Dillon Brooks’ “bad influence” led to an ugly breakup
The The Memphis Grizzlies are stuck recently in trade rumors, with ESPN NBA insider Shams Charania reporting that the team is open to a trade star point guard Ja Morant. It’s been a quick decline for a Grizzlies team that once looked on the cusp of something special in the Western Conference.
One of the key members of the Grizzlies teams of the early 2020s was Dillon Brookswho is currently having a great season with the Phoenix Suns, having left Memphis after the 2022-23 season.
Recently Tim McMahon of ESPN pointed out some of the explanations that led to the Grizzlies not wanting Brooks back after that year.
“Memphis didn’t try to keep Brooks in free agency, in part, sources said, because the front office was concerned that his incessant trash talk and inflammatory antics rubbed off on the team’s young core,” McMahon reported, noting that Brooks was “emblematic of a cocky team that didn’t back up its bold talk.”
That certainly seemed to be the prevailing sentiment after the Grizzlies’ 2023 playoff loss to the Los Angeles Lakers, in which Brooks trash-talked LeBron James multiple times, with huge results. Brooks also suffered a disastrous shooting performance in that series, eventually signing with the Houston Rockets in free agency the following summer.
However, while Grizzlies fans may have grown weary of Brooks’ antics back then, they would surely love the energy and defensive intensity he provides nowadays, as well as an expansion of his offensive game that few saw coming.
Brooks is one of the leading scorers on a Suns team that has blown away expectations in the West this year, while the Grizzlies appear on the verge of ending the Morant era in the midst of their difficult season.
Hindsight, as they say, is 20/20.
2026-01-15 20:06:00
