Desmond Bane does not suffer slights well. He remembers them; buries them deep until he can claim vengeance. A 6-foot-5 Danny McGrath with an elephant’s memory and a smooth jumper.
Take Josh Green. He’s done nothing wrong but be chosen ahead of Bane in the 2020 draft.
Green went 18th to the Mavericks. Bane thought that should have been him. He wanted to go to Dallas, which isn’t far from Fort Worth, where he attended school at TCU. They were similar prospects; both wings, both in the 3-and-D mold. Green was chosen, while Bane had to wait 12 more picks.
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“I don’t got nothing against him,” Bane said.
But that doesn’t mean Bane won’t embarrass him, won’t use him as a patsy for his own ascendence. Bane has become one of the breakout stars of his draft class, a do-everything wing who has grabbed a large role on the surging Memphis Grizzlies. Green is just trying to keep a rotation spot.
Still, Bane remains indignant. When he scored 29 in a win in Dallas last month, he rubbed it in.
I don’t know if he played tonight, he said sheepishly afterward. Green was a DNP. Bane probably knew it.
It wasn’t Green’s fault Bane tumbled on draft night. But to forgive might mean letting go. It might mean softening up just a little bit.
“I will never let it go,” he told The Athletic. “I feel like teams had their chance to get me and knew who I was. It wasn’t like I was one of those one-and-done guys. You had four years to do your research on me. All my background stuff checked out. That’s on them.”
There are a multitude of reasons why the Grizzlies have been one of the beacons of this latest NBA season. They are fun, they are fiery and, at 25-14, they are good. While eyes wander from one superteam to the next, Memphis is growing something organically. Ja Morant has emerged as a full-fledged star. Dillon Brooks, Jaren Jackson Jr. and Bane serve as proficient supporting actors; when Morant went out, they still went 10-2 without him.
In its rebuild, Memphis has transitioned from its Grit and Grind era to a team defined by its flash and fury. “They talk the most shit in the league,” one league executive said.
Taylor Jenkins, the 37-year-old head coach, demands frenetic movement on both ends. “Activity” is his north star, and he wants his team to wreak havoc.
Morant chooses violence with each possession. He cuts to the basket like a master chef wields a knife, with such speed and power that if it were anyone else, pain and injury would be the result.
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Zach Kleiman, the Grizzlies’ 34-year-old head of basketball operations, and his front office have put together a roster that fits around both well, choosing upperclassmen with aplomb and taking moonshots early in the draft. Their core is one of the most exciting in the league and has the makings of a consistent playoff team, if not more.
Memphis has been able to prosper under the radar, but that could soon disappear. A six-game winning streak, including wins over the Suns and Lakers and a thrashing of the Nets, is finally lifting the veil on their success. Morant is making a play not only for his first All-Star Game but an All-NBA spot. He’s touting Bane for Most Improved Player. Jenkins could win Coach of the Year.
“Since I got here I’ve been saying we deserve more respect,” Morant said late Tuesday night in Brooklyn. “When we’re doing the stuff we are now, the recognition will come.”
Bane is an archetype and a key cog in this machine. This year, he’s averaging 17.4 points per game and hitting 41.6 percent of his 3s. He dropped 32 points in Phoenix last week, then scored 29 points on the Nets and served as the defensive point of attack on James Harden.
His game has exploded in a way that was unexpected when he was selected 30th overall in 2020 after four productive college years. He expected to go higher — he thought Phoenix or Detroit might take him — but kept sliding until he was almost out of the first round.
He thinks he knows why too.
“Old,” he rattles off. “Short wingspan. Didn’t know if any of my stuff on the ball would translate.”
Bane has made a life of overcoming hardship and frustrations. He moved in with his great-grandparents as a toddler because his parents were not able to raise him. He starred at Seton Catholic High School in Indiana but didn’t get high major interest until late in his senior season.
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He entered that school year with an expectation he would play Division II ball and the assurance that he would at least still be on a scholarship. He was a fine scorer and 3-point shooter, but his negative wingspan scared off recruiters. Even when big schools did reach out, he balked.
Purdue coach Matt Painter asked him to come on campus for a workout, Tony Bane, Desmond’s great uncle and legal guardian, said, but Bane ducked it and insisted he had to travel to Florida with his AAU team instead.
When TCU wanted him to play in an open gym the spring of his senior year, Bane told his great-uncle that he couldn’t because he turned his ankle. Tony Bane laid it out: If he didn’t, then he would not get an offer. Desmond Bane played despite his initial hesitation and after a dunk, his limp seemed to disappear.
“How’s that ankle?” Tony Bane says he asked afterward.
TCU had heard about a small-school player in Indiana who they were told was not getting enough looks from colleges. Ryan Miller, an assistant coach under Jamie Dixon, watched his film over and over. He saw athleticism, shot making and a good IQ. He knew about his 6-foot-4 wingspan and the same concerns that would eventually dog him before the NBA draft, but he was undeterred.
Bane, however, had his reservations. He almost left school after his first summer session. It was grueling, and Miller got a feeling Bane might bolt. He heard Bane might transfer to Miami (Ohio), a mid-major a little closer to home, so he called Tony Bane, who knew about the concerns too. He promised to settle it.
Tony Bane took Desmond to the airport for his flight back to campus, and he offered little rope when he sensed skepticism. He had already promised Miller his great-nephew would be on the plane. He even dared to walk him to the gate.
Bane arrived at TCU out of shape, and Miller sensed he didn’t quite love the sport. Teammates called him “Honey Bun” because of his body fat percentage in the mid-teens and stocky body. The integration was a shock.
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Still, he played right away. By his sophomore year, he was a full-time starter. He averaged 15 points per game as a junior and considered leaving early for the NBA. That offseason, he had a conversation with Miller that set the way forward. He had always been a great shooter and earned a reputation in-house as a great worker as he shed the weight and sculpted his body; now, he started to add skills to prepare him for the NBA.
Bane set out to emulate Klay Thompson and Devin Booker. He studied Thompson’s quick release and how he excelled in catch-and-shoot situations. The goal was to learn how to impact a game without dribbling the ball, which Thompson has mastered.
“He can be an elite catch-and-shoot guy,” Miller, now an assistant at Creighton, said. “The NBA is looking for elite catch and shoot guys.”
That became Bane’s signature as he entered the draft. He hit 44.2 percent of his 3s over his last three years at TCU and seemed ready-made to jump to the league as a perimeter threat. That label stuck even as he emerged as a point guard for the Horned Frogs and saw his assist rate nearly double.
The Grizzlies did not pigeonhole him. They saw a playmaker with a ceiling that belied a four-year player. TCU put him in pick-and-rolls and asked him to make decisions. Jenkins was impressed by what he saw, imagining a guard who could complement Morant and the rest of the roster.
Bane’s rookie season was fine, and he lived up to his reputation as a sweet shooter, hitting 43.2 percent of his 3s while snagging a rotation spot on a playoff team. But he wanted more, and it would serve as a continuation of the work he started with Miller in college. After they had finished with Thompson’s oeuvre, Bane set on studying Devin Booker during the rest of his last TCU offseason, noting how he ran the pick-and-roll and scored in isolation.
This past summer, the Grizzlies took the next step and let him run the point during summer league. They let him make reads off screens and run the offense without a script. They force-fed the position to him and let him make mistakes.
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“He was aggressive in wanting to be in that position,” Jenkins said.
Bane took command during the summer training camp. He watched film with Jenkins pointing out missed opportunities and taking responsibility for errant choices. For Jenkins, it crystalized that he could be a lead ballhandler.
When Morant missed 12 games with a knee injury in November and December, Bane stepped in, while the Grizzlies continued to flourish. He scored 21 or more points in half the games Morant sat and showed he was ready for a heavier burden.
Morant watched it play out without a hint of surprise. He saw Bane hone his game and his body in the summer. The two have become close, although they serve as juxtapositions of each other.
Morant is sui generis. He’s a lithe 6-foot-3 with springboards for legs, and he plays like the court is his trampoline. He leaps so high and so far, and at any time, he instills fear in not only defenses but in observers for his safety. He might be the NBA’s first Slamball star.
“It’s almost natural to me because it’s how I play,” he told The Athletic. “I feel like I’m a very exciting player to watch. So there might be moments I have where it’s this wild play to others but it’s just me playing my game. Just being creative out there. It’s pretty much what I do and however that go hopefully it turned out in a good way.”
Most of the time it has, though there are moments where the line between fearless and frightening can be thin. Morant walks it well.
His highlight reel is so long that he has trouble narrowing down the list. Ask Morant his favorite play this season, and he takes a full 11 seconds to think it through. Even then, he settles on two: a 360-degree layup against the Nuggets after he split two defenders and floated around another, and a crosscourt pass to Xavier Tillman that hit the center in stride for a dunk.
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Morant tries to be different. He dyes his front dreads pink (to honor a family member with breast cancer), blue (his favorite color) and purple (because he had dyed his hair the same color in high school), and he prides himself on being unique.
“I’m one of one,” he said. “I’m not like nobody else in this world. Just Ja.”
He’s risen from an unranked high school recruit to the No. 2 pick in the 2019 draft to one of the best guards in the league, averaging 25.1 points per game. Bane had to grind too. His body is a testament to his makeover. He’s no longer Honey Bun; Bane is ripped and hulking — the muscle to Morant in their backcourt.
Bane has self-awareness for how to fit in. When he came to TCU after being a small school star in Indiana, he learned what was needed of him and found a niche as a freshman. After starring at TCU he figured out how to make it work with the Grizzlies, where Morant ran the show, Brooks was already a feisty two-way wing, and Jackson another lottery pick and building block.
That innate ability to blend into his surroundings has served him well. He sees it as one of his prized traits.
“That is a skill as well,” Bane said. “Sometimes people get to the NBA and come from a place where you average 20 points a game and you get put on a team with three or four stars and you gotta figure out how to play a role. Some guys struggle to figure that out…I understand how to be the guy and how to blend in.”
As a rookie, Bane was a tertiary player and settled into his job. This season, he has grabbed a larger chunk of the offense for himself.
Bane has already finished nearly twice as many possessions as the pick-and-roll ballhandler this season as he did last season, according to Synergy Sports, and more in isolation too. He’s a threat on dribble-handoffs. Last season, he took 92 jumpers off the dribble, this season he’s already missed 93 of those, and he’s already taken more shots at the rim than he did as a rookie.
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Tuesday, he carved up Brooklyn in a variety of ways. A fadeaway off the dribble to open his scoring, then a jumper off a dribble-handoff, followed up by a pull-up 3 in transition after a left-handed in-and-out dribble had DeAndre’ Bembry backpedaling to the elbow. It was the first of his five 3s that night, and his 11 3-point attempts — he’s had seven games this season where he’s hoisted double-digit 3s, while last season he played 16 games with double-digit shots. On his fourth bucket, he faked a 3 off the handoff, took a screen and used it to catch Patty Mills on his back, then dribbled into a right elbow jumper.
“He’s only scratching the surface of what he can be and he consistently does it, which is phenomenal,” Jenkins said. “We knew that he was going to be a guy who is going to impact winning in a lot of different ways and not just be relegated to a simple role.”
The Grizzlies weren’t scared off by Bane’s profile coming out TCU. A four-year player can be poison for some in the draft. Kleiman has drafted two of them with his six picks, and Tillman spent three years at Michigan State.
They weren’t put off by his wingspan, which has been a basketball stigma for him since Seton Catholic — even Tony Bane calls him “T-Rex.” Miller knows teams draft on potential, but he told Bane that if he competed hard and played smart, organizations would look past that.
Memphis seems to swing big high in the draft — rookie Ziaire Williams is an example — and seek out the characteristics they desire later on. Jenkins says they haven’t intentionally sought out older players, but they do have a type. They look for players they can project out once they enter the NBA, prizing high basketball IQ and competitiveness, among other variables.
“We strip away what their age is and what their class year is and say ‘Can this guy impact winning for us? Is he going to fit our system, defensively, offensively?'” Jenkins said. “But really, just be a competitor who is really unselfish and compliments and enhance what we already have in our program.”
It has worked so far. The Grizzlies are riding high, playing loose and quickly emerging as a dangerous foe in the Western Conference. By bundling together a group of players who feel they’ve been overlooked for too long, they may finally start getting their due.
(Photo of Desmond Bane: Cole Burston / Getty Images)
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