How the Memphis Grizzlies Have Become the NBA's Biggest Surprise

Size, strength and plenty of moxie has turned the NBA’s surprise team into a real bear.

Memphis might be called Bluff City, but as it turns out, Grizzlies head coach Tuomas Iisalo was not being deceptive when he said just before the start of the season that his team was in a good place.

A town known for its barbecue and blues is now watching its basketball team feast on opponents, all while singing the praises of a squad that didn’t necessarily have a clear identity before the season began.

Wonder no more about the Grizzlies, who have shown through the first two weeks of the NBA season they can score with the best teams in the league and do the dirty work to compliment all those points.

Even in their first loss of the season Monday, following a six-game winning streak to open the season, the Grizzlies went on a 9-0 run over the final 1:43 in regulation to force overtime.

In what is shaping up to be a breakout season, Ty Jerome scored all nine of those late Memphis points. He could have won the game but a well-guarded 15-footer at the OT buzzer fell woefully short.

And yet all Jerome did in the contest was score 40 points while going 5 of 6 from 3-point range in another energetic and fearless showing.

After reluctantly moving into the post-Ja Morant era, Grizzlies fans are far less concerned with Jerome ripping off 28.2 points per game in the early part of the season.

Adise from Jerome, there are other budding stars to believe in like rookie Cameron Boozer and sturdy guard Cedric Coward, whose rise from a Division III freshman to a Duke commit to NBA starter in four years was a rocket ride.

Isaiah Stewart and Jaylen Wells round out a group of five players scoring in double figures.

Not much was expected from the Grizzlies when the season began. Memphis was supposed to be clustered with teams like the Los Angeles Clippers and Sacramento Kings at the bottom of the Western Conference.

The reduced expectations seemed to be just the way Iisalo preferred it. The native of Finland, who played and coached in Europe before arriving as an assistant on the Grizzlies’ staff in 2024, had wide-ranging expectations with his new-look roster.

“We want to make a good impression,” Iisalo told reporters before the season began. “We’re not only fighting for wins, but we’re also fighting to win over our own fans and prove to them that this is a team worth cheering for and worth rooting for because of how we play.”

A nod to self-awareness is going a long way.

Jerome, who has never averaged more than 12.5 points in any one season while playing mostly off the bench, is also leading the team with 5.8 assists. That is just ahead of Boozer, a forward who has 5.7 assists in his introduction to the league.

Boozer is also scoring 17.4 points with 10.3 rebounds as he looks every bit a player familiar with the requirements of the hard-working league. His father, Carlos Boozer, was a bruising forward himself who never averaged below 10.0 points in any of his 13 seasons.

That NBA DNA has helped shorten the younger Boozer’s learning curve.

At 6-foot-5 and over 200 pounds, Coward has his own physical style from the guard spot while shooting 57.7% from 3-point range through six games.

The rebounding, led by Boozer, Coward and big man Zach Edey, has been the best in the NBA at 49.7 boards per game. The defense, at 110.1 points allowed per game, had been hovering near the top league early in the season.

Scoring? That leads the NBA at 123.0 per game.

Maybe a soft early schedule has helped the Grizzlies’ cause, but they beat another resurgent Western Conference team in the Portland Trail Blazers by more than 20 points last week.

With the Oklahoma City Thunder trying to regroup from a number of injuries, perhaps the Grizzlies’ next best test ahead will be a matchup against the Denver Nuggets at home next week. A rematch with the Pelicans also is ahead.

The Grizzlies might not stay at the top of the conference heading into the spring, but a return to the playoffs no longer seems out of the question. At that point, getting to the second round for the first time since 2022 will take precedent.

At that point, Memphis will be standing tall.