Where Jaylyn Nowell and Shaq Harrison can help the Grizzlies

As everyone was enjoying feasts, football, and family festivities on Thanksgiving, the Memphis Grizzlies announced they addition of two needed reinforcements in the coming days as they continue to deal with a plethora of injuries.

Over the past week or so, the Grizzlies have lost Marcus Smart and Marcus Smart to multi-week injuries. Desmond Bane experienced what hopefully is a minor ankle injury on Wednesday and is questionable for today’s game against the Suns. As a result, the Grizzlies had a major need for backcourt depth as they navigate their way through the rest of November and into early December. Fortunately, due to the recent injuries, the NBA allowed multiple 10-day hardship contract signings for the Grizzlies, which resulted in the team signing guards Jaylyn Nowell and Shaq Harrison.

In Nowell and Harrison, the Grizzlies are getting two diverse skillsets that hopefully can help the Grizzlies on both ends of the court. Harrison may be a familiar name to Grizzlies fans, as he was in training camp with Memphis and, at least for a time, it seemed that he could be the player the Grizzlies were going to add with their Ja-Morant suspension exception after the fifth game of the season. Of course, with injuries to Steven Adams and Xavier Tillman, the Grizzlies were wise to instead sign veteran big man Bismack Biyombo.

Harrison is a 30 year old combo guard who has played in the NBA each of the past six seasons. His longest duration of player occurred during the 2018-2019, when he played 74 games and 1300 minutes for the Chicago Bulls. Over the past four years, Harrison has played in only partial stints for multiple teams, including less than 150 total minutes over the past two years.

The main strength of Harrison’s game is defense, especially as a defensive playmaker. His block and steal rates have consistently been elite when he is on the court, especially for a guard. For a Grizzlies team that right now is finding success creating significantly more shots per game than their opponents through turnovers, Harrison’s defensive efforts can be valuable. Offensively, Harrison is not much of an asset. But if Harrison can help create turnovers and help with limiting looks on the perimeter, he can find ways to add value when on the court.

In Nowell, the Grizzlies are hoping to gain of bit of support offensively. Nowell is another guard in similar stature to Harrison, but offers much more value in his game offensively. Nowell has good experience as a bench scorer, and can operate as an effective source of microwave scoring at times, producing 18+ points per 36 minutes each of the past three years. One way that Nowell can add value to Memphis is as a self creator, as Nowell as an eFG% above 50% each of the past two years on pull-up jumpers. That is significant for Memphis, as they need as much self-creation as possible on offense.

Nowell also has produced roughly a 2.5 to 1 assist to turnover ration over the past two years combined. While he is much more of a secondary facilitator than a primary point guard, he can take care of the basketball and keep the ball moving effectively when a scoring opportunity is not present. Nowell has shot 44.7% from the field overall in his career, and 32% from three. The Grizzlies certainly hope Nowell may be able to revert back to his 2021-2022 production levels when he shot 39.4% from on 2.5 attempts per game. While he fell off last year, Nowell could find success once again in the Grizzlies “let it fly” approach so far this season.

The expectations for Harrison and Nowell should certainly be kept in context. There is a reason both players were available, mainly because each only offers value on one end of the court. But if the Grizzlies can gain value from either one or both of them, it certainly would be welcome. If Harrison can help to create disruption on defense and Nowell can add another source of scoring over the next few games, maybe it can help Memphis steal an unexpected win or two. While they may not mean an extended stay for Nowell or Harrison, it could certainly show they were valuable additions in the short-term.