The Memphis Grizzlies went 22-60 in 2017-18, but the franchise isn’t placing the blame for a lost season at the feet of interim head coach J.B. Bickerstaff. Instead, the Grizzlies are promoting him.
J.B. Bickerstaff agrees to be Grizzlies’ new coach despite 15-48 record as interim head man
Bickerstaff won 24 percent of his games with the Grizz.
Bruce Kluckhohn-USA TODAY Sports
ESPN’s Adrian Wojnarowski reported late Thursday night that Memphis and Bickerstaff agreed to a three-year deal to remain the team’s head coach. The news of a looming deal was first reported by Yahoo Sports’ Shams Charania.
The hiring is Bickerstaff’s first official head coaching job in the NBA; he previously went 37-34 in a 71-game interim stint with the Houston Rockets following Kevin McHale’s firing in 2015.
While his record with a depleted roster was unimpressive, his ability to build positive relationships with his players likely played a role in his retention. Bickerstaff was a players’ coach, and a young Grizzlies’ roster wanted him back for 2018-19. With the team unlikely to make major strides next winter, keeping the 39-year-old head coach at least retains some continuity after an embattled season.
It’s not an especially exciting signing, however. Grizzly Bear Blues site manager Joe Mullinax summed up the average reaction from Memphis fans with just one word.
The move appears designed to spark a rebuild in Memphis. The Grizzlies bottomed out in 2018, recording the league’s second-worst record after losing star point guard Mike Conley for all but 12 games due to injury. That left the team as a two-man show between veteran center Marc Gasol and revived veteran Tyreke Evans, but even Evans played just 52 games as the team decided to shut him down for the season after failing to move him for future assets at the trade deadline.
While Gasol and a hopefully-healthy Conley will return next season, the rest of the Memphis roster fails to inspire confidence. It will pay more than $24 million for Chandler Parsons, a forward reduced to just 7.9 points per game (and 36 total appearances) last year due to chronic knee injuries. The team’s leading returning scorer is MarShon Brooks, who signed with the club late in the season as a warm body after spending his last three seasons out of the NBA. He scored 20.1 points per contest in a seven-game sample size that’s almost certainly unsustainable. Young players like Dillon Brooks, Andrew Harrison, Deyonta Davis, and Ivan Rabb will have to make major strides to push the Grizzlies to anything resembling playoff contention.
But some reinforcement will come this summer in a guaranteed top five pick at the 2018 NBA Draft, and another season of growing pains could mean another spot at the top of the lottery in 2019. Bickerstaff, with his 24 percent winning percentage in Memphis, could be just the guy to get them there.
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