The Athletic just ran its annual anonymous NBA player poll, and one team finished so far ahead in the “where do you absolutely not want to be traded” category that the result became its own story.
The Memphis Grizzlies received 35.8% of the votes when 120 NBA players were asked which team they least wanted to join. Forty-three players named Memphis. The Washington Wizards came in second with 11.7%. The Sacramento Kings landed third at 10.8%. New Orleans, Brooklyn, and Utah rounded out the bottom six.
To put that in perspective, more NBA players said they would not want to go to Memphis than the entire combined vote total of the next three teams.
The reasons might surprise you. The Grizzlies are not a bad team. They have made the playoffs more often than not over the past five years. They have a star in Ja Morant. They have decent defensive infrastructure. The roster is competitive on most nights. The organization has a reputation as a smart, well-run operation under Zach Kleiman.
The problem is the city. NBA players told The Athletic, almost unanimously, that their issue with Memphis has nothing to do with the team. “It has nothing to do with the team,” one player said. “It’s the location of the team.”
That is brutal. Memphis fans deserve better, and the Grizzlies front office is going to have to figure out how to combat the perception. Free agency in the NBA is increasingly a lifestyle decision as much as a basketball decision. Players value warm weather. They value access to beaches. They value nightlife. They value major airport connectivity. Memphis has soul food and Beale Street, both of which are fantastic, but it does not have any of the things players are saying matter to them.
You can compare what NBA players said about Memphis to what they said about teams like Miami, Los Angeles, Brooklyn, and Phoenix, all of which scored zero votes in the “do not want to go” category. The reason is not basketball. The Heat and Suns are not better organizations than Memphis. They are not better-run franchises. They just sit in cities that players think look better on Instagram.
This poll matters for one specific reason. The Grizzlies are a team that has to draft and develop because they cannot land elite free agents. The roster build always starts at the top of the draft and works its way down through smart trades and second-contract extensions for homegrown players. Morant was a top-two pick. Jaren Jackson Jr. was a top-five pick. Desmond Bane was a steal of a late first-rounder. Memphis builds smart because they have to.
The poll also makes it harder for the team to talk free agents into mid-tier deals. If you are the Grizzlies trying to convince a veteran shooter to take $5 million a year to play a role, you are now competing against the player’s perception that the city itself is undesirable. That is a hill you cannot climb fast.
The team’s front office has to lean into what works. Memphis has been one of the better player development organizations in the league for years. They have to keep being that. They have to draft well, they have to develop the second-rounders into rotation players, and they have to win games. Winning solves a lot.
It does not solve everything, though. The poll said the quiet part out loud. Memphis fans should be furious at the players who said it. The front office has work to do.
A longtime sports reporter, Carlos Garcia has written about some of the biggest and most notable athletic events of the last 5 years. He has been credentialed to cover MLS, NBA and MLB games all over the United States. His work has been published on Fox Sports, Bleacher Report, AOL and the Washington Post.
