{"id":612252,"date":"2026-02-19T20:05:18","date_gmt":"2026-02-19T20:05:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/612252\/"},"modified":"2026-02-19T20:05:18","modified_gmt":"2026-02-19T20:05:18","slug":"jaren-jackson-jr-reflects-on-grizzlies-journey-in-heartfelt-letter-to-memphis","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/612252\/","title":{"rendered":"Jaren Jackson Jr. reflects on Grizzlies journey in heartfelt letter to Memphis"},"content":{"rendered":"

Former Memphis Grizzlies<\/a> big man Jaren Jackson Jr. pinned a letter in The Players’ Tribune on Feb. 19, reflecting on his time in Memphis and playing with the Grizzlies since being drafted in 2018.<\/p>\n

The Grizzlies traded Jackson on Feb. 3<\/a> to the Utah Jazz<\/a> as part of an eight-player deal.<\/p>\n

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Jackson started the letter by sharing the story of how he found out he was being traded from Grizzlies general manager Zach Kleiman<\/a>. Former teammate Ja Morant was the first player he saw after the news.<\/p>\n

“I bumped into Ja first,” Jackson said. “He was like, ‘So?’ I was like, Utah. He was like, ‘Oh, wow.’ We were just in real shock for a minute. I didn\u2019t really know how to feel. And Ja was Ja, man. I\u2019ll never forget what he said: ‘You been a pro for eight years, just continue to\u00a0be that.’\u201d<\/p>\n

Jackson then reflected on his first years in Memphis before discussing 2022, which was the team’s height of success. Memphis won its only playoff series in Jackson’s eight seasons over the Minnesota Timberwolves and lost to the Golden State Warriors in six games in the following round.<\/p>\n

As much as the wins and losses, that team will be remembered for its youthful energy that was channeled into unapologetic confidence.<\/p>\n

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“When it came to our confidence, I don\u2019t think we ever saw it the way other people did,” Jackson said. “We became a very polarizing team, and while that didn\u2019t bother me, it definitely wasn\u2019t lost on any of us.<\/p>\n

“Here\u2019s what I\u2019ll say: We always thought we were having the edge that we needed to have, to beat teams. We\u00a0never\u00a0wanted to be beat on that. And that was out of pride for Memphis. You have to remember, our group had really only played there, except for a few people. We\u2019re molding ourselves off the energy of the city, and off the last Grizzlies to ever do it that big \u2014 shoutout to Z-Bo, Tony Allen, Mike, and all them. We weren\u2019t really trying to come off one way or another, but you also weren\u2019t going to make us stop being\u00a0us.”<\/p>\n

Jackson thanked former coaches J.B. Bickerstaff, Taylor Jenkins, assistant coach Erik Schmidt, Darko Rajakovic and Tuomas Iislao. He then went on to thank all of his former teammates before finishing up with fans.<\/p>\n

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“You embraced a young kid from Indiana, and for that I\u2019ll always be grateful,” Jackson said. “I don\u2019t take any of it for granted. Every night I went out there, I just wanted to make y\u2019all proud.”<\/p>\n

Damichael Cole is the Memphis Grizzlies<\/a> beat writer for The Commercial Appeal. Contact Damichael at damichael.cole@commercialappeal.com. Follow Damichael on X, formerly known as Twitter, @DamichaelC.<\/p>\n

This article originally appeared on Memphis Commercial Appeal: Jaren Jackson Jr. pins letter to Grizzlies, Memphis in Players’ Tribune<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Former Memphis Grizzlies big man Jaren Jackson Jr. pinned a letter in The Players’ Tribune on Feb. 19,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":612253,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3795],"tags":[7,164,294,113,178,625,6684,293,177,4070,152,6,181,7271,427],"class_list":{"0":"post-612252","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-memphis-grizzlies","8":"tag-basketball","9":"tag-golden-state-warriors","10":"tag-grizzlies","11":"tag-indiana","12":"tag-ja-morant","13":"tag-jackson","14":"tag-jaren-jackson","15":"tag-memphis","16":"tag-memphis-grizzlies","17":"tag-memphisgrizzlies","18":"tag-minnesota-timberwolves","19":"tag-nba","20":"tag-the-grizzlies","21":"tag-tony-allen","22":"tag-utah-jazz"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nba\/116099097773359002","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/612252","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=612252"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/612252\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/612253"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=612252"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=612252"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=612252"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}