MEMPHIS — For most of his NBA career, Scotty Pippen Jr. has lived in someone else’s shadow. Scottie Pippen’s son. Ja Morant’s backup. The Grizzlies’ most useful piece of furniture. Wednesday, Pippen spoke about Memphis’s upcoming season with a specific kind of patience, the kind that has decided it isn’t waiting any longer.
Memphis traded Morant to the Portland Trail Blazers this summer, ending a seven-year run defined more by turbulence than triumph. In return, the Grizzlies received Jerami Grant, the forward who averaged 18.6 points per game for Portland last season, along with Kris Murray. The franchise finished 2025-26 at 25-57, fifth in the Southwest Division, and decided the ledger had tipped far enough against staying the course. What that decision costs or earns won’t be clear for years. What it hands Pippen Jr. right now is a role he has never held before.
He averaged 11.4 points, 4.7 assists, 2.2 rebounds and 1.9 steals in 21.2 minutes last season, split across 10 appearances after a right toe procedure in March shortened his year. He needs medical clearance before training camp opens. He is not alone in the competition: Ty Jerome, working back from an ankle injury, and Cam Spencer both carry credible claims to the starting point guard spot. None of that colored Wednesday’s remarks. “I’m excited,” Pippen said. “We have a chance to build something. I’ve been on this team long enough to know what it takes.”
What Memphis needs built alongside him is a front court capable of anchoring a rebuild that has drawn attention across the league. The Grizzlies have been mentioned in connection with available wings on the market, and Peyton Watson’s situation in Denver has surfaced in league discussions, but the most emphatic response to the Morant era ending arrived months earlier, at the 2026 NBA Draft.
With the third overall pick, Memphis selected Cameron Boozer, the Duke power forward who spent last season being discussed as the most complete college prospect in years. At 6-foot-8 and 250 pounds, Boozer arrived in Las Vegas for Summer League and played like someone for whom the NBA’s pace was expected rather than survived. CBS Sports named Boozer to its All-Summer League First Team, calling him the current Rookie of the Year favorite after a run that ended only when the Golden State Warriors closed Memphis out in the championship game.
Boozer’s father, Carlos, spent 13 seasons as one of the NBA’s most dependable power forwards, a two-time All-Star whose career touched Utah, Cleveland, Chicago and Los Angeles. Pippen’s father requires less introduction: Scottie Pippen’s six championships alongside Michael Jordan are the kind of legacy that becomes its own gravitational field. Both sons have spent their careers near that gravity, drawing comparisons they did not ask for and cannot escape. What the Grizzlies have done, probably without intending to, is put both of them in the same room and asked them to answer the question together.
The Western Conference title race belongs to other teams this season. San Antonio enters as the market’s narrow favorite, with Oklahoma City and Philadelphia’s new superteam as the serious competition. Memphis is not in that conversation. What the Grizzlies are doing is something more patient: drafting well, keeping Jerami Grant’s veteran presence available as a bridge, and leaving the starting point guard question open in a way that will make training camp the most interesting three weeks of their offseason.
Beyond Boozer, Memphis took Bennett Stirtz, a point guard from Iowa, with the 16th pick. Richie Saunders from BYU arrived in the second round at 32. Stirtz is young enough to challenge Pippen’s starting claim within two seasons even if he doesn’t win it this fall. Saunders adds wing depth behind Cedric Coward and Javon Small, who led Memphis on its Summer League run before the Warriors held them off in the final. The roster construction is not incidental. This front office is building around a real franchise piece with real complementary parts, and it shows.
In the Southwest Division, the New Orleans Pelicans remain in active trade discussions that could further reshape the Western Conference before training camps open. Memphis is rebuilding into that shifting landscape without a guaranteed answer at the position most critical to Boozer’s development. A point guard who can push in transition and create angles in the pick-and-roll is the difference between a prospect who takes two years to find his footing and one who earns Rookie of the Year votes before January.
Whether Scotty Pippen Jr. is that point guard, the franchise cannot say for certain yet. He has not been handed the job. He has been handed a competition, two injured rivals for the role, and a franchise that finished 25-57 and has no patience for whoever uses October to figure out if they belong. What he said Wednesday was careful, short and optimistic. What Memphis is asking him to say with his game, every night in the fourth quarter with Boozer posting up on the block and the outcome still undecided, is something else entirely.
