Remember when the Grizzlies started the season strong and were actually sort of good for a little while? I think they were even the first seed in the West for a short period of time after a five-game winning streak in late November. However, as with all things in life, good things are doomed to be corrupted and perverted until they are bad things, and that is what happened with the Grizzlies. They’ve now lost fifteen of their last eighteen games and, while their record isn’t absolutely dismal (they would be the ninth seed in the East), they’ve shown us that the roster as constructed isn’t going to go anywhere.
Part of the problem is that there’s no young core to be found in Memphis. The young core is Jaren Jackson Jr. That’s it. That’s the entirety of their young core. The rest of their core is their “old” core (old both in age and in time spent with the team) of Mike Conley and Marc Gasol. Chandler Parsons was supposed to be part of the core too but he’s also old (and permanently hobbled by injury).
The only other young player that could possibly be part of their core is Dillon Brooks, but he’s out for the rest of the season and he wasn’t even playing that well this season anyway.
Given the poor position the Grizzlies find themselves in, and my lack of optimism that they will be able to build around Jackson Jr. and Conley (trade Gasol for whatever you can get at this point), I’m going to start calling them the “Jizzlies”. The connotations should be obvious, but if they aren’t, ask the nearest available thirteen-year-old boy and they should be able to tell you. But if you’re going around asking preteens about “Jizzlies” in a weird way you’re probably gonna get arrested and I am totally not responsible for bailing you out of jail.