The Grizzlies have announced the firing of head coach Taylor Jenkins. It’s a surprising late-season move for a team that’s solidly in the playoff picture and fighting for home court in a first-round series.
“I’m genuinely appreciative of Taylor’s contributions to this team and this city over the past six seasons,” general manager Zach Kleiman said in a statement. “This was a difficult decision given the consistent and tangible development of our players and overall success under Taylor’s leadership. I wish Taylor the very best going forward.”
Jenkins was fired in person this morning when he arrived at the team’s office, according to Shams Charania of ESPN (Twitter link), who expects him to be among the league’s top free agent coaches when the offseason begins.
Although they’re tied for fourth in the Western Conference playoff race at 44-29, the Grizzlies have been on a downslide lately, losing five of their last seven games and 12 of their last 20. Even so, Jenkins has done an admirable job of keeping the team competitive with star guard Ja Morant limited to 43 games.
There’s no immediate word on who will replace Jenkins for the rest of the season. Memphis has a huge game set for Saturday night, hosting the Lakers, who are also 44-29.
Jenkins, 40, has put together a 250-214 record since being hired as head coach in 2019, making him the winningest coach in franchise history. However, the Grizzlies have only won a single playoff series in his tenure, advancing to the second round in 2022.
Jenkins, who won a G League title with the Austin Toros in 2012, was hired as an assistant coach by Atlanta in 2013. He spent five seasons with the Hawks and one with the Bucks before taking over the Grizzlies.
Woahhh…
WOW !! puts it lightly !! Ruffled feathers between he and Ja Morant ?
It has to be way worse than ruffled feathers, no franchise does this unless some wild behind the scenes story goes with it
Yeah it’s all his fault. What if it doesn’t get any better with the next coach? Who’s fault then? LMAO
I don’t even know whose fault your referring too, asserting a disagreement between Ja and Jenkins led to this at this point in the season after years together is absurd
The obvious ” Fault” I’m referring to is the coach got fired so whatever the perceived problem with the team is it’s his fault since he’s gone. Clear that up for ya big guy?
I think that is being overly simplistic even if it was an issue between player and coach. Coaches can be hired and fired quite easily. Changing a roster is much more challenging. So it makes sense to do the easy thing first, if that is indeed the reason to begin with.
Was he banging the owner’s wife? Otherwise it seems unexpected.
It was unexpected that he would be banging the owners wife, so he was fired.
It was unexpected that he’d be fired so he banged the owner’s wife
He unexpectedly owned his wife so he banged the fire.
You can not strip a team of its identity like this without some underlying unknown scandal is the root cause.
Bizarre timing. Gotta be more to this, like conflicts with some of the bigger names on the roster or the team trying to get out ahead of something.
Wow… Somebody is going to pick up a heck of a coach next season…
Unless there is an underlying reason that we don’t know about yet…
Welcome to Portland
This makes no sense at all, especially now before the playoffs.
There has to be more to it. What has he done behind the scenes?
The Grizz are 8-11 since the All-Star break, but he’s been coaching mostly without his star being healthy or available often… You’re right, on the surface it makes no sense.
Didn’t see that coming but i never liked his attitude and thought he was the reason for the grizzlies fighting with other teams.
Good move. You need a veteran coach(more than 10+yrs experience) possibly with NBA playing experience but need to pick the right one. Hmmmmm any suggestions? The Lakers have Nate McMillan right?
Waive fan favorite Yuki and Pullen and sign a young PG and SG both 20-22 years of age on two way contracts.
Need veterans on the roster though!!!!!! Two veterans. I have an idea but you won’t like it
Ok so there are so many of these coaches just laying around to come in now and help them right the ship for the playoffs.
I don’t disagree with the idea of a veteran coach veteran coaches need time to implement their system. Better off waiting till the offseason IMO
There are a lot of them yes. Maybe someone from a past era. Even though he isn’t a coach with experience but Steve Nash deserves another coaching chance
Since they don’t use Bagley at all. It’s a one year contract. Waive Bagley and Stevens(Stevens got some games)and sign two veterans 30+ years of age to be on the bench
This team needs veterans on the bench
Steve Nash doesn’t want to coach.
Steve Nash is a trashbag coach lol
The deadline to sign Two-Ways has long since passed.
I didn’t realize that. Thanks Real k
I feel like there is an underlying scandal because this makes ZERO sense.
“…consistent and tangible development of our players and overall success under Taylor’s leadership”
So they fired him.
There MUST be more to the story. This makes zero sense this late in the season.
Yeah, there gotta be a scandal incoming…
I’m for one glad he’s gone
Can you tell us why you feel that way? I think most of us are in the dark on this one. What do you know as a grizzly fan?
Don’t let him speak for all Grizzlies fans. Unless Jenkins did something horrendous off the court, this is a panic move
The only reason to do this 9 games before the playoffs is if you think having NO COACH is better than having Jenkins. Otherwise why not fire in the offseason?
Then again I don’t think this front office has a great idea of what it’s doing considering they’re sellers at the deadline every year.
“…considering they’re sellers at the deadline every year.”
What on Earth are you talking about? Also, I think this front office’s quality is reflected much more by its track record in the draft
The Grizz traded Marcus Smart and Jake LaRavia for Marvin Bagley and Johnny Davis. Would you describe this as a win-now move? They were 35-16 at the time.
In 2022 they won 56 games and immediately turned Kyle Anderson & De’Anthony Melton into LaRavia and David Roddy.
It’s frankly incredible Kleiman even gets to make this call given how badly he botched the initial Marcus Smart trade.
Jenkins developing fringe guys like Pippen, Vince Williams, Wells, Huff is half the reason the team has even managed to overachieve and stay relevant.
So Jenkins gets credit for developing those guys, but the front office gets none for finding them? That doesn’t seem quite right.
The initial Smart trade sucked. There’s no getting past that, but every front office screws up once in a while. The most recent trade, though, was not about “selling,” it was about freeing up money so that they could sign JJJ to an extension in the off-season. Given that we currently have more capable players than can be put in a single rotation, it’s a reasonable move.
The Melton trade wasn’t a deadline deal. It was a bet on Roddy developing into a cheaper replacement. Anderson left in free agency; not a trade.
So no, I do not see any evidence of “selling” at the deadline, unless you count dumping Smart’s salary, or getting rid of LaRavia (which made sense, given our surplus of bench talent and the limitations on the contract to which we could re-sign him this offseason). This is why context is important
@Grizzle I see you, as a Warriors fan/Kerr-hater, I am praying for this to happen to my team. You’re so lucky.
You want the coach of a winning basketball team to be fired in the heat of a playoff race, thereby upending the lockerroom and inducing a media distraction?
To each their own, I guess…
It really proves how useless and in-the-way the majority of these overrated egomaniacs are. I hope the Grizz go deep in the playoffs. If the WCF is GSW vs MEM and Kerr loses to whoever replaces Jenkins, maybe everyone will finally see what I see.
What’s the media distraction? GSW has those if one of the players sneezes. Its just noise.
… right
Did he bang the owners wife or something?
You’re about 100 comments late to the party
Seems late in season for this. Was his contract up ??
Don’t really watch Grizz. Grizzlies are one of youngest teams. And are a top West team this year. I think there is more to this.
Steve Fisher is the obvious hire. He’s the Dennis Eckersley of coaches.
Whoa … file this under “there’s something we don’t know about this.”
I thought Jenkins had done a pretty darn good job, all things considered. There has to be something behind the scenes that precipitated this, because on the surface it makes little sense this late in the season, with a playoff spot clinched.
Superstar players gettin traded for nothing, playoff bound head coaches gettin axed… the f is happening in nba today
“For nothing” Have you honestly never heard of Anthony Davis?
Let me trade you my honda for your ferrari
What, you honestly never heard of a honda?
Knicks better fire Thibs and get this man this offseason.
Ohh s**t, that’d be nice actually. I was thinking Portland, Milwaukee, maybe Utah.
The team is 8-11 after the ASB (2-7 w/o Morant), but IIRC they had a lot of coaching collapses at the end of games.
The Grizzlies also play a very unique style (the least PnRs in the NBA by far) and there may have been thoughts about how that would function long-term / in a playoff setting (and may have even been solved by opposing coaches post-ASB).
Yeah no point hanging on to the coach if they just don’t seem them adjusting in playoffs and style looking stale. Jenkins is a good coach but his voice just may have been tired in the locker room. I don’t think firing him will make it hard to find a good coach. Memphis does not have a repeat history of this.
Maybe the main reason is the Grizzlies have sucked for the last 2 months? Have you seen their games?
They’ve gone from the 2nd best team in the West to 8-12 and 5-7. They’ve lost to a lot of bad teams in that stretch. Their last 10 games will be tougher.
The GM is thinking “this coach will finish 7th-8th, I’m firing him so we have a shot in the post-season.”
You know Clarke is out tor season. He’s important. They’ve had injuries. Just seems late in season
Not impossible it could work. But you would hope the GM would have had a better pulse on the team to have pulled this trigger a month ago rather than today. Maybe not possible given the losses are only recent, but if there’s something amiss in his handling of the players, rotations, etc, you have to be on top of that and predict things down the line. Firing in late March is basically the nuclear option.
Someone will snatch him up quick. I did expect him to go because the team has not performed well in playoffs and closing. Missing Ja is a big part of that, but Grizz have not developed much. Bane is okay and JJJ good defender but his offensive style lacks. Grizz org had plenty of picks and money to swing for big star and never did.
Wow!!! There’s a behind the scenes story here I wanna hear!!! Wish I was a fly on the wall in their offices this morning.
This franchise has been a disaster since they were an expansion team in Vancouver
I don’t know Bob, Jerry West did a pretty nice job with them and built them up to be a winning franchise when he was around. When he left, they went back to their old ways of course.
Silly ownership to do that…
Coaches need to negotiate guaranteed no-fire contracts in their collective bargaining. It is beyond ridiculous to fire any coach in this scenario. Taylor Jenkins had been doing an excellent job for Memphis. I agree with all you previous posters that something is not right here. Maybe we’ll find out.
Why would they do a no fire contract? There’s already incentive not to fire your head coach unless ownership believes there’s a good reason. A Head Coach contract is guaranteed so they get paid anyway.
Not sure why coaches would want this? Their contracts are guaranteed. They get fired, they get paid to do nothing.
Something is rotten in Memphis.
Charlotte better hop on that ASAP
I mean look at his picture. How can you take him seriously. The guy looks like he is about to go jogging. Wear a suit and tie. Everyone is a amateur now. Amateurs everywhere now
He probably wanted to trade Morant at the deadline and Ja found out.
It was just a few years ago that team looked like they had a lot of potential and would be really good for the next decade but it’s been downhill ever since they choked against the Lakers in the playoffs.
Post my comment since you told me twice about a negative comment