MEMPHIS — The game on Friday night at FedEx Forum was secondary.
Rather, the crowd in Memphis was there to see a player they’d shown up for hundreds of times, that they’d given their heart to back in 2018 when the Grizzlies drafted him.
They knew that Jaren Jackson Jr. wouldn’t be playing in the game for the Utah Jazz, but they wanted to be there for him the way he’d shown up for Memphis so many times over the years.
During the break between the first and second quarters, the Grizzlies played a tribute video that showcased Jackson’s career in Memphis — the accolades, the big shots, the dunks and blocks that made him an All-Star, and the joy he brought to the community.
“It was crazy,” Jackson told the Deseret News.“My mind kind of went blank and then just remembering everything that happened and they gave a good little recap of it all and just how I was feeling when I was here. A ton of emotions, for sure.”
The video lasted the entirety of the break between quarters, and even as buzzer sounded to remind players they needed to be back on the court to resume play, the fans and the players on both the Grizzlies and the Jazz stood, applauding Jackson, who represents so much for this city and this team.
Jackson was a physical bridge between two eras of Grizzlies basketball — the “Grit and Grind” era highlighted by Mike Conley, Marc Gasol, Zach Randolph and Tony Allen, and the Ja Morant era.
Jackson was mentored by Gasol and Conley as the team transitioned away from its veteran roster, then it was Jackson, Morant and Dillon Brooks who became the faces of the franchise and took the NBA by storm, climbing up from the bottom to become one of the up-and-coming teams of the league.
But that spark fizzled as controversy, scandal and injury plagued the Grizzlies, and namely their biggest star, Morant.
In speaking with multiple Grizzlies staffers, front office executives and beat reporters, the sentiment was clear — through all of the chaos of the last few years, Jackson was the one constant. He was stable, joyful, professional and more than anything, dependable.
When Brooks and Morant would shirk their postgame media responsibilities after big games, especially losses, Jackson would step up and became a spokesperson for the team.
When the team needed a player for a community event, they knew they could turn to Jackson.
When it seemed like the world was spiraling for the Grizzlies, through Morant suspensions, injuries across the roster, coaching turnover and everything else, Jackson was the constant.
And in Memphis, Jackson was a constant, too.
“More than anything else though, the community took a hit when Jaren left,” a person close to the team said.
Kevin Love, who fully understands what it’s like to be traded and then return to a tribute video and hear about the accomplishments from the former team, said that the accolades and on-court production are meaningful, but it’s the fans and the imprint on the community that can mean the most.
“You don’t know the impact that you have on an organization, a community, a city as a whole, sometimes until you leave,” Love said.
“You have your resume virtues and your eulogy virtues, and for him, when it’s all said and done, people will talk about him as an unbelievable basketball player who had a long career and went on to do great things in basketball, but at the end of the day, his impact that he had on the greater good is what people are going to remember down the line and what will be important to him.”
It was hard for Jackson to sit still on Friday night, despite the fact that just three days prior he underwent surgery to remove a tumor from his knee.
Throughout the night he was greeting and hugging people, talking to fans, talking to officials, even walking over and trying to listen in on a Grizzlies timeout huddle, laughing when he’d been spotted and chased away by his former teammates.
It seems that staying still, in general, is not something that Jackson does a lot of, which is why he found himself immersed in Memphis as a fixture of the community rather than just someone who was here for work.
“I was around a lot,” he said. “I did a lot of work with my team, helping out the less fortunate, but also just being around in general — going to events, football games, high school events, college. I’ve seen it all around here and it was great."
So on Friday night, the Jazz and Grizzlies faced off, but the Grizzlies’ 123-114 win wasn’t important.
It was a night of closure for Grizzlies fans, because Jackson’s exit officially ushers in the next era for the Grizzlies, which will start with a rebuild — a phase that comes loaded with struggle Jazz fans know all too well.
Many believed that the signal for a new era in Memphis would come with the team trading Morant, but when there weren’t buyers interested at the deadline, the Grizzlies pivoted and decided to part ways with the one person they’d been able to count on over the years.
Now, Jackson comes to FedEx Forum through the visiting team entrance and sits on the opposite side of the court, away from the place he called home for the last eight years.
“It’s different. Definitely strange, everything about it,” Jackson said. “But there’s a first time for everything, and there will be many more firsts now.”
The next “firsts”, the next awards, any future accolades, will come in a different jersey, for a different team. But before any of that could start, Friday was necessary.
It was an official goodbye — a chance for the fans to say thank you and to show up for Jackson one more time.