Vince Williams Jr.—the Greatest Two-Way Player in Grizzlies’ History

She’s a beaut Clark. The two-way contract that is. It’s a beautiful addition to the CBA—circa 2017—that expanded rosters to 17. That number has since grown to the potential of 18.

You keeping track? So that’s three guys. Three guys that teams will have with flexible roster assignments.

What I mean by that is 2-way guys can spend either… A. the entire season with their G-league affiliate or B. up to 50 regular season games. Oh, and they’re paid $559,782—half the rookie min.—for their services.

Now, as speculation runs rampant about who the Grizzlies will next sign… To their empty two-Way contract, I mean… They’re going to have big shoes to fill.

Because on Wednesday the team announced… Vince Williams Jr.’s two-way was being converted to a standard contract.

And—to date—Vince Williams Jr. has been the greatest two-way player in Memphis’ history. When you look at some of the other players the team have utilized in the role? Well… It doesn’t end up being much of a contest.

Sure the Grizzlies have had players good for impacting the game in small ways… But not a one of them can claim Vince’s elite defense and hustle. In the short history of the two-way contract, he’s by far the best that Memphis has done.

Above you’ll find a table breaking down each two-way player in Memphis history. You’ll see the number of minutes they spent on the main roster. You’ll see the player’s efficiency differential. And you’ll see in what percentile league wide said number ranks.

These numbers are all per Cleaning the Glass by the way. And there should be a couple things here that stand out.

For one the minutes. It’s clear that players signed to two-way contracts aren’t meant to see big minutes. In fact, Vince is only one of two players that have played over 400 minutes for the Grizzlies.

The other? Kobi Simmons in the inaugural season of the two-ways. So it’s been some time. In fact it appears the minute standard is by far less. Most likely due to the season Memphis was having but that’s not what I’m here to discuss.

But what else jumps out to you after the minutes? It’s got to be that efficiency differential and ranking right? Vince’s +11.7 is by far the highest out of all players Memphis deployed more than 100 minutes.

The next closest? The Frenchman Killian Tillie during the ’20-’21 season. He would be fresh on Vince tail with a +10.2. That would’ve had Tillie in the league’s 94th percentile that year. That’s right on the heels of V’s this season.

Thing is… Tillie played less than 150 minutes that season. And in the season that his minutes increased? He saw a huge dip in production. This appears to be the norm though—the majority of the players have a – efficiency. As these two-way guys play more… Their skill or lack thereof gets exploited.

But not Vince Williams Jr.

He’s the lone two-way player for Memphis who got better with an increased workload. And not only got better… But has excelled. In fact, out of all Memphis players who’ve played at least 20 games… He ranks 1st in net rating.

At the current rate at which he is playing…. Memphis may have done more than stumbled upon the best two-way player in their brief history…. They may have discovered the 3-and-D player the team’s been searching for, for years.

Expect Vince to deliver.

Photo Credit: (Rick Scuteri/AP Photo)