Mike Conley dishes an assist.
The top name for the Grizzlies likely won’t surprise you, but who else is in the top five for the franchise?
There’s an entire generation of basketball fans now that do not remember the Grizzlies franchise beginning life in Vancouver. Things were slow to take off there, and the Grizzlies eventually found their footing in Memphis. It remains one of the NBA’s youngest teams, having only existed for three decades. Also, career Grizzlies have been few and far between. That makes for a top-five in career assists that may pale in comparison to most franchises, but it is still an interesting collection of names.
Mike Conley – 4,508 assists
Conley was selected fourth overall in the 2007 NBA Draft, and he was able to establish himself as one of the faces of the franchise’s history. That’s even though, while a good point guard, Conley has never really been a “great” player. After all, in his 17-season NBA career, he’s been an all-star exactly once. Conley averaged 5.7 assists per game over a dozen seasons with the Grizzlies, which is solid if not remarkable. Of course, due to the sheer number of games he played, the most in franchise history, he remains comfortably the top assist man.
Marc Gasol – 2,639 assists
Clearly, calling Conley “comfortably” the top assist man in Grizzlies history didn’t overstate it. He’s almost 2,000 dimes ahead of the guy in second, who may be a surprising name. While Gasol was an excellent player, especially defensively, he was also a center. A big, hulking behemoth guarding the paint. He was not exactly Jason Kidd out there, and he averaged only 3.4 assists per contest with Memphis. Gasol is second in games, and first in minutes played, for the franchise, though, and that allowed him enough opportunity to tally up assists slowly but surely.
Jason Williams – 2,069 assists
“Flashy” would be the operative word with Williams. He was a human highlight reel, seemingly always looking to put a little extra sauce on every pass. The man used his elbows in ways few NBA players would dream of. Then again, there’s a reason for that. There was sizzle to Williams’ game, but the substance wasn’t always there. He averaged 10.5 points per game in the NBA and never made an All-Star Game. In his four seasons with Memphis, though, he did average over 8.0 assists per contest twice, which helped him quite a bit here.
Ja Morant – 1,903 assists
Morant would probably already be second on this list if he had been able to stay on the court more. He’s always had injury issues, but then he added off-the-court issues into the mix, which has cost him a lot of playing time. Morant was able to play in all of nine games in the 2023-24 season, which tanked the campaign for the Grizzlies. He’s a great player, already a winner of Rookie of the Year and Most Improved Player. If he can stay on the court, he will shoot up this list quickly, and could possibly someday even best Conley.
Mike Bibby – 1,675 assists
Here’s a nice throwback. Bibby is the only player in the top five who played for the Vancouver Grizzlies. In fact, he never played for the team in Memphis. Also, he only played three seasons with the Grizzlies, which speaks to the relative dearth of deft passers in the franchise’s history. Bibby was drafted onto a Vancouver team still in the early stages of life as a franchise, so he was allowed to learn on the fly, and play a ton of minutes, as a young point guard. He actually averaged 7.8 assists per game with the Grizzlies, though he also averaged 3.0 turnovers per game. Hey, growing pains are expected for both young point guards and young franchises.
The rest of the top 10
- Pau Gasol – 1,473 assists
- Mike Miller – 1,351 assists
- Tyus Jones – 1,285 assists
- Zach Randolph – 1,085 assists
- Shareef Abdul-Rahim 1,081 assists
