3toheadmelo wrote:
Jenkins is a interesting case. It sounds like the Grizzlies did him dirty
Spoiler:
Offensively, the Grizzlies had become something of a science experiment this season, offering glimpses at how several radical offensive concepts from Europe, and spacing principles found in hockey and soccer, would work in the NBA, but also how difficult it is to get full buy-in from players to implement them
There were two architects and one supervisor -- Jenkins -- charged with blending the competing visions. One was Tuomas Iisalo, a Finnish coach who'd had a meteoric rise in Europe by implementing innovative offensive concepts around pick-and-roll schemes, pacing and offensive rebounding. Another was player development specialist Noah LaRoche, whom the Grizzlies had lured from a consulting role with the San Antonio Spurs and charged with teaching an offense that prioritized spacing and largely did away with pick-and-rolls and dribble handoffs.
Jenkins, the fifth-longest-tenured NBA coach, had never met either of the assistants before interviewing them, one source said.
Still, the Grizzlies paid a seven-figure buyout to Paris Basketball, which Iisalo (pronounced EE-za-lo) coached to a EuroCup championship last season. Memphis also gave Iisalo and LaRoche seven-figure salaries. That's especially lucrative for a second-row assistant such as LaRoche, but it's also extraordinarily unusual for a second-row assistant to have his fingerprints all over the revamping of a team's offensive system. In fact, Memphis hired LaRoche first (in May 2024) with the intention of building the staff of assistants around him, one source said. The club wouldn't bring in Iisalo until nearly two months later.
To make room for these new voices, Kleiman insisted Jenkins replace five of the assistant coaches who'd been with him throughout his time in Memphis: Brad Jones, Blake Ahearn, Scoonie Penn, Vitaly Potapenko and Sonia Raman.
Jenkins went along with the request, in an effort to be a good partner, said a league source, who added, "Taylor shouldn't have allowed that to happen."
The coach was so upset at the news he'd have to deliver to each of his longtime assistants, he invited each over to his house in Memphis for individual sessions.
The front office felt the new approach needed space to get off the ground, according to a source. So the club cut ties with virtually everyone associated with the team's ways of the past.
"It was a total shock because we'd already had our exit meetings and were preparing for the summer," one former assistant said. "We'd all gone away for a few weeks and came back to start work again. Taylor felt so bad about it. But apparently they decided to go in another direction."
"Going in another direction" has become cliché -- a nice way of glossing over a difficult situation and avoiding specific issues. But in this case that's exactly what it was.
"They were going all-in on these new concepts," another source close to the situation said.
The immediate, unintended effect was to signal to the rest of the league, and the Grizzlies' players, that Jenkins was on thin ice.
"Players aren't stupid," another source said. "They know where this is heading when you fire five assistants after the season."
And when the job is getting players to buy into new offensive concepts, already uncomfortable for most NBA players, being taught different schemes by two assistant coaches immediately undercut Jenkins' authority.
That’s crazy, all this time I thought it was Jenkins that brought in those guys and decided to go with LaRoche’s trash style. I’m good with giving him a shot now
