Tag: Memphis Grizzles

Unbelievable photo shows Grizzlies rookie Zach Edey dunking with his feet on the ground

Zach Edey showed off his ridiculous 7-foot-4 frame once again.

If there’s one thing you know about Zach Edey, it’s that he’s tall.

The former Purdue big man dominated the college game with a 7-foot-4 frame that made him an absolute menace in the paint. It remains to be seen how his style of play will translate to the NBA, but there’s a reason the Memphis Grizzlies invested the ninth overall pick in him.

We saw a bit of that reasoning in a practice photo released Monday that you just have to see to believe. While it’s not a surprise that Edey can dunk with ease, it’s a bit jarring to see him put down a jam without his feet leaving the court.

And yet, here we are.

The Toronto native was an absolute star at the college level, winning the Naismith College Player of the Year Award in back-to-back seasons. He’s now tied for the tallest player in the league along with last year’s first overall pick Victor Wembanyama and Houston’s Boban Marjanovic.

He’s also tied for the 10th tallest athlete to ever play in the NBA.

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NBA fans couldn’t believe Dillon Brooks landed a 4-year, $80 million contract with the Rockets

Dillon Brooks just landed a MASSIVE new deal with the Rockets. NBA fans couldn’t believe it.

In what might be the most bizarre signing of 2023’s NBA free agency so far, former Memphis Grizzlies guard Dillon Brooks has landed a massive new deal.

ESPN’s Adrian Wojnarowski reported late Saturday that Brooks had signed a 4-year, $80 million dollar contract with the Houston Rockets. The deal reportedly comes through a sign-and-trade with Memphis, per Wojnarowski.

That’s the kind of money typically reserved for elite talent in free agency. While Brooks is a solid player and staunch defender, many NBA fans (well, those who had access to Twitter to see this news) could not believe that the former Grizzlies guard had landed such a payday.

Our Mike D. Sykes strongly questioned what the Rockets had been doing in free agency so far before the Brooks deal was reported, and we’re guessing this astronomical contract won’t change any minds on Houston’s decisions.

Whether you think Brooks is massively overrated or fairly underappreciated for what he can do on the court, nobody could’ve seen him landing this colossal a contract.

The reactions online showed as much as Brooks will average a whopping $20 million a season in Houston.

Disrespectful or fun? The Grizzlies’ bench did the wave with fans while blowing out the Bucks

Doing the wave with fans might come back to haunt the Grizzlies.

Did you do a double-take when you saw the score of Thursday’s Memphis Grizzlies win over the Milwaukee Bucks?

Yep, the Griz win 142-101. And Giannis Antetokounmpo was indeed playing.

That’s wild, isn’t it? And what’s wilder is the bench saw fans at the FedEx Forum doing the wave (which can distract head coaches in sports from time to time) … and they decided to join in.

Now, you could consider that disrespectful. I get that! But if you’re the Greek Freak and the Bucks and you’re getting completely blown out, a team might use that opportunity to have some fun.

That said, if another team blows out the Grizzlies and decides to make fun of this, that’s also totally fine.

So, yeah, I love this:

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The Grizzlies’ season is going to end because of Ja Morant’s fluke injury, and that stinks

It wasn’t supposed to go like this.

The Memphis Grizzlies were one of the most exciting teams in the NBA this season. No player exemplified that more than Ja Morant, whose electrifying dunks and fourth quarter takeovers were always a delight to watch. He along with the rest of the team’s young core catapulted the Grizzlies from a No. 8 seed last year to No. 2 this year. That makes the news that Morant is doubtful to play for the remainder of the playoffs all the more devastating to hear.

Morant has a bone bruise in his right knee, the team announced Tuesday. His incredible season, which earned him the Most Improved Player award, is likely over.

This isn’t how anybody wanted to see Morant’s season end, especially considering how it happened. The injury didn’t come on one of his fun aerial assaults that often end with him on the ground. It was fluke. While it didn’t break the code, as he insinuated, you can understand why he’d be so frustrated with the injury.

This isn’t how anybody wanted to see the Grizzlies’ season end either. If they were going to go down, it was supposed to be with guns blazing — as they have been all season. But in all likelihood, they’ll also be done soon.

With Morant, the Grizzlies were giving the vaunted Golden State Warriors a series. They trailed 2-1 but were a layup away from being up 2-1. Morant was averaging more than 38 points, and his presence was cause for optimism that they could bounce back from a blowout in Game 3. Without him, things seem a lot more dire — even if they were 20-5 without him this season.

If blowing a lead they held for all but three minutes on Monday wasn’t deflating enough, Morant’s injury will be. Tipico Sportsbook has Memphis as 4.5-point home dogs for Game 5, and I don’t love their chances to cover. But even if they do find a way to win, they’d have to do it two more times and that’s simply not going to happen. It’s an unfortunate way for their season to end after being one of the best stories all year.

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3 pivotal NBA inbounds that altered the course of the playoffs

The good, bad and ugly of inbounds on Tuesday night.

The inbound is something that’s largely taken for granted in the sport of basketball. It happens so often over the course of a full game that the importance of well-executed inbounds can be understated until the end.

New Orleans Pelicans guard Jose Alvarado found a way to turn routine inbounds into must-see stuff, but otherwise nobody’s really checking for how teams throw the ball in. That is until it’s time to execute and defend plays on the inbound.

Those clutch moments allowed the inbound to take center stage on Tuesday with playoff games on the line. One team executed the inbound to a tee, another failed horribly, and a third inbound wasn’t nearly as important but didn’t lack for equal entertainment. This was the good, bad and ugly of inbounds.

Usher and his doppleganger, Ja Morant’s dad, sitting at Game 5 was the best

This was a delight.

Maybe Usher is a good luck charm for the Memphis Grizzlies.

Because the singer was right there courtside for Game 5 on Tuesday night and watched Ja Morant pull off some magic.

What’s even better is Usher did it while sitting next to Tee Martin, Ja’s dad who everyone thought looked kind of like … Usher!

So then everyone from the video board to one of the officials had a lot of fun with it. I’m sure it was also a blast for Usher to get to see the game up close next to the guy whose son had an unreal contest.

Let’s look back on the highlights of Usher’s visit from the night at FedEx Forum:

See a stunning photo of Ja Morant’s earth-shattering dunk from Game 5

WOW.

What a night for Ja Morant.

The Memphis Grizzlies star not only had the game-winning layup that delivered a crucial win in the team’s opening-round series against the Minnesota Timberwolves, but he delivered what might be the dunk of the postseason with a full-extension throw-down that Ian Eagle perfectly called “A JA BREAKER!”

The dunk itself was unreal. But you’ve got to see the one spectacular, jaw-dropping photo of Morant in the middle of it, flying to to the hoop as everyone watches in awe.

Seriously, it’s overused but I don’t care: Put this thing in the Louvre. It’s a work of art:

WOW. Here’s the dunk again:

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The Timberwolves don’t have a chance against Memphis if Karl-Anthony Towns isn’t better

It’ll be an early playoff exit.

The Minnesota Timberwolves are back in the playoffs for the first time since 2018 after clinching the No. 7 seed in the Western Conference with Tuesday’s win over the LA Clippers.

The stakes of the game were huge, and you can tell how much the Wolves wanted it by their over-the-top celebration in the immediate aftermath. So in a game that meant so much to the franchise, surely their most tenured and supposed best player put the team on his back…right?

Not exactly.

Karl-Anthony Towns finished the game with 11 points on 3-of-11 shooting with five rebounds and a team-worst -14. He fouled out with more than seven minutes left and his team down seven. Patrick Beverley had a bigger impact than him. Anthony Edwards and D’Angelo Russell brought it home for Minnesota.

 

For their troubles, the Wolves get the No. 2 Memphis Grizzlies in the first round of the playoffs. And while they were able to escape the currently eighth-seeded Clippers in a bad Towns game, that won’t happen here. Minnesota is 6.5-point underdogs for Game 1 with +280 odds to win the series on Tipico Sportsbook, the second-longest odds of all the first-round matchups already set. 

Towns is Minnesota’s leading scorer at almost 25 points per game – his fifth time in the last six years leading the team. But postseason intensity is different and something he hasn’t experienced much. He got a reminder of that Tuesday. The Clippers blitzed him with doubles from the very beginning, forcing him to make quick decisions and get rid of the ball. He didn’t respond well.

That’s concerning because Towns is sure to see more of the same against Memphis. The Grizzlies are even better defensively than LA, particularly on the interior where they have a Defensive Player of the Year candidate in Jaren Jackson Jr. They also score better than the Clippers, which furthers the need for Towns to have an impact on offense. But then Memphis also has more players who can get in the paint and potentially get Towns in foul trouble if he isn’t smarter on defense.

For however long this series lasts, I don’t think he’ll be as bad as he was against the Clippers. But then again, he had a career year shooting in 2017-18 when he made the playoffs for the first time – 21 PPG on 55% FG and 42% 3-pt FG – just to see a major dip in his numbers over five games against the Rockets (15 PPG on 47% FG and 27% 3-pt FG).

If he’s better, Minnesota is still going to have a hard time winning. But if he’s not, these games will get ugly and this series will be over very quickly.

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Bettor Ideas: We tried the ‘Max Under’ strategy so you don’t have to

97 bets over two nights gave us wild results and a dizzying viewing experience.

Welcome to Bettor Ideas, the laboratory where BetFTW tests out new, innovative or downright puzzling strategies to get rich gambling on sports. Have a betting scheme you want us to try? Tweet your ideas to @Bet_ForTheWin or email us at AskBetFTW@gmail.com. 

Today we’re taking a deep dive into the Max Under theory. In the most simple terms, the strategy calls for taking all available alternate line under props and creating a single game parlay for each NBA player. And we mean each and every player. This is not a strategy where you pick and choose which players you want to bet. If you’re deploying the Max Under, you take every player you can.

The vast majority—if not all—of these bets will fail, miserably, which is why Max Unders call for reducing your typical units to a fraction of what you’d normally wager. The goal is to hit on one, maybe two, and more than cover your losses.

BetFTW tested this theory out on two different nights in mid-January and included results below. Here’s how it worked out and everything else you need to know about playing Max Unders.

OKC Thunder player grades: Thunder lose in historic fashion against the Grizzlies

The Thunder lost by 73 points, an NBA record, Thursday night against the Grizzlies.

All the formulas were there for Thursday’s Thunder-Grizzlies game ending as an ugly loss and that’s exactly what happened as the short-handed Thunder fell to the Ja Morant-less Memphis Grizzlies, 152-79.

The 73-point margin of victory is an NBA record.

The fully healthy Thunder squad is one of the worst teams in the league, which was expected, given they are the youngest team in the league. But a banged-up Thunder squad missing two of its three best players along with all of its veterans on the second night of a back-to-back is just a recipe for disaster.

That was the case tonight as the teams struggled on both ends in a game that was pretty easy to predict how it was going to play out after the opening minutes.

Nonetheless, there’s really not much for fans to be irrationally angry about when discussing the long term health of the team. This lopsided loss speaks more about the result of bad circumstances than the Thunder as a team. There have been plenty of other examples this season of this team staying competitive in games they should not be in to begin with.

That does not mean that this historic loss should not be any less embarrassing. Losing by 73 is unprecedented. Especially against a team missing its best player. Getting blown out in the NBA is one thing; getting annihilated like this is just unacceptable and hopefully is more of a blip than a trend.

Let’s take a look at some grades: