Sliding doors and verbal wars

The tale of trash talk and holder's remorse.

Let’s take a walk down memory lane, more specifically December 2018. A Memphis Grizzlies team still in the late stages of it’s ‘Grit N Grind’ era were slumping after a hot start. As the story goes, the Grizzlies were feeling the effects of losing a young Dillon Brooks (then a lowly second year wing) to a knee injury in November, and were desperately seeking wing help to allow the core of Mike Conley and Marc Gasol one last hurrah in the Music City.

Brooks missed 21 games as a result of this knee injury, before returning just before Christmas, playing 7 more games, rupturing a ligament in his big toe in early January, and missing the rest of the season.

For those playing at home, Brooks (of the Dillon variety, this matters later) ended the 18-19 season with 18 games played, averaging a hair over 18 minutes, 7.5 points and under 2 rebounds a contest.

A pretty dire wing situation for Memphis if they were feeling the effects of missing those gaudy numbers, right? Well Memphis certainly had some #dudes on their 18-19 roster. Using 28 players over the course of a season is never a sign of success. Take a look at this ragtag band of hoopers that would end up winning 33 games on course to the summer that would land the franchise Ja Morant.

As the story goes, Marc Gasol was traded to the Raptors at the deadline for CJ Miles, Delon Wright, Jonas Valanciunas and a 2024 second round pick, joining a team that would go on to win the NBA title.

But that’s not the trade we care about, no.

Back to the lead in on this article. The Grizzlies needed wing help, Dillon Brooks was nursing a knee injury and the team was losing games. The solution? A three team trade of course, those are never convoluted.

According to a report by Peter Edmiston on The Athletic, which you can read here (subscription required), the Grizzlies were in talks with the Wizards and the Suns, a trade in which the Grizzlies would acquire their needed help in Kelly Oubre.

In return, the Wizards would acquire draft compensation from Memphis and Trevor Ariza from Phoenix, while Phoenix would receive Austin Rivers from Washington, plus Wayne Selden and Brooks from Memphis.

Brooks…Dillon Brooks?

Ah, who knows?

The way three team trades work is one team acts as a medium for all parties, with all correspondence going through them to the other team. In this case, that middleman was the Wizards, so the Grizzlies and Suns never communicated.

It was there that it all fell apart.

Phoenix wanted Dillon. The Grizz thought they were sending…MarShon Brooks.

You’d be forgiven for not knowing who MarShon Brooks is. A late first round pick by the then New Jersey Nets, Brooks was a lanky 6’5” shooting guard known mainly for his three point shooting, a skill that never truly eventuated in the league.

After stops in New Jersey/Brooklyn, Boston, Golden State and Los Angeles with the Lakers, Brooks washed out of the league after three years, spending subsequent time in Italy and China. It was out of China, in 2018, that Brooks was signed by the Grizzlies, first to a 10 day and then to a multi year deal. It makes sense the Grizz were happy to use him as ballast.

The whodunnit of NBA trades killed the Grizzlies that season. Following that catastrophe, in which multiple names were reported and locker rooms were split, the Grizz tumbled down the standings, losing 19 of their next 22 games, careening down from first in the West at Thanksgiving to 14th by the All-Star break.

Ironically, both Selden and MarShon Brooks would be traded later that season, to Chicago for Justin Holiday, but the season was tanked by that point.

Fast forward to today and that trade, while little more than a humorous footnote in the batshit world of NBA transactions, offers a fun little thought exercise.

Right now the Memphis Grizzlies are the 2 seed in the NBA playoffs, locked in a first round series with the LA Lakers, who battled through the play in and various injuries just to be here.

The Lakers are up 3-1, Ja Morant’s hand might be broken, Steven Adams and Brandon Clarke are both out for the season, and Dillon Brooks is still on the Grizzlies.

Except now, instead of background character, Brooks has developed full blown main character syndrome, a villainous arc that has seen him lead with his tongue rather than his play, both through his interviews and on court antics alike.

I don’t care. He’s old. … I poke bears. I don’t respect someone until he gives me 40.

Dillon Brooks, on LeBron James

Call me crazy, but I probably wouldn’t be running my mouth trying to antagonise an undisputed top two player of all time, one who has lost only a single playoff first round series (2020-2021, 4-2 vs. Phoenix).

Brooks’ actions would be defensible if he was, you know, playing well. In a vacuum, he isn’t the first NBA villain and he won’t be the last. The sport is richer for the drama and the storylines it provides, but at some point you gotta read the room, man.

This season, Dillon Brooks averaged 14 points and just over 3 rebounds a game, shooting under 40% from the floor and under 33% from three point range.

For the analytically inclined among you readers, he has a PER of 9.4 (league average is 15) and, despite somehow having this reputation as an elite defender on the wing, he has a negative defensive box plus minus (DBPM)*, plus a negative value over replacement player (VORP).

*I don’t love individual defensive metrics because I think they’re all inherently flawed and don’t tell full pictures but in this case there’s enough context to say Brooks ain’t it.

Amongst everyone who has suited up in Memphis this year, Brooks has the WORST VORP on the roster, while his DBPM is only ahead of David Roddy (rookie), Ziaire Williams (not in the rotation), Danny Green (fossil) and Kenneth Lofton Jr (two way contract).

Yikes.

There’s valid strategy to being a public lightning rod, especially on a younger team like the Grizzlies. Brooks, as one of the quote unquote veterans on the team, probably thinks he can take some of the pressure off his young teammates by focusing all the media vitriol and scrutiny on himself, effectively martyring himself at the benefit of lesser eyes on his greener teammates.

That strategy relies on Brooks actually playing well though, and the evidence through the first four games of this series suggests otherwise. Brooks is ice cold offensively, while this vaunted wing defence he apparently plays has been, to be polite, non-existent.

Brooks has created a thunderous cacophony of noise swirling around the Grizzlies now. The weight of expectation for a young team is already a huge hurdle to overcome before you have a role player magnifying the beating drums and turning every hateful neutral against your squad, death-riding every bricked three in warm-ups.

Brooks plays on the edge. As Doris Burke said on the call during Game 3, sometimes he goes over it. It’s part of how he has made it as far as he has, but it can be costly, both to his team and his wallet.

Brooks has paid the NBA back over $500,000USD in fines through ejections, technical fouls, flagrant fouls and suspensions. Of that total figure, over $330,000 has come this season alone.

Back in 2018, it was considered a win both privately and nationally that Memphis managed to hold onto Dillon amid trade confusion. After all, he was, at one point in his career, a valuable asset.

Not anymore.

Memphis have given Brooks too much rope, and he’s slowly hanging himself and the rest of the team as the playoffs go on. Luke Kennard provides the actual shotmaking ability the lineup so desperately needs, while David Roddy has provided some quality minutes at both ends in lieu of Brooks and could be in line for elevation moving forward.

There are rumours now swirling that the Grizzlies have been trying to move on from Brooks for a little bit now, and the odds of him being in Memphis at the start of next season are rapidly approaching zero, with his status as an unrestricted free agent this offseason.

Maybe they should’ve done it five years ago when Phoenix asked?

At least Kelly Oubre can hit a shot.