Apparently, Dillon Brooks found the line between a useful nuisance to deploy against opponents and a self-destructive distraction that can be detrimental to his own team.
And after he found the line, he booked it full speed towards damaging his own Memphis Grizzlies and didn’t bother to look back.
Between his comments about "poking the bear" — that bear being the King Kodiak in LeBron James that has reigned over his forest for nearly two decades — and not only failing to reasonably back up his talk with his play, but outright embarrassing himself and his team with his on-court production, it’s fair to say that Brooks was one of the main reasons that the Grizzlies failed to take care of business against LeBron and the Los Angeles Lakers.
For the series, Brooks averaged just 10.5 points per outing in six games and shot an atrocious 31 percent from the floor and an abysmal 24 percent from deep. His defense was also subpar for someone whose entire selling point is his ability to bother opposing wings and get under their skin.
Rather than provoking LeBron and company into taking bad shots and making poor decisions, all of Brooks’s antics only seemed to help the Lakers focus on their ultimate goal: humbling the young Grizzlies whose persona has taken on the identity of Brooks’s antagonistic ways.
"poking the bears" Image: NBA.com
Now, with the Grizzlies exiting from the playoffs early once again compared to their regular season performance, Memphis is due for a full-scale examination of their roster and a correction for how they’ve been building around superstars Ja Morant and Jaren Jackson Jr.
And, as the Athletic’s Shams Charania reported, that process begins with Dillon Brooks’s impending free agency.
Pts |
Ast |
FG% |
---|---|---|
14.3 | 2.6 | 39.6 |
80th | 102nd | 119th |
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| Title: Dillon Brooks is in danger of losing his NBA career
| Author: Matt Catton
| Date: April , 2023