photograph by joe murphy / NBAE / Getty images
A first glance at the photo and the subliminal reaction is the same for each of us: Man in flight. In a game between the Memphis Grizzlies and Chicago Bulls at FedExForum on April 12th, Ja Morant discovered an opening along the baseline and he did what only a few basketball players on the planet can approximate. Yep, he took flight. Photographer Joe Murphy managed to capture the NBA’s 2020 Rookie of the Year — and all nine other players on the court — in one of the most electrifying snapshots in Memphis sports history. And what a metaphor that photo represents for the state of things in the local sports scene today.
If Michelangelo could rise for the purpose of painting a basketball game, Murphy’s photo from April 12th would be his template.
In the image, the stands are dotted with fans, but only a precious few, each of them wearing a mask as continued protection from the spread of the coronavirus, a contagion that all but shut down sports — game, set, and match in tennis parlance — 13 months earlier. Every player with the significant exception of Morant is grounded and, also significant, every other player is gazing at Morant. For this moment in captured time, teammates and opponents were basketball fans, too. And then there’s Morant himself, right arm fully cocked, ready to slam that orange sphere through a basket hopelessly vulnerable to the midair fury. If Michelangelo could rise for the purpose of painting a basketball game, Murphy’s photo from April 12th would be his template. As for the rest of Memphis sports, just like Morant in the picture, we are rising, if one leap (giant or small) at a time.
As last year’s City Guide hit Memphis mailboxes in August 2020, local teams and events were stirring to life … but with “an abundance of caution,” four words we learned would frame any activity during a pandemic that has now taken more than 600,000 American lives. Justin Thomas won the World Golf Championships – FedEx St. Jude Invitational on August 2nd, but with nary a spectator at the 18th green. There was no need for ropes to divide players from a gallery of fans, making TPC Southwind silently surreal for such a major sporting event.
The NBA — and thus our Grizzlies — resumed the 2019-20 season in late July, after a shutdown of nearly five months. Playing in a bubble of isolation and covid-restricted protocols in Orlando, the Griz lost six of their final eight games, then lost a “play-in” contest to the Portland Trail Blazers, missing the playoffs for a third straight season. But there was less disappointment at the season’s end (in mid-August) than there was hope for a franchise now fueled by a star with an impossibly high ceiling of potential.
Morant and friends — minus Jaren Jackson Jr., a significant loss due to knee surgery — returned to action two days before Christmas for what would be a 72-game 2020-21 season. The NBA’s second-youngest team, the Grizzlies stumbled out of the gate, losing six of their first eight games before reeling off a seven-game winning streak (one shy of the franchise record). In his fourth season, swingman Dillon Brooks emerged as the team’s defensive clamp while averaging 17.2 points (second only to Morant’s 19.1). Center Jonas Valančiūnas — once the trade piece that sent Grizzlies icon Marc Gasol to Toronto — averaged a career-high 17.1 points and finished third in the NBA with 12.5 rebounds per game.
All the individual numbers added up to a 38-34 regular-season record and eighth-place finish in the Western Conference. Which again tasked the Grizzlies with winning “play-in” games — two of them — to qualify for the playoffs. With 23 points and 23 rebounds from Valančiūnas, Memphis beat San Antonio at FedExForum, then two nights later toppled the Golden State Warriors in California, clinching the franchise’s first postseason berth in four years with an overtime upset of the league’s scoring champion, Steph Curry. (Morant scored 35 points, only four shy of Curry’s total.) In two do-or-die games, the Grizzlies eliminated franchises that have won eight NBA championships since 1999. Alas, a best-of-seven matchup with the West’s top-seeded Utah Jazz proved too steep a hill to climb, the Griz falling in five games.
Perhaps best of all, fans again appeared in NBA arenas by the time the 2021 playoffs began, an indication that much more than exciting basketball awaits the next time Ja, JV, and Triple-J take the floor together.
photograph courtesy university of memphis athletics
In a rarity, both the University of Memphis basketball (above) and football (below) teams ended their pandemic-restricted seasons with victories. Penny Hardaway’s squad brought home the 2021 NIT championship.
Yes, the city’s lone big-league franchise endured a pandemic season of stops and starts, but it wasn’t quite as unsettled as the 2020-21 academic year for college sports. The complexities of “bubble” life in and around football programs (with Division I rosters of more than 80 players) and basketball facilities made the next week’s big game merely a rumor until it was actually played.
After taking over as head coach of the University of Memphis football team under the brightest lights in the program’s history — the 2019 Cotton Bowl — Ryan Silverfield wasn’t even allowed to stage a spring game after colleges closed their campuses in March. Making matters worse, the team lost a pair of stars — receiver Damonte Coxie and running back Kenneth Gainwell — when players were given the choice to opt-out for a season under severe covid restrictions. Quarterback Brady White returned, though, for a final season (as a Ph.D. candidate, no less) and toppled the school’s records for passing yardage (he finished his career with 10,690) and touchdown passes (90) that had stood for 16 years. Better yet, he established a new Tiger quarterback record with 28 career wins and helped Memphis (8-3) win its first bowl game in six years, a 25-10 victory over Florida Atlantic in the Montgomery Bowl.
photograph courtesy university of memphis athletics
The U of M football Tigers won the Montgomery Bowl, the program’s first postseason win since 2014.
As for coach Penny Hardaway’s Tiger basketball squad, the stops and starts of covid-related schedule interference made for an uneven winter. The team found itself with a record of 6-4 on New Year’s Day, but then didn’t play a game for more than two weeks due to positive covid tests (within the Memphis program or that of an opponent). Transfers Landers Nolley and DeAndre Williams became centerpieces, even among a group of sophomores (Lester Quinones, Boogie Ellis, D.J. Jeffries) that arrived at the U of M as one of the top-ranked classes in the country.
The Tigers returned to Memphis champions. Over the course of nine days in late March, Memphis beat Dayton, Boise State, Colorado State, and Mississippi State to earn the program’s second NIT title.
The squad finally found a groove when the calendar turned to February, securing six straight wins before losing at ninth-ranked Houston — a team bound for the Final Four — on a desperation heave at the buzzer. (The Tigers lost to the Cougars again six days later in the American Athletic Conference tournament, this time by only two points.) A 16-8 record left Memphis without a dance ticket for the NCAA tournament, now a painful seven-year drought. But any basketball — particularly during a pandemic — is better than no basketball, so Hardaway accepted a bid to a reduced (32-team) National Invitation Tournament, to be played entirely at two arenas (“bubble” conditions) in north Texas.
And the Tigers returned to Memphis champions. Over the course of nine days in late March, Memphis beat Dayton, Boise State, Colorado State, and Mississippi State to earn the program’s second NIT title. Ellis scored 23 points to lead the way in the title tilt against the Bulldogs. The four wins gave Hardaway a third consecutive 20-win season, though the principal goal of reaching — and advancing in — the NCAA tournament must wait another year. If the Tigers do play in the 2022 Big Dance, they’ll do so without Ellis or Jeffries, two of the four rotation players who elected to transfer or enter the NBA draft after the NIT trophy presentation. Among the new additions for what should be a much more conventional 2021-22 season are Johnathan and Chandler Lawson (the latter a transfer from Oregon). The Lawson brothers played at East High School for Hardaway and helped the Mustangs to a state title in 2018. They’ll become the third and fourth Lawson brothers to suit up in blue and gray.
Has “normal” returned to Memphis sports? If you judge by fireworks at AutoZone Park — the home of our Triple-A Redbirds hosted three such nights around the Fourth of July — we’re considerably closer. Pregame guitar-smashing has resumed for 901 FC home games, faux violence (with a musical twist) as “normal” as professional soccer in this town can hope to achieve. And yes, the World Golf Championships are back for a third year at TPC Southwind. When a PGA star sinks one with his sand wedge? In 2021, he’ll hear a crowd roar.
