ODDBALL - Ja Morant and the Grizzlies Lose Their Head (Coach)
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Why was Taylor Jenkins fired as the Grizzlies' head coach?
Taylor Jenkins, head coach of the Memphis Grizzlies, got let go on Friday. There's only nine games left in the season. He's the all-time winningest coach in Grizzlies history. They had a big showdown with the Lakers, with whom they're fighting for the four-seed against. And they kicked him out. They told him to hit the pavement. Izzy, how surprised were you by the timing? I think him getting fired, not as surprising as the timing.
Definitely not. I think I was sort of still getting over the Lakers and Bulls, just taking all the madness from Marcher themselves with the finish of that game. And then I'm sort of getting the Taylor Jenkins news. And it's just... It's weird for a few reasons. One, you've seen over the course of these six years with this core of players what they can be when they're healthy and they look good, right? Like, they're not 100% healthy. Obviously, Ja has missed like 30 games. They have been significantly worse since the All-Star break. And I think when you've had a coach for as long as he's been there, when you've seen the ups, you've seen the downs, you kind of notice when it's not going to cycle back. to be a winning team again, to be at their peak.
And if you look at their top six guys, really their top seven guys these days, if you include Scottie Pippen Jr., every single one of them have only known one coach, and that's Taylor Jenkins. Except for Triple J, his first year he had J.B. Bickerstaff. Everybody else, only Taylor Jenkins. So you kind of get the feeling of when, hey, this might turn around.
What role did Ja Morant play in Taylor Jenkins' firing?
Maybe they'll turn it up right before the playoffs. And when you think about, you know, John Morant reportedly not being in love with the offense and seeing how they've fallen off the last couple of weeks or a few weeks, especially defensively, which is the place where you look at mostly where guys are getting coached up. It's when you look at it, it kind of doesn't seem so crazy. Like you're going to an assistant coach that might have a different version of the offense you're already running. And maybe it'll be the best. Maybe it'll be the honeymoon period during the playoffs. And, and you, you know, you get the best of this team because it didn't seem like they were going to go much further than they'd already gone with Taylor Jenkins.
Yeah. Like, like is the case with a lot of these firings. You just gave a very compelling argument as to why he got let go. And I'm saying, cool. Yeah, all that makes sense. My big takeaway is like, why now? Why so late in the season? It's funny. We got a statement from Zach Kleinman, who's the head of basketball decision-making over there. And his statement was something along the lines of like, yeah, we're all about urgency around here. And I'm like, where was this urgency at the all-star break? Urgency is a core principle of ours. Where was urgency at the all-star break? Where was urgency the first couple weeks after the all-star break? Where was urgency pretty much any time to give your new head coach time to figure things out?
Because to do it now, to drop a bomb in the middle of a heated race as we're going to a Western Conference playoffs, let's face it, it's not going to be easy regardless of what seed you're in. Like, I just don't understand why they didn't just let him play the season out. If you had druthers that, oh, man, we could win a championship with the right coach, then where were those druthers earlier?
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Chapters
5 chapters
1
Why was Taylor Jenkins fired as the Grizzlies' head coach?
1:04–2:37
2
What role did Ja Morant play in Taylor Jenkins' firing?
2:37–8:23
3
Who is the Grizzlies' new head coach, Tuomas Isalo?
8:23–12:20
4
How do NBA teams handle coaching changes?
12:20–16:33
5
What are the implications for Ja Morant's future with the Grizzlies?
16:33–28:12
Speakers
3 identifiedMore from The Dan Le Batard Show
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