MEMPHIS, Tenn. (WMC) -The 2025-26 Grizzlies season is upon us, with the Beale Street Bears hosting Media Day on Monday.
The lead duo of Ja Morant and Jaren Jackson Jr. is back, while their former third co-star, Desmond Bane, is gone. New faces have arrived, and a new permanent head coach in Tuomas Iisalo begins his first full season.
After a nosedive to end last season that culminated in a first round sweep at the hands of the eventual champion Thunder, what are realistic expectations for this year’s version of the Beale Street Bears?
“We have a group as we’re kicking off this season that we have a lot of belief in,” says Grizzlies general manager Zach Kleiman. “I think our defensive infrastructure has improved significantly, I think our ball-handling and playmaking ability of this group has improved considerably.
“I think this group is capable of maybe surprising people you know relative to where it’s perceived.”
Despite all the change, All-Star Jaren Jackson Jr. believes this year’s team can be better than the one that had such a sour finish last season.
“Absolutely, that’s what we have to do, that is the goal,” Jackson Jr. says. “I say ‘championship or bust’ every season, that’s how I feel. That I don’t think personally will ever change.”
After taking over for the final nine games of the regular season plus the Play-In Tournament and the playoff series with the Thunder, Tuomas Iisalo was quickly named the permanent head coach after the season ended.
The Finnish native now enters his first season as the full time head coach, with the chance to make the entire operation his own.
“I’ve always prided on that, that our teams have had a very strong identity, and those things really haven’t changed,” Iisalo says. “It’s still going to be fast-paced, very well-organized, and very, very high levels of effort. Those are three things that’ll never go out of style.”
Iisalo’s promotion to interim head coach at the end of the season coincided with a rise in Ja Morant’s production.
Morant is looking forward to a full season in Iisalo’s system.
“I love it,” Morant says of the system. “It fits me.”
Memphis’ biggest free agent add of the offseason was former Cavaliers guard Ty Jerome, who inked a three-year deal to join the Grizzlies over the summer.
“I think my game is kind of the one thing they were looking for this summer,” Jerome says. “I think you always want to go where you’re wanted most.”
As part of the trade that sent Bane to Orlando, the Grizzlies received veteran Kentavious Caldwell-Pope, who’s been a part of championship winning teams with the Lakers and Nuggets since 2020.
He’s hoping to bring some of that pedigree to Memphis.
“We definitely have the talent and the work ethic from what I’ve seen just by being here,” Caldwell-Pope says. “Putting in the work with the guys, we’re ready. We’re ready for the season to start, we’re ready for training camp”
Training camp will begin in Nashville on Tuesday, with the preseason opener next Monday at home against the Pistons.
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