MEMPHIS — Team president Zach Kleiman assessed the Memphis Grizzlies’ late-season collapse and a change in head coaches — along with questions about where the franchise goes now — in an extremely frank manner.
“Lot to sort out,” Kleiman said. “Forty-eight wins. Good for an eighth seed. Who cares? It’s not good enough.”
Kleiman set the tone for the Grizzlies’ end-of-season debriefing Sunday, a day after the Western Conference’s No. 8 seed was swept by the top-seeded Oklahoma City Thunder, making Memphis the first team eliminated from this year’s NBA playoffs. That came after spending much of the season fighting for home-court advantage to start the postseason but winding up having to come through the play-in tournament.
Now the Grizzlies need to hire a new coach, and the first step of that process is deciding whether interim coach Tuomas Iisalo gets that qualifier removed. Whoever it is, they’ll have to figure out how to fix what caused the collapse after Memphis was second in the Western Conference in late February.
“It was a tough year, to say the least,” guard Desmond Bane said.