Maybe Taylor Jenkins said it because he has to say it.

For the sake of the NBA, for the sake of the paying customers, it’s in nobody’s best interests to be so overt about what happens when a season gets away from you like this one has for the Memphis Grizzlies.

But the Grizzlies coach nonetheless said something peculiar Wednesday about the team’s array of injured players before they stopped the NBA’s longest active losing streak at nine games with a 121-113 win over the Houston Rockets.

“We're actively preparing and training these guys as if they are playing,” Jenkins said in his pregame news conference. “We haven't had any conversations about shutting down guys. This is a competitive bunch.”

If that’s true, if the Grizzlies aren’t yet considering shutting down any of their players, they should be.

They should consider the possibility that Desmond Bane and Marcus Smart have played their last games of the season. They should consider figuring out how they can do the same with Jaren Jackson Jr. They should treat the final 26 games after the NBA’s All-Star break like the mostly meaningless endeavor that they’ve become, where finding hidden gems and developing the young pieces around their core are about the only motivation left.

Some will read that and cringe. They’ll say that’s exactly what’s wrong with the modern NBA, with players sitting out for rest rather than injury at an alarming rate — so much so that the league had to put in new rules this season that make a player ineligible for postseason awards if they play fewer than 65 games.

Tanking is such a loaded word in professional sports, especially given how much folks have to pay for tickets to attend a game. But that’s not what the Grizzlies would be doing in this case, even though they can improve their draft lottery odds by losing a lot the rest of this season.

Not playing Bane, Smart and even Jackson down the stretch might actually be the most competitive thing the Grizzlies could do because all that should matter for this franchise is making sure they’re set up to be a contender again in 2025. The only outcome over the next two months worse than what’s happened already, worse than watching this season go up in flames due to a barrage of unfortunate injuries, is to see next season affected by injuries before it even begins.

So the most important part of these Grizzlies’ games at the moment is not actually the rise of Vince Williams Jr. and GG Jackson – however encouraging their performances have become in recent weeks. It's not finding a rhythm with Bane, Smart and Jaren Jackson playing alongside Williams and GG Jackson because they're going to have to find it again once Ja Morant returns.

It’s making sure the players most responsible for this franchise's success, the players who hardly played together this season, are healthy going into next season.

That means Bane and Smart, both out injured with initial timelines that suggested they could be back before the regular season ends, don’t actually need to be back. Bane showed us enough early in the season, trying to carry the Grizzlies when Morant was suspended. Smart doesn’t need unnecessary tread on those tires, especially not after the front office reportedly rebuffed other teams’ inquiries about him at the trade deadline.

Jackson, meanwhile, has been the stalwart of this injury-ravaged season, showing up consistently with a rotating cast of two-way players and 10-day contracts of late. It looks grueling and, at this point, every spill he takes to the floor is frightening given how little these games mean and how much next season does.

It appeared, reading between the lines during General Manager Zack Kleiman’s post-trade deadline news conference last week, that the Grizzlies were subtly heading this direction. He made a vague reference to there being no timeline anymore for the return of Smart and Bane. He said it could be helpful for forward Brandon Clarke, who hasn't played all season due to a torn Achilles suffered last season, to play a few games late as a springboard into the offseason. But he also pointed out that discussion would happen closer to when Clarke is ready to return, a nod to how cautious the Grizzlies will be.

Then came Jenkins’ remarks Wednesday, which didn’t sound quite so murky.

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“These guys are still full steam ahead. Haven't had conversations like that,” he said. “We're taking it one day at a time with these guys. We want to get them healthy, first and foremost, and hopefully get them back on the floor.”

If this season is actually about next season now – and that’s just what it is – this should be a no-brainer from the organization’s standpoint. Don’t play these guys unless you absolutely have to play them. Unless Bane or Smart or Jackson are so demanding about continuing to play, you’re left with no choice. Unless the NBA deems the Grizzlies to be manipulating the injury report and forces their hand.

All of this maybe reads a little depressing, but there’s a far more depressing fate in play here – one in which Jackson, Bane or Smart suffers an injury, or aggravates an injury, in a game they had little to gain from playing in.

The only reason this Grizzlies season matters anymore is that it leads into next season – and next season has to matter. If the team hasn't considered operating like that yet, it should.

You can reach Commercial Appeal columnist Mark Giannotto via email at mgiannotto@gannett.com and follow him on X: @mgiannotto

This article originally appeared on Memphis Commercial Appeal: Why the Memphis Grizzlies should consider shutdown of injured players