{"id":13540,"date":"2025-05-06T14:43:13","date_gmt":"2025-05-06T14:43:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/13540\/"},"modified":"2025-05-06T14:43:13","modified_gmt":"2025-05-06T14:43:13","slug":"memphis-grizzlies-nba-basketball-history-notable-players","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/13540\/","title":{"rendered":"Memphis Grizzlies | NBA, Basketball, History, & Notable Players"},"content":{"rendered":"

Memphis Grizzlies, American professional basketball<\/a> team based in Memphis<\/a>, Tennessee<\/a>, that plays in the Western Conference<\/a> of the National Basketball Association<\/a> (NBA).<\/p>\n

The Grizzlies played their first game in 1995 and were originally based in Vancouver<\/a> as one of the two Canadian expansion franchises (alongside the Toronto Raptors<\/a>) to join the NBA that year. They were immediately one of the worst teams in the league, winning no more than 19 games in each of their first four seasons and finishing at the bottom of their divisional standings in five of the six years they spent in Vancouver. This prolonged futility took its toll on the Grizzlies\u2019 attendance numbers and profitability, and the team\u2019s ownership moved the franchise to Memphis in 2001 in a bid to increase revenue<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Memphis Grizzlies Results by Season: 2019\u201320 to 2023\u201324 season record playoffs 2019\u201320 34\u201339 missed playoffs 2020\u201321 38\u201334 lost in first round 2021\u201322 56\u201326 lost in conference semifinals 2022\u201323 51\u201331 lost in first round 2023\u201324 27\u201355 missed playoffs <\/p>\n

In the newly relocated team\u2019s first draft, it added Spanish forward Pau Gasol, who would go on become the Grizzlies\u2019 first All-Star player. The team hired basketball icon Jerry West<\/a> to serve as general manager in 2002. West quickly turned the team\u2019s fortunes around, and in 2003\u201304 Memphis won 50 games (a 22-win improvement from the previous season) to earn the first playoff berth in franchise history. The Grizzlies lost in their opening postseason series that year and experienced the same fate in both 2004\u201305 and 2005\u201306. Memphis\u2019s successful run was short-lived, and the team fell to a last-place finish in 2006\u201307. West left the Grizzlies in 2007, and Gasol was traded in 2008 as the team began a rebuilding effort.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

\"Serena<\/p>\n

Britannica Quiz<\/p>\n

Great Moments in Sports Quiz<\/p>\n

<\/a><\/p>\n

Memphis returned to the postseason in 2010\u201311 behind the play of forwards Zach Randolph and Rudy Gay, and the team proceeded to upset the top-seeded San Antonio Spurs<\/a> in six games to record its first playoff series victory. In 2012\u201313 Randolph, Marc Gasol (Pau\u2019s brother), and a young, defensive-minded squad\u2014nicknamed the Grit and Grind Grizzlies for their dogged toughness\u2014advanced to the conference finals for the first time in team history, where the Grizzlies lost to the Spurs. Memphis continued to qualify for the playoffs in the following years, but the aging roster produced diminishing returns<\/a>, the team being swept by the Spurs in the 2015\u201316 playoffs after having posted a 42\u201340 record in the regular season and putting an NBA record 28 players on the floor over the course of the year because of rampant injuries. Amid injuries and roster turnover, the Grizzlies missed the playoffs from 2017\u201318 to 2019\u201320.<\/p>\n

A rejuvenated Memphis team led by young guards Ja Morant<\/a> and Desmond Bane<\/a> and power forward Jaren Jackson, Jr., finished the 2020\u201321 season 38\u201334 and made it to the first round of the playoffs. They had even greater success in 2021\u201322, with a 56\u201326 record earning them first place in their division for the first time in franchise history. In the subsequent playoffs, the brash, trash-talking Grizzlies defeated the Minnesota Timberwolves<\/a> before falling to the veteran Golden State Warriors<\/a> in the second round.<\/p>\n

Memphis was on track for another strong finish in 2022\u201323 when off-court events began to derail the team\u2019s budding status as championship contenders<\/a>. In March 2023 Morant, the team\u2019s leader and one of the up-and-coming stars of the league, was suspended for eight games after he posted an Instagram<\/a> Live video showing himself brandishing a handgun<\/a> in a strip club while heavily inebriated<\/a>. Though nothing illegal appeared to have taken place, it is against NBA rules for players to possess a firearm while traveling on team business. The team nevertheless won 51 games and returned to the playoffs for the third straight year, where the Grizzlies fell to the Los Angeles Lakers<\/a> in the first round. During the offseason the NBA suspended Morant for an additional 25 games after another instance of him posting a video of himself holding a gun and amid news reports alleging that he had been involved in multiple violent altercations.<\/p>\n

Hampered<\/a> by missing Morant\u2019s playmaking and scoring\u2014first because of the suspension and later as a result of a season-ending injury to his shoulder, in 2023\u201324 the Grizzlies slumped to a 27\u201355 finish and missed the playoffs.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Memphis Grizzlies, American professional basketball team based in Memphis, Tennessee, that plays in the Western Conference of the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":13541,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3795],"tags":[1297,7,4922,4921,4920,294,293,177,4070,6],"class_list":{"0":"post-13540","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-memphis-grizzlies","8":"tag-article","9":"tag-basketball","10":"tag-britannica","11":"tag-encyclopeadia","12":"tag-encyclopedia","13":"tag-grizzlies","14":"tag-memphis","15":"tag-memphis-grizzlies","16":"tag-memphisgrizzlies","17":"tag-nba"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nba\/114461422861306129","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13540","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=13540"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13540\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/13541"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=13540"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=13540"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=13540"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}