Grizzlies guard Desmond Bane recently spoke to Sam Amick of The Athletic about a number of topics, including his upbringing, his breakout second season, the team’s success (56-26, the No. 2 seed in the West), and more. Here are a couple highlights:
On the pride he feels to find success despite unstable parents (he was raised by his great-grandparents):
“I’m super proud. I mean, it’s hard for me to even put into words. From a young age, from the very beginning, I didn’t really have any stability. My great-grandparents gave me that. My mom was in and out of jail, and I never met my dad.
“… So to be able to accomplish what I’ve accomplished and have a career and, like you said, be able to affect so many people, it’s hard to put into words. When (my great-grandparents) passed last year during my first season, there was a lot of change there too. I mean, that’s kind of been the story of my life. I moved to Memphis, a place I’d never been, (my great-grandparents) pass, I get a new house and I’ve got my girl over there, but you know, just a lot of moving parts. But I feel stable now. And like I said, Memphis has wrapped their arms around me, and I love it here.”
On the Grizzlies’ belief that they can win a title this season:
“We definitely think that we’re more than capable of doing it. I mean, we’re a young team. But like you said, we carry that chip on our shoulder and we move around like a team that has been here before. So we’re definitely excited and looking forward to the opportunity.”
As a former first-round pick (No. 30 overall in 2020), Bane will be eligible for a rookie scale extension after his third season in 2022/23 and is sure to receive a significant raise. The 23-year-old averaged 18.2 points, 4.4 rebounds, 2.7 assists and 1.2 steals on .461/.436/.903 shooting in 76 games (29.8 minutes) this season.
Here’s more on the Grizzlies:
- Jonathan Abrams of The New York Times spoke to an aerial artist, a skateboarder, a BMX rider and a skateboarding instructor about Ja Morant‘s gravity-defying dunks. All of the aforementioned interviewees see parallels between Morant’s acrobatics and their own.
- Assistant coach Darko Rajakovic has been instrumental to the team’s player development, according to Damichael Cole of The Memphis Commercial Appeal. “Darko just doesn’t care who you are, what your role is on the team,” Ziaire Williams said. “He just wants you to be the best you possibly can be. That’s what I love him about the most.” The Grizzlies went 4-1 under Rajakovic this season when head coach Taylor Jenkins was in the league’s health and safety protocols.
- Mark Giannotto of The Memphis Commercial Appeal details how the team has found organizational harmony under the leadership of GM Zach Kleiman and Jenkins. “The synergy is unbelievable,” Jenkins said. “The trust that (team owner) Robert (Pera) has for Zach, myself, in obviously building the team and coaching the team. The trust that Zach has in me. We do a great job of pushing each other because if we want to elevate this organization, this team to do great things and win championships, we’ve got to push each other.”
Saw “harmony” in the title of the post. Was hoping we had some news on Bone, Thugs
thursday june 23 815pm. cains ballroom tulsa oklahoma.
I was going to say, wait til they sign Ayton to replace Stevn Adams, but Adams has better stats: Per 36′, 4.6 assists to 2.1 turnovers… 14 rebs and no 3ptrs taken! Adams is expiring next year, and MEM has room for a max if they want. So many options. Rich owner too.
Yes, the Grizzlies are here to stay, people better get used to seeing them among the top teams in the West, because their future is scary bright!!
Really, the scary part is that, if they play their cards correctly, they could only continue to build more depth and get even better before they start to have to hand out lengthy and expensive extensions..
Even still, due to the fact of their primary core mostly all being their own homegrown talent, they should be able to make additions to this team even after they have to start handing out contract extensions. It will ultimately just come down to how much tax their owner wants to pay.
Either way, next year’s free agent class is pretty weak in overall talent, so they’ll likely either add another young player through the draft as a hopeful rotation piece, or they could look to trade their pick and either better set themselves up for adding future assets or they could look to acquire a veteran through the trade market that compliments their young and growing core.
Honestly, former Sun and likely former Pacer J.Smith could potentoally fit in extremely well with the Grizzlies young core moving forward. Also, he would likely be able to be signed for a pretty reasonable deal since he showed very well for Indiana, but mainly since he’s still likely seen as a player that truly hasn’t fully proven hisself since the Suns rarely ever gave him any playing time due to their likely relatively full rotation…
I still think Phoenix was incredibly dumb to decline his option, and then trade him, but apparently they werent.completely sold on him and they valued a fairly decent, yet familiar two-way wing.