We Are Back: The Grit and Grind Grizzlies Appreciation Post

We are back!!

I was scrolling Twitter the other day and some OJ Mayo highlights popped up, and it instantly made me want to talk about one of my favorite groups of players that were not on the Knicks. That group? The Memphis Grizzlies from around 2009–2012. I absolutely loved that squad.

I actually did a 2K franchise with them back then and went 82–0 in the regular season and won the chip. I was so hyped when that happened. I’m pretty sure I thought I was the greatest GM in history for like a full week.

But anyway, back to the Grizzlies.

One thing I loved right away was honestly the colors. I absolutely love the powder blue with the yellow. That combo is just fire in my opinion. But beyond the jerseys and the aesthetic, they had two players I was a huge fan of—especially one of them.

OJ Mayo.

If you’ve read any of my posts before, you already know I’m an OJ Mayo fan from my series where I turned Stephon Marbury into a Hall of Famer. OJ was on that squad because I wanted to turn his career around after how things played out in real life. If you haven’t read that series yet, go check it out. It’s pretty dope, in my opinion.

I was an OJ fan going all the way back to high school and his one year at USC. I honestly thought he was going to be a multi-time All-Star in the NBA.

That obviously didn’t happen.

Another player on that team I had high hopes for was Rudy Gay.

Besides the fact that he was a bucket in 2K, I always thought Rudy was criminally underrated at times in the league. I honestly think he probably should have made one or two All-Star teams at some point.

Now, there are definitely arguments that the Grizzlies actually got better after he left—which they probably did—with the core of Conley, Gasol, Z-Bo, and Tony Allen. But still, Rudy was producing. It’s not like he was dropping 25 a night, but he was hovering right around 20 points per game, usually around 19 a game, and as a big fan of his and that team, I always thought he deserved at least one nod.

I just had really high hopes for Rudy.

That said, Rudy still had a really solid NBA career. He played 17 seasons in the league, which is something a lot of players can’t say. The only real accolade he had was making All-Rookie First Team, but for his career he averaged 15.8 points, 5.6 rebounds, and 2 assists per game on 45/35/80 shooting splits.

Rudy was good.

Not Hall of Fame good, but definitely a player who had a long career and made a lot of money doing it. Maybe people like me just had higher expectations for him than what he was truly capable of becoming.

But I’m still—and always will be—a Rudy Gay fan.

Now back to OJ.

If you’ve been reading the blog for a while, you already know I’m a big OJ Mayo fan. But beyond him and Rudy, one thing I really loved about those Grizzlies teams was their attitude and grit.

That identity really took off after Rudy and OJ eventually left, when the core became Mike Conley, Tony Allen, Zach Randolph, and Marc Gasol.

The Grit and Grind Grizzlies were one of my favorite groups of players to watch.

That era really ran from around 2010 to 2017, so technically it included Rudy and Mayo early on, but the version that stands out the most to me was probably around 2013–2016.

One thing that made them so cool to watch was that they stuck to their style of play.

You always hear the phrase in sports that “it’s a copycat league.” Teams constantly try to mimic whatever the last champion did. Around that time in the NBA, the game was starting to shift toward more spacing, more three-point shooting, and fewer mid-range and post-up possessions.

Not quite like today, but that’s where the league was heading.

Then the Warriors came along with the Splash Brothers, small-ball lineups, and just completely dominated the league. Teams everywhere started chasing that mold.

But the Grizzlies?

They basically said, nah, we’re good. We’re going to keep doing what we do.

And they did.

One of my favorite memories from that era was when the Grizzlies upset the Spurs in the first round of the 2011 playoffs. Memphis was the 8-seed, San Antonio was the 1-seed, and Memphis sent them home 4–2.

They didn’t even need seven games.

After that, they took a young OKC team to seven games in the Western Conference Semifinals. That was really the beginning of the Grizzlies becoming a legit problem in the West.

What makes that run even crazier is that they did it without Rudy Gay.

He got hurt with about 25 games left in the regular season and missed the rest of the season and the entire playoff run. That was the first season after he had just signed a five-year, $82 million deal with Memphis that summer.

Even without him, the team showed they could still make serious noise.

During that playoff run, Zach Randolph was putting up 22 points and 11 rebounds a night, playing around 40 minutes per game and shooting 45% from the field.

Not bad at all.

And to give even more context to how committed they were to their style of play, take the 2015–2016 season.

They still played a very paint-heavy, post-up style of basketball because of their two bigs—especially Randolph. That season, over 50% of their shots came from inside the paint, which was the third-highest rate in the league.

Their goal was simple.

Beat you inside. Wear you down.

They weren’t going to just chuck threes all game.

During that same season, Memphis averaged about 6 made threes per game on 18.5 attempts.

For comparison, the champion Golden State Warriors averaged 13 made threes on 32 attempts per game.

Completely different style.

Memphis finished 7th in the West that season and got swept by the Spurs in the first round, but they still proved something important: you could still win games and make the playoffs playing their style of basketball.

That’s why they were always such an intriguing team to me.

As the league kept adapting to the three-point revolution, the Grizzlies were one of the last teams saying, “we’re good doing it our way.”

Eventually they had to adjust, because like I said earlier, it really is a copycat league, and running that style forever was going to get harder and harder to win with.

But could you imagine a team in 2026 running that exact style again?

That would be wild.

Honestly, a lot of the old heads online who complain about modern basketball would probably love it. And honestly… I think I might too.

I actually like having variety in play styles, and that’s one thing I really enjoy about college basketball. Teams run different systems, different tempos, and it makes the game feel fresh.

And speaking of college basketball—we’re in March now.

Conference tournaments are right around the corner, March Madness is almost here, and I can’t wait.

Also, be on the lookout for my MLB The Show 26 Mets dynasty that I’m planning to start when the game drops.

Should be a fun one.

– Jett Garden