Tuomas Iisalo says Memphis is not starting over after trading Ja Morant and expects training camp to establish a clear identity and depth chart.
Memphis Grizzlies coach Tuomas Iisalo said Monday he would not call this season a fresh start, three months after the franchise traded Ja Morant to Portland.
Roles should lock in during camp, and Iisalo expects the team to come out of it with a clear identity.
Iisalo Says Grizzlies Are in Better Position
Iisalo sees Memphis as much better positioned entering this training camp than it was a year ago, particularly from a health and continuity standpoint.
"Well, the situation is much better for us at this time of the year than it was last year," Iisalo said. "Both [Ja] and Zach were still out for this period. We had, unfortunately, ones and fives were missing, and those are the players that bring a lot of structure into our offense. And I feel like we're in a much better situation heading into the training camp and the first games. Overall, that gives me a lot of excitement about what we can do. And during the training camp, we'll see roles have to lock in place, but I feel like we'll have a clear identity, a clear culture, and a way of doing things."
"And even though I've heard this term tossed around that it's a fresh start, I wouldn't say that, because all of the work that has been done in the previous years, that's not wasted," Iisalo continued. "The young guys are in a much better place than they were one year ago. Everybody is way more familiar with how we want to do things, whether it's as a group or on the court. And those are the things that really excite me. I think we have a very committed group."
Morant sat out every 2025 preseason game with a sprained ankle. Zach Edey was still coming back from offseason ankle surgery then, and Scotty Pippen Jr. was lost for at least 12 weeks after surgery on his left big toe.
Ty Jerome lasted about four minutes of the preseason finale in Miami on Oct. 17 before straining his right calf, an injury that cost him the first half of the season.
Memphis finished 25-57. Edey played 11 games, and Jerome played 15. Edey is now cleared for full-speed work, general manager Zach Kleiman said Monday, according to Grizzlies On SI.
Training Camp Will Determine Grizzlies' Depth Chart
Practice will reveal where the depth chart stands, as Iisalo sees it. He wants internal competition, but lineup fit will matter as much as individual talent.
"Great question, because you always want to have competition within the team," Iisalo explained. "That's the basis for sports. We want to compete against the other teams. So in order to have a good training camp, we also need to have the guys competing in practice, and that will then reveal where the current depth chart is. But it's not like it's written in stone."
"We will have difficult decisions to make, not just at those positions, but also on other positions, because I feel like we have a lot of candidates who are in a very similar type of situation or offer a little bit of the same," Iisalo added. "We got to take a look at who makes those steps forward. But also basketball is different from tennis, for example, that it's a team sport. So a lot of it will be like who completes these five-man units or lineups on the court instead of just their individual talent levels. So it also matters a lot who we're playing against and who is playing with them."
Some of those decisions have started. Memphis released veteran guard D'Angelo Russell last Friday and added Brendan Hausen, who played four college seasons at Villanova, Kansas State, and Iowa. Hausen averaged 10.9 points as a starter for Kansas State in 2024-25. Russell never played a game for Memphis.
Jerami Grant and Kris Murray came from Portland in the June 29 deal that sent Morant out. Isaiah Stewart, acquired from Detroit, joins Edey at center.
Cedric Coward was taken 11th in 2025 and made the All-Rookie First Team. This June, Memphis took Cameron Boozer third overall, then traded for the rights to Karim López, the 21st pick.
Iisalo Wants Grizzlies to Build Around Daily Standards
Iisalo got the job on March 28, 2025, the night the Grizzlies fired Taylor Jenkins with nine games left and a 44-29 record. Memphis sat fifth in the West at the time.
Jenkins had gone 250-214 in the regular season, the most wins in franchise history. Iisalo, Jenkins' lead assistant that season, went 4-5 the rest of the way, beat Dallas in the play-in on April 18, and was swept by Oklahoma City. Morant got hurt in Game 3 of that series.
Memphis dropped the interim tag in May, after a 48-34 regular season.
Iisalo calls himself paranoid about staying put, as a person and as a coach. Rather than attaching success to a specific win total or seed, he wants the Grizzlies judged first by their habits, identity, and ability to improve.
"When we talk about success or we talk about, like, the word that gets tossed around a lot is the expectations," Iisalo said. "People think a lot that it's a certain number or a certain seed we're striving for, but really it is more the culture that we set on a daily basis. Does it support growth? Does it support improvement? Does it support winning? Then the identity. So the identity, those are just the principles that we think will take us to the highest level. If we are better at these, then you turn them into strategies, and then those strategies turn into tactics on a game-to-game basis."
"But the best way I could say it is during the training camp we're working on certain behaviors on the court that are conducive to winning, and that process really never changes, and it's the same whether it's tomorrow, first day of training camp, or the second to last day," Iisalo noted. "We expect those things. We expect great effort, great focus, learn new things, and to put the team first. Those are our expectations. And my experience has been when you put that as the thing that you're trying to achieve, then also the results will come after this. And the one thing that we shouldn't forget is also success also means, and this is something that we will try to [be] better at, is also connecting with the fan base and with the community, offering them something positive of a team that they can identify with because it's a team that competes very hard, plays together, and then the last part of that is we obviously need to do some winning, and that is how sports works, and that's what we're striving for on a daily basis."
Camp runs Tuesday through Oct. 2 at Belmont University in Nashville. Preseason play starts Oct. 5 in Atlanta. Utah visits FedExForum for the regular-season opener Oct. 21.
