Memphis Grizzlies fire Taylor Jenkins, franchise's winningest coach

The Memphis Grizzlies fired Taylor Jenkins, their winningest coach, on Friday with the team struggling down the stretch and at risk of losing home-court advantage for the postseason.

Still sitting at No. 5 in the Western Conference standings, the Grizzlies decided to dump Jenkins anyway and waited until Friday night to announce assistant Tuomas Iisalo as their interim head coach for the remainder of this season.

Iisalo only joined the NBA as Jenkins' lead assistant before the start of this season, becoming the first Finnish-born coach in the NBA. The Helsinki native played and coached in Europe, including in 2024 when he was head coach of Paris Basketball winning the EuroCup and honors as that league’s coach of the year. He also coached Telekom Baskets Bonn between 2021-23 and Crailshem Merlins between 2016 and 2021.

Jenkins led the Grizzlies for six seasons. He was let go with the team on the verge of playing three home games in a four-day span starting Saturday — first the Lakers, then Boston on Monday, then Golden State on Tuesday.

That starts a stretch where eight of Memphis’ final nine opponents are either playoff clubs or contending for a play-in spot. But it’s still possible, at least mathematically, that Memphis could get back to No. 2 in the West, and it’s highly unlikely that the Grizzlies will fall into the play-in tournament range.

Still, Memphis decided it was time for a change.

“This was a difficult decision, given the consistent and tangible development of our players and overall success under Taylor’s leadership,” Zach Kleiman, the Grizzlies' president and general manager of basketball operations, said in a statement.

The Grizzlies will not be practicing Friday and announced no media availability.

Jenkins was the fifth longest-tenured coach with his current club in the league, behind only San Antonio’s Gregg Popovich, Miami’s Erik Spoelstra, Golden State’s Steve Kerr and Denver’s Michael Malone — all of them having won NBA titles.

Results against the league’s best teams so far this season weren’t a good sign for Jenkins.

The Grizzlies were 0-4 against Oklahoma City, losing those games by 24, 13, 17 and 21 points. They’re 3-6 so far this season against Houston, Denver and the Lakers, the next three teams ahead of them in the West.

And that’s been a trend all season for Memphis. The Grizzlies were really good against the sub-.500 teams, but struggled mightily against the winning clubs.

Against the 13 other teams that currently are over .500, the Grizzlies are 11-20 this season and getting outscored by 77 points. Against the 16 clubs at .500 or worse, the Grizzlies are 33-9, outscoring those opponents by 462 points.

Jenkins, with a career record of 250-214, passed Lionel Hollins for most wins in franchise history Nov. 20 with a victory against the Philadelphia 76ers. He also coached the most games in Grizzlies’ history, with the franchise launching in 1995.

He took Memphis to the postseason three times during his tenure but only got to the second round once.

In the 2021-22 season, the team won 56 games for the Grizzlies’ most in a season under Jenkins. The Grizzlies captured the Southwest Division and were a No. 2 seed in the West. They ousted the Minnesota Timberwolves in the opening round, but lost to Golden State in the second with star Ja Morant dealing with an injury.

Jenkins replaced J.B. Bickerstaff, who was fired after failing to make the playoffs in the 2018-19 season. He had served as an assistant with the Milwaukee Bucks and Atlanta Hawks, both working for coach Mike Budenholzer.

He also served a stint in the San Antonio Spurs organization, eventually becoming head coach of the Spurs G League team in Austin.

Jenkins’ arrival in Memphis coincided with the Grizzlies drafting Morant with the No. 2 overall pick in 2019. Memphis made the postseason three straight seasons from 2021 to 2023. Then the Grizzlies went through a season plagued with injuries to major players.

Morant played only nine games because of a 25-game league suspension and a right shoulder injury that ended his season. Fellow guard Desmond Bane missed considerable time with a left ankle sprain, and frontline reserve Brandon Clarke managed only six games because of a left Achilles tendon tear.

That left Jenkins to manage the season with forward Jaren Jackson Jr. and a bunch of makeshift lineups, eventually finishing 27-55.

This season, Jenkins turned over his coaching staff and brought in a new offense based on spacing. Despite being plagued with turnovers, Memphis spent a large part of the season second in the West. Other teams surged as the Grizzlies’ rough patch dropped them to fifth place.

Again, Jenkins spent another season piecing together lineups around Morant limited to 43 games with various illnesses, soreness, contusions and sprains. Morant missed Thursday night's game, his sixth straight, with a strained hamstring.

AP Basketball Writer Tim Reynolds and AP freelance writer Clay Bailey contributed to this report.

AP NBA: https://apnews.com/hub/nba

Memphis Grizzlies guard Ja Morant, middle, watches the game against the Utah Jazz in street clothes during the first half of an NBA basketball game, Tuesday, March 25, 2025, in Salt Lake City. (AP Photo/Rob Gray)

Memphis Grizzlies head coach Taylor Jenkins looks on during the first half of an NBA basketball game against the Utah Jazz, Tuesday, March 25, 2025, in Salt Lake City. (AP Photo/Rob Gray)

ATLANTA (AP) — U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi on Monday instructed the Justice Department to dismiss a lawsuit challenging a sweeping election overhaul that Georgia Republican lawmakers passed in the wake of President Donald Trump's 2020 election loss in the state.

The lawsuit, filed in June 2021 under former President Joe Biden, alleged that the Georgia law was intended to deny Black voters equal access to the ballot. Bondi said the Biden administration was pushing “false claims of suppression.”

“Georgians deserve secure elections, not fabricated claims of false voter suppression meant to divide us,” she said.

The law was part of a trend of Republican-backed measures that tightened rules around voting, passed in the months after Trump lost his reelection bid to Biden, claiming without evidence that voter fraud cost him victory. The fallout was swift after Republican Gov. Brian Kemp signed the law in March 2021, with the CEOs of Atlanta-based Delta Air Lines and Coca-Cola voicing criticism and Major League Baseball's commissioner deciding to move that year's All-Star Game from Atlanta's Truist Park.

Kemp and Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger, both Republicans who drew Trump's ire when they refused to help overturn his 2020 election loss in Georgia, strongly denounced the Justice Department lawsuit when it was filed. Raffensperger on Monday called Bondi's announcement “a significant win for Georgia voters.”

“Our commitment has always been to ensure fair and secure elections for every Georgian, despite losing an All-Star game and the left’s boycott of Georgia as a result of commonsense election law,” Raffensperger said in a statement.

Kemp also welcomed Bondi's announcement. He accused Democrats and others of spreading “lies and misinformation” and said, “Georgia is one of the top states in the country for early voting and experienced record voter turnout in multiple elections since the passage of the Elections Integrity Act.”

Fair Fight Action, a voting rights advocacy organization started by former Democratic candidate for Georgia governor Stacey Abrams, slammed the plans to dismiss the lawsuit, saying the law has made it “harder — not easier — for many Georgians to vote.”

“Dismissing this case doesn’t change the truth, it just proves Trump’s DOJ will not work to protect Americans’ freedom to vote,” Fair Fight CEO Lauren Groh-Wargo said in a statement.

Known as SB 202, the law added a voter ID requirement for mail ballots, shortened the time period for requesting a mailed ballot and resulted in fewer ballot drop boxes available in populous metro Atlanta counties that lean Democratic and have a significant Black population. The law also banned the distribution of food and water by various groups and organizations to voters standing in line to cast a ballot.

In announcing the dismissal of the lawsuit, Bondi said Black voter turnout in Georgia “actually increased” after the law was passed. A December analysis by the Brennan Center for Justice found that while the number of ballots cast by Black voters increased from 2020 to 2024, Black turnout actually declined by 0.6% because the increase in the number of ballots cast by Black voters did not keep up with population increases.

“Understanding whether, or to what extent, these declines are due to restrictive voting policies such as Georgia’s S.B. 202, justifiable feelings that the government is not working for them, or myriad other factors will be of signal importance,” the analysis says.

In addition to the Justice Department lawsuit, about a half-dozen other suits were filed by civil rights and election integrity groups raising claims based on the U.S. Constitution and the federal Voting Rights Act, which prohibits discrimination in voting.

FILE - Attorney General Pam Bondi speaks at a news conference at the Justice Department, Feb. 12, 2025, in Washington. (AP Photo/Ben Curtis, File)