Yahoo Sports senior NBA reporter Vincent Goodwill and Yahoo Sports fantasy analyst Dan Titus discuss the look for Memphis coming off a 27-55 season in which Ja Morant missed 25 games due to a suspension before a season-ending injury. Hear the full conversation on “Good Word with Goodwill” and subscribe on Apple Podcasts, Spotify or wherever you listen.

View more

Video Transcript

A team that's not on the list that I'm very, very curious about.

I would not bet on them, but I'm curious to watch them is the Memphis Grizzlies because you've got John Moran back because he's learned to stay off of Instagram at least and not tell us what he's doing.

Like I wonder if he's been quiet.

It's shocking, right?

Shocking.

I wonder if they're a team that because we've forgotten about them because they're still very young.

They still got some, they still got some pieces, they got some injury stuff to figure out.

But John Morant when he plays as an MVP type of player, I wonder how that affects them, crashing this party because we didn't have to factor them in last year.

Now we have to factor in them a little bit more this year and they're still with young pieces whose trajectory are still going up.

Yeah, with the, with the Grizzlies, man, I think that they're another Miss Price team.

Like I think their market set at 47.5 wins to me with being fully healthy.

Um This could be a 50 win team and I say that because you know, to your point, Jo John Morant has probably the most to prove at anyone this year.

You know, he came back last year after the 25 game suspension looked great, then he messed up his shoulder.

Hopefully, you know, as we were talking about earlier with Julius Randall and his potential shoulder and his how he's coming back from his shoulder injury and how other players have come back from shoulder injuries.

Um Hopefully that doesn't affect John Morant and I don't think it will, it doesn't look like it has at least from the off-season workouts that I've seen him participate in.

Um, but then you're also getting Desmond Bain back knocked down three point shooter, another improved defensive player as well.

Jared Jackson junior now can play that safety position.

Now that Zach Edie's there playing the Steven Adams role, um, this team is going to be much better than people are anticipating.

I think people just kind of forgot after all the injuries, but they got a nice underdog in, in Vince Williams junior who stepped up and played a myriad of roles last year and I think he could be a really good six man piece for them.

Marcus Smart was hurt.

Um This team is actually pretty deep and when you look at how much volatility there is in the Western conference and now with news of the Clippers having to deal with Kawhi Leonard and you know, the Warriors kind of fading and the Lakers just being the Lakers, I mean, outside of like Sacramento and Memphis, those are like the only two teams I'm seeing right now.

They are kind of ascending up the, the Western conference that no one's really talking about.

Close