The Memphis Grizzlies' decision to part ways with Dillon Brooks this summer was met with laughs and praise from most corners of the NBA world. One flamboyant former player, though, has been left unnerved by Brooks' pre-free-agency exile from Memphis—at least if it's related to his headline-grabbing trash talk about LeBron James.
Nick Young voiced his frustration over the situation on Twitter, calling out the Grizzlies for pushing Brooks out after widespread criticism of his comments about the Los Angeles Lakers legend being “old.”
“Dillon Brooks got cancelled for talking trash to Bron this is crazy …,” he wrote.
It's impossible to separate Brooks' unyielding penchant for publicly “poking bears” from Memphis' deciding to move on from him.
James never quite took the bait after Brooks' remarks following the Grizzlies' Game 2 win of the first round, preferring to let his play do the talking. Once he and the Los Angeles Lakers dispatched of Memphis in an easy six games, though, the four-time champion implicitly responded to Brooks on social media—just further indication that Darvin Ham's team used those inflammatory words as bulletin board material.
Still, it's naive of Young and anyone else to assume Brooks will be playing elsewhere going forward solely because of his trash talk toward James and other players. The Grizzlies might've been able to continue shrugging off his habit of dirty plays, flagrant fouls and suspensions if Brooks had proven himself an impactful two-way player under the postseason pressure cooker.
Instead, Brooks was an abject liability in the first round, allowing the Lakers to clog the paint and put extra attention toward stopping Ja Morant, Desmond Bane and Jaren Jackson Jr. due to his complete inability to stretch the floor.
Brooks shot a hideous 23.8% on 7.0 three-point attempts per game—the vast majority of which were open looks—against Los Angeles, hardly making up for the widespread ripples of those struggles on the other side of the ball. The Grizzlies' defense was better with him on the bench, and Xavier Tillman—normally Memphis' third-string center—spent more time guarding James than Brooks as the series progressed.
There are reasons to feel queasy about how the Grizzlies went about conveying their choice to continue on without Dillon Brooks. Regardless, Memphis' conclusion has much more to do with his ever-damaging on-court limitations than Brooks' unprovoked verbal jabs at arguably the greatest player of all-time.
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