he played for the Mavs earlier this season, uh had some success against Jaylen Wells. And that’s two guys that just popped at the top of my head. And I mean, good thing they’re both on the same team right now. Good thing in one end and not a good thing on the other end. But, um, with that being said, here’s the thing. Uh, Jaylen Wells already moves very well laterally. If you go look at his best defensive performances, he held Steph Curry to one of the worst games of his career this season guarding him. He held Damen Lillard to one of the worst games of his career guarding him earlier this season. Uh Jaylen Wells had some standout performances, but his best performances tend to come against those quicker guards, right? Those guys who, you know, move well laterally, uh smaller guys, that aren’t going to try to back you up and, you know, hit you in the chest a couple times. And in the case of, you know, LeBron or Luca or even, you know, to a lesser degree, a guy like a James Harden, uh those guys are going to do just that. And I think as we continue to, you know, get over the course of Jaylen Wells career, as long as he’s playing the three, right, as long as John Marin and Desmond Bane is your back court, you’re going to need him to guard a lot of games he’s going to be guarding the top perimeter options and and sometimes those will be those bigger, those bulkier type scores. That’s when you’re going to need him to put on that extra strength and to be prepared for those type of matchups. I think that’ll naturally happen, right? talking about got a guy who’s 21 years old, uh, very young. It’ll happen. It’s not really a big deal. It’s just something that I’m keying in on when we talk about Jaylen Wells and his potential improvement. The next thing for me, Jaylen Wells, is pretty easy. Been kind of alluding to for a while when we talk about Jaylen Wells and his progression, and it’s playmaking. And I want to make a couple points here as we talk about Jaylen Wells on the playmaking side. Um, number one is he averaged 1.7 assists per game. uh this past season, only four games this year with five or more assists. Now, I’m going to play devil advocate to my own thing that I want him to improve at. He didn’t get a lot of playmaking opportunities within this offense. If you watch Jaylen Wells, a lot of his shots spot up, you know, uh off the dribble, attacking closeouts, things like that. Like, there wasn’t a lot of a hey Jaylen Wells got the ball at top of the key, you know, everybody space the floor, let him cook. That wasn’t really a thing. But, um that wasn’t a thing. that wasn’t a thing even in summer league with him either last year as a rookie. So, I want to see as he get in summer league. I want to see the Grizzlies put the ball in his hands. This is something we saw with Desmond Bane. We saw the Grizzlies tried it with Zra Williams and it didn’t work, which is why he’s no longer playing here. But, um I want to see Jaylen Wells take that next step as a playmaker. That’s how his ceiling becomes that of more than just a solid starter, right? And here’s the blessing in disguise. um in this thing for Jaylen Wells where you talk about the injury. Uh the injury put a cast on his right wrist, but guess what? Jaylen Wells never left the gym. He never left the gym. He just said, “Okay, can’t use my right hand. Guess what? Going to work on my left hand. And I’m gonna work on my left hand to the point where he was joking about shooting left-handed jumpers in summer league. And but not overly joking. Not not to the point where he wasn’t joking to the point where I thought like, oh, it’s completely impossible for him. Like he was joking about it, but he was saying it in a way where like I no, I really think I can actually do it. him getting this injury, which will allow him to work on that left hand a little bit more consistently and and and have that emphasis, and it’s going to naturally make him better with the ball in his hands because teams aren’t going to be able to jump on one hand. Uh it’s going to make him better adept at finishing going left, finishing going right. It’s going to make him more unpredictable to guard, which is naturally going to make him become a better playmaker in the process. And another step to that playmaking, I said it’s it’s two things. Uh the other one is scoring around the rim. That is something I want to see him uh get better at as well. And that goes again with having a stronger left hand because now if teams can’t say, “Oh, Jaylen’s going to drive to the right.” Uh you can’t really predict which way he’s going to go. He’s already crafty. I I love the way he uses the slow step when he attacks to the rim. So, he has some craftiness. But this season, not only did Jaylen Wells have 1.7 assists per game, 1.7 free throw attempts per game. The playmaking is such a big deal to me because it’s not because he’s going to have the ball in his hands, you know, for 40 pick and rolls next seasons, uh, but when you talk about the playoffs, when you get towards the end of the season and teams are keying in on John, right? And then Desmond Bane, you have him as a secondary facilitator, but you need another option. I mean, we look, Desmond Bane can be prone to turnovers at time, but Desmond Bane is is a good facilitator against certain matchups. You need to have multiple options. And that’s that’s what makes some teams stand out. That’s why I mean, you look at that Boston Dallas playoff uh NBA Finals matchup last season. That was kind of the thing, right? You know, you double Luca uh they have Kyrie Irving, you know, as an outlet. Austin has several guys, Jaylen Brown, Jason Tatum, you know, Derek White, Drew Holidayiday, all who can operate as secondary facilitators, if not the primary option. Uh, if you take a big look at the Jaylen Wells shooting chart, you’re you’re going to see a lot of yellow. You’re not going to see a lot of green. You’re not going to see a lot of red. You’re going to see, oh, as a corner three-point shooter, he’s roughly around league average. Mid-range area, roughly around league average. Uh, in the paint, roughly around league average. Uh beyond the three-point line, same thing around league average. So 35% as a three-point shooter this year. I believe the league average overall for three-point shooting this year was 37% which was well beyond recent season. Recent season has been around 35%. But the main thing here is with Jaylen Wells, uh the playmaking to me is the biggest key in his ascension as a player for the Grizzlies. If he becomes a better secondary playmaker, guess what? Go trap John Moran if you want to. You can pass it out to to Jaylen Wells. And when teams have those strong aggressive closeouts, he’s going to be comfortable driving to the right, driving to the left, finishing if he has to, drawing contact, drawing fouls, kicking it out. A lot of things that we didn’t see in his game. And that’s what summer league is going to be for for me. I don’t want to see Jaylen Wells just spacing the floor in summer league, catching catching, shooting three-pointers and things like that. We see that in the regular season. I want to see him with the ball in his hands. Say, “Everybody get out of the way. Zagita, come here. Come give me this screen.” That’s what I want to see. and that’s how he takes his game to the next level. And this isn’t anything new. This is something you see across the league. Uh when when guys come in, have nice rookie seasons, you say, “Okay, we need them to expand their offensive roles, their defensive roles in order for this team to go to the next level.” That’s the next step for Jaylen Wells. 100% playmaking above all else. We got to talk about his rookie mate and his teammate, uh Zack Edy, in the next segment here on Locked on Grizzlies. Before we get to that, today episode of Locked Thed on Grizzlies is brought to you by Open Phone. If you’re running a business, you know that every missed call is money left on the table. Think about the last time you had an urgent need, whether it was for a plumber or or a service provider or the weather’s been out in Memphis lately. So, you your Wi-Fi might have went out or whatever it was, the last time you had an urgent need. And guess what? If the first person didn’t answer, did you wait? probably not. You You just moved on. And that’s why you need Open Phone. Open Phone is the number one business phone system built to streamline and scale your customer communications all from an app on your phone or computer. Open Phone lets me manage uh business calls and texts from a single app. The shared inbox feature is a game changer. You your team can jump into any conversation instantly without missing a beat. Open Phone is offering my listeners right now. It’s offering my listeners 20% off your first six months at openphone.com/lockton NBA. That’s openphone.com/lockedonba. O pen n pho ne.comona. And if you have existing numbers with another service, open phone will port them over at no extra charge. Open phone, no missed calls, no missed customers. Zack Edy had a terrific rookie season as well as Jaylen uh did. They both did, but Zack Edy, I think he’ll still be first team all rookie. I had him first team all rookie on my ballot. So, we’ll see if that’s going to be the case. But there are some holes in Zach’s games and game. And when Zack Kleimman spoke about Zack Edit in his exit interviews, it was the biggest thing that I agreed with that he said um when he spoke about and he was speaking in a good way about Zachi, you know, very confident about what he saw from Zachi this season. And Zack Kleimman said basically everyone talks about the mistakes that Zacky makes because his mistakes are loud. And I understood instantly. I didn’t need further clarification. I I understood instantly what he meant by that because it’s something I’ve said in different wording and kind of have thought over the course of Zack Ed’s rookie season. When you watch him, right, when you watch Zach Edi, you see him on the perimeter, 7 foot4, 270, 80, 90 pounds, isolated against those guards and and and you see him in the paint. I mean, he’s he’s a giant. It’s easy to see when he makes a mistake as opposed, you know, when when two guards run at the same guy and you’re like, “Oh, which which guard, you know, made the mistake.” It’s it’s just being that big guy, being that rim protector put on that island, so to speak, when when guys are constantly attacking you. It’s much easier to see when Zack Edy is making mistakes. But guess what? Zack Edy early on in the season showed me something early in the season. And this is when I said, “It’s going to be good. I don’t know if he’s going to be great. I don’t know if he’s going to be, you know, like Shaq or anything like that, but he he gets it. He’s going to be a really good basketball player. That first game against the Lakers, I if you’re one of those people who’s into re-watching old games from the regular season, this was a Grizzlies loss uh in in Los Angeles. Go rewatch the fourth quarter of that game. Zack Edy up to that point was dominating that game. came into the game, shifted it. Well, I forget what what he was plus, but I’m pretty sure he was plus double digits or something at that point. And then the Lakers just went LeBron AD pick and roll right at Zack Edit back to backcreening Zack Edit. Uh putting him in these actions and I talked to him after the game said, “Man, have you seen that before?” And Zack Edi said, “No, I haven’t, but I’ll be ready the next time it happens.” Looked me dead in my eye. Didn’t blink. didn’t look down. I’ll be ready next time it happens. And I point that out because that was the theme throughout his rookie season when he made mistakes. It was like, all right, I see it now. And that was the difference between the rookie seasons of Jaylen Wells and Zach Heiti. Whereas Jaylen Wells, I described it as solid. Jayen Wells was just rock solid most of the season. He had the shooting slump at the end of the year, but overall, even then, he was still being impactive impactful as defender. He was just rock solid. He He never had a month where it was like, “Oh, this is a insane scoring month or defensive month or anything like that.” Whereas with Zack Edit, he’d have a good month. Then he had month it was like, I don’t know. Then he had money he barely played and he wasn’t playing much in the fourth quarter. Then he had the last two months of the season where I mean he averaged what nine and a half points, 15 rebounds. I mean he he peaked at the end of the season is my point. Jayden Wells didn’t peak at the end of the season. Jay Wells just was more just just straight lineing it for the most part. just straight lines just uh whereas Zack Edy, he was going up and down, up and down, and then he just went massively up at the end of the season. But here’s the thing with Zack Edy here. Here’s what I want to see. Well, here’s what he wants to see. I want to point that out first because this this was interesting to me when we we talked to Zack Edy at the end of the season and he said lateral agility and explosiveness are are are a couple areas that he wants to improve in. Well, that that’s pretty obvious because you’re going to see over the course of his career, guys are going to put Zack Edy on that island. They’re going to test out that lateral agility, those quick twitchy guards. Uh, and Edy talked about this too to me early in the season about how he’s learning the angles, right? Sometimes you got to know like these dudes, look, he’s never going to be as quick as a lot of guards in NBA, no matter how much better he gets with his explosiveness or his lateral agility. Some guards are just shifty. They’re 6’2, 63, 6’4. Like, it’s just it’s it’s it’s science. But how he can overcome that and how the best bigs do overcome that is their ability to use space to their advantage, angles to their advantage, knowing, hey, this guy’s more likely to go right. So, when a guy does a snatchback and he does a pullback on the dribble, you know, when he pulls back, he’s going to more than likely go right after he does the pullback. and you just slide your feet, beat them to the spot. It it’s learning those angles that Zach Edy has talked about. So, that’s more of kind of just mentally uh learning the personnel, learning the players, learning their tendencies, and that’s something I could see him really improving at. But here’s the big one for me. We talked about playmaking for uh we talked about playmaking for for Jaylen Wells. Zack Edy inside score. Look, the numbers the numbers won’t lie. Zachie was inefficient as a big man scoring around the rim this season. He was not good at it. It was just overall over the whole course of the season. And I remember there were a lot of you, there were a lot of Grizzlies fans who kept saying, “Get Zack Edy the ball on the inside.” And the Grizzlies, this is in the Taylor Jenkins, they they weren’t really getting him the ball. And look, I I’ll whisper it because some people probably still disagree, but I didn’t really have a problem with that. That wasn’t one of the main issues for the Grizzlies to me. Uh just not getting Zach the ball because at the at the time at the time when they did give him the ball, it wasn’t really resulting in points. This is what the numbers say now. Don’t don’t don’t come at me like Michael, you’re wrong. Because I look I I do think we saw towards the end of the season uh that Zack Edy can thrive as a rim runner. He can thrive catching alleys, getting offensive rebounds, slamming it back, occasional, you know, uh, mismatches and and duck downs and things like that. But we didn’t see some of the stuff we saw at Purdue where it’s 7 seconds on the shot clock, everybody get out of the way, post them up, go to the hook shot, left hand, right hand, automatic, left shoulder, right shoulder, automatic. We didn’t see that. The hook shot was not automatic. And the hook shot was something I heard a lot about before the season. Something that you guys heard a lot about before the season was the Zack ED hook shot. And I mean, let’s get into the numbers because people probably like, “Dicho, what what are you talking about? You you don’t know what you’re talking about.” I wrote about this. Go check out the full story over at commercialappeel.com where I talked about Jaylen Wells, Zack Edy, and the guy we’re going to talk about in a third segment here. But here’s what I said in the story. Um, Edy shot 73.9% at the rim. Basically dominant at the rim. That’s well above league average. I think league average was 66.4% at the rim. But when you remove the restricted area, basically inside the the circle right at the rim, when you remove that, when you basically the other paint scoring opportunities, the nonrestricted area paint scoring opportunities, which is where he took a lot of those hook shots, Zack Edy shot 39.5%. I’m going to say that again. 73.9% right at the rim. 39.5% when you talk about paint shots. We’re still talking about shots that were in the paint, but they were outside of the restricted area. By comparison, who who are a couple guys that we typically talk about? We say, “Oh, Zakiti can, you know, I’ve heard Yonis Valenunis. I’ve heard Visa Zubac. That’s one that he likes.” And I mean, Zubac is kind of something you should should thrive to be at this point with as well as he played uh this year. But using those players by comparison, we’re talking about paint shots out outside of the restricted area. Zubac shot 53.6% on paint shots outside of the restricted area. Valenunis was 51.8%. You could even use Jiren Jackson Jr. paint shots outside of restricted area because we saw him do a lot of left-hand hook shots, right hand, all that 51.4%. So Zubac 53.6%. Valon Chun 51.8%. Jiren Jackson Jr. 51.4%. Zack Edy 39.5%. That can improve. He has to touch. I mean, I I don’t have a a doubt in my mind that he does have the touch. Uh but I think he knows where he can improve in that area the most. And it’s strength. And that’s why when he said this during his exit interview, the light bulb came in my head. It’s like he gets it because I don’t even know if people really noticed it, but he said that he basically wants to put on weight and and maintain, you know, he kind of still wants to be able to move very well and all those things. But when some people hear Zach putting on, they’re like, “Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. Now you’re already about 280, 290.” Like, putting on weight. What do you mean? But I think he’s just talking about muscle, being able to move guys the way he did at the collegiate level to make those hook shots a little bit easier. Zack E, a lot of times this year he was either off balance on those hook shots because of those the strength of those guys or he was just simply just moved off of his spot and had to take a long hook shot. those things stood out to me and I want to see him continue to grow in in in that area and that’s what summer is going to be for. I think uh Zack Edy as he becomes a better low post scorer and becomes that type of player, it takes his game to another level, but it takes the Memphis Grizzlies game to another level as well because if he’s making those hook shots, guess what? Teams are going to be scared to switch. And if teams are scared to squit, um that John Morant, Zack Edy, pick and roll becomes that much more dynamic and everything else that the Grizzlies uh can do off of the fact that um you know, Zack Edy has the ability to dominate those switches because of his ability to make those hook shots at better efficiency uh next season. Speaking of better efficiency, that’s the number one thing for GG Jackson. We’re going to talk about how GG Jackson can improve in that area coming up here on Locked on Grizzlies. GI Jackson is entering his third season. The first two guys we talked about were are going to be entering their second years and I think it’s important to kind of group GI with these guys because he didn’t really have much of a second season. You know, started the year injured, we got a really late start to the year. We’re talking late January comes in and then when the Grizzlies made the coaching change, I mean, it was already tren trending that way when Taylor Jenkins was the coach, but um well, not just trending that way. I mean, he was sent down to the G-League when Taylor Jenkins was the coach, but the minutes were already gone for GD Jackson. It didn’t change when came in. Iselo didn’t really play him. Now, we talked on, you know, the defense, right? We talked about defense. We talked about the efficiency aspect. You know, GG Jackson shot below 40% this year. He shot 42% as a rookie overall from the field. Um, defensively, he graded out as one of the Grizzlies worst players. But here’s the thing about defense. And um, when when I think defense, I’m I’m looking at the measurables of guys. First and foremost, Gi Jackson 69, 220, 230. Um, I think I mean we’re we’re talking a kid who’s what 20 years old. There’s much more meat on the bone there. Much more room for him to grow as he continues to fill out, which we saw is I mean, if you look at his body from season 1 to season two, uh, if he continues to take that type of league, I mean, season 3, this guy’s going to be uh, pretty built. But um I I think um that’s something that that everyone’s going to kind of focus on with GG. But I’m going to go in a different direction. I want to see GG improve in this area specifically and it’s a a weakness of his game. Uh one that I think is very correctable and one that I think uh kind of elevates him to the next level. Touch touch around the basket offensively. I was looking into the numbers of, you know, what went wrong with GG. And and if you look at his three-point numbers, rookie year, he was roughly league average. Even this season, his three-point numbers are roughly league average. But as soon as you get inside the ark, red mid-range, red in the paint, red, restricted area, red. It’s a lot of red for a guy who’s 69, for a guy who’s nimble. And I said, why is that the case? But if you watch GG Jackson, uh there are a lot of euro steps in there. uh it’s it’s not a lot of strong finishes and quite frankly he’s pretty young so he’s still filling out but you don’t see many floaters. You you don’t see um you know the touch that he needs to to get to the next level. And this was a problem with his overall jump shot too right when he came in the league. And he credited Anthony Carter u with the idea of putting more arc on his three-point shots to become a better three-point shooter. It’s worked. Gigi Jackson has become a better three-point shooter than he was at the collegiate level and that he was really known for to be coming out of high school because of that uh fact that, you know, he’s made some mechanical adjustments to his jumper, but one of the main things that’s visibly easy to see is the fact that he’s put more arc on his three-point shot. Now, with that being said, here’s the numbers. Uh when when you talk about shooting at the rim this season, it wasn’t pretty. 47.4% inside the restricted area. We just talked about Zack Edy, you know, being dominant in there over 73%. Gigi Jackson was 47.4%. Point blank range. League average is 66.4%. He was 20 percentage points worse than the rest of the league. You’re talking about 12 of 42 on paint shots outside of the restricted area. So again, we’re talking about touch. If you if you get to outside the restricted area, 12 of 42, now you’re below 30%. And guess what? You go to his rookie year, it wasn’t much better. As as great as that rookie year was from a scoring standpoint that GI Jackson had, second team all rookie. Um, I mean, he was the bright spot on the Grizzlies, right? If you go to his paint scoring, nonrestricted uh area shots, 20 of 67, that’s 29.9% as a rookie. Gigi Jackson 69. That can’t be the case. When he gets in the paint, you should say, “Oh, it’s money. Either he’s getting fouled, he’s about to yam on somebody, or he’s going to shoot a floater and and he’s just going to shoot over top of dudes.” That’s the next area of evolution for GD Jackson. He’s league average as a three shooting shooting the three ball. He’s league average and he’s probably going to continue to progress in that area. Uh he’s got the wiggle. Like that’s why this is such a emphasis for me. Gi Jackson is one of the few guys on the Grizzlies roster. And I do mean that. One of the few guys on the Grizzlies roster where it’s 7 seconds on the shot clock get out of the way and he can get to the rim because of the wiggle that he has because of his ability to create off the dribble. He can do that. A lot of guys on the Grizzlies roster can’t do it. Not at the NBA level. So, the thing is he has to be able to break down the defense, right? I want to see him take the leap, break down the defense, get to the basket, shoot a floater over top of the defense, an efficient floater. Break down the defense, go to the rim, two hands on the basketball, driving to the chest of a big, finishing through the contact or drawing the foul. That’s the next step. for Gi Jackson. You want to see Gi Jackson become a consistent double digit scoreer in this league, which he’s very capable of doing, I guarantee you that’s going to have to be the area that he takes a leap in. And naturally, if you get more touch in the paint, there’s going to be more touch on the mid-range jumper, which is something that, you know, again, statistically speaking, he’s in the red. He’s well below league average in that area as well. But those three guys are guys that I want to focus on in this episode. more specifically Jaylen Wells because he’s going to be in the starting lineup more than likely and he has the ability to take that next step. Uh these are also three guys that that want to play in the G- League. I mean, excuse me, oh, not G-League, three guys that want to play in summer league and uh potentially we could see them uh this summer. We’ll see how that that plays out and what that means going forward for the Memphis Grizzlies. So, that’s something I’m going to keep an eye on as we continue to get closer to July when summer league play gets here. Thank you for making locked on grizzes your first listen today. For your second listen, check out the locked on NBA game night. Every game, every night, until an NBA champion is crowned. Get local announces on a national scale. Find NBA game night on locked on NBA on YouTube or wherever you listen to podcast. Want to appreciate you guys and thank you for tuning in to Locked on Grizzlies with me on today. We’ll be back tomorrow. We’ll be back to talk more to break down more that’s going on with these players. Uh what’s going on with the Grizzlies. We got a lot to talk about. I mean, the Western Conference playoff, I’m I’m learning some things right now. I mean, the West is it’s very intense. You got teams uh I mean, a lot of the favorites are are losing right now, but you know what? That’s kind of been the theme uh over the second second round of the playoffs. And it’s also eye opening, right? because Zack Clement said the Grizzlies weren’t close, but then Oklahoma City Thunder, who swept the Grizzlies, came out and lost their first game in the second round after looking like u a super team against the Grizzlies at least through the first two games. You know, John Morant said they he had them figured out they could have won those last two games. So, I guess we’ll never know. But we’ll talk more about the Grizzlies and their progression in this West Conference. And we’re going to talk about some of those key players as we did with Jaylen Well, Zach and Gigi Jackson in this episode. Thank you guys for tuning in to Locked on Thorn Gri’s day. Make sure you continue to make Lock on Grizz your first and listen each and every single day. But until next time, remember that Locked on Grizz is free and available wherever you get your podcast. I’m Demco Cole and we’ll see you on Locked on Grizzlies.

Jaylen Wells, Zach Edey and GG Jackson have big summers ahead. In this episode, host Damichael Cole breaks down why each player’s offseason progress is important in Memphis.

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