Four Cuts and a Crowded Backcourt: Inside the Grizzlies' September Squeeze

The most compelling Memphis story of the past week isn't a trade for a star or a breakout performance. It's arithmetic.

The Grizzlies are carrying a roster that has to shed four players before the regular season begins, and the rest of the league has noticed. What started as an internal bookkeeping problem has become one of the more interesting September subplots in the NBA, with outlets covering the Warriors, Bulls, Celtics, Raptors, Pacers and Lakers all speculating about who might shake loose from Memphis.

How the crunch got here

The backcourt logjam is largely self-inflicted — and deliberate. On Sept. 8, Memphis acquired Jordan Hawkins and Micah Peavy from New Orleans, along with a future second-round pick and a pick swap, sending AJ Johnson and Taj Gibson to the Pelicans. Hawkins, a national champion at UConn, is the kind of young wing shooter a rebuilding team can talk itself into.

Then there's D'Angelo Russell, who multiple reports indicate is expected to be waived before ever appearing in a game for Memphis. And Walter Clayton Jr. — acquired from Utah in the February Jaren Jackson Jr. blockbuster — has surfaced repeatedly as a candidate to be let go. The Pacers' coverage noted that the young players Memphis is parting with have "clear skills that made them first-round picks" and "clear warts that explain their ends." That's a fair summary of where this roster sits.

The bigger picture

None of this happens in a vacuum. Memphis already tore it down: Ja Morant was sent to Portland this summer for Jerami Grant and other assets, and Jackson Jr. went to Utah in February for a package headlined by three future first-round picks. Last season's 25-57 finish, with a point differential of minus-493, wasn't a blip — it was the floor falling out.

The 2026-27 version is built around Cameron Boozer, the No. 3 overall pick who has generated genuine Rookie of the Year buzz. Sportsbooks have him priced at +300 for that award, an implied probability of roughly 25 percent — notable for a player on a team projected near the bottom of the West. Memphis's posted win total sits at 29.5, and its championship odds are among the longest on the board. Zach Edey, Ty Jerome and Javon Small are all part of the supporting cast that head coach Tuomas Iisalo has to sort out.

Why the cuts matter beyond the cuts

For a team in this phase, roster decisions are really asset-management decisions. Waiving a former first-rounder for nothing is a loss on paper, but holding four extra bodies you can't develop is a worse one. The Grizzlies are effectively choosing clarity over optionality — and getting younger and cheaper in the process.

The on-court impact this season is likely to be marginal. Marginal players leaving a 25-win roster rarely swing games. What it does affect is opportunity: fewer bodies means more minutes for Boozer, Small and the rest of the young core, and a cleaner evaluation sample for a front office that needs to know what it actually has.

The counterargument is depth. Memphis finished last season with a defensive rating of 118.8 and a net rating of minus-5.92 in the games sampled — numbers that suggest a team that couldn't stop anyone. Cutting rotation-caliber players to reach 15 isn't automatically addition by subtraction.

The real verdict won't come in September. It'll come in April, when we know whether the Grizzlies used the space they created.